As news has come out that New York Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle was killed in an accident where his plane crashed into a building on the Upper East Side of New York City, I wanted to send some kudos to baseball-reference.com for pulling the advertisements off of Lidle's profile page, which is surely getting a ton of traffic right now. Unfortunately, they'd probably received a number of requests to put ads up, and it looks like that wasn't very tasteful to be doing at this time.

In case you haven't seen, word has come out that Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist has died at his home. He was 80 years old. More here at MSNBC.

About half an hour ago, I was greeted by the voice of British PM Tony Blair addressing the world about multiple bombings across the London transit system that are apparent terror attacks. It is unclear how many deaths have happened, as some sources state two fatalities, but MSNBC is carrying coverage from ITN stating up to 20 deaths. I've been trying to determine the specific time this happened, as I keep a radio on all night, and the reports are coming in that it happened during the morning rush, which would have been, say, from 2-4 a.m. Eastern time.

Flipping to WCBS-AM brought the opportunity to hear Sky News radio, which was much more insightful than the news stations based in the U.S. If anyone was wondering about what would happen when foreign bureaus were closed at news organizations, this would probably be an example of how coverage changes. Thankfully, today's technology allows for the easy re-broadcast of foreign television and radio stations across the airwaves here - which is probably better off, in some cases.

The bombings appear to be in retribution for the start of the G8 meeting, although one has to think that an attack coinciding with London winning the 2012 Olympics could be part of it.

[update] Matthew Sheffield has a great rundown of information and blogs also following the story, as he was awake at the time news broke, around 5:30 a.m. Eastern. Blogger Jeff Jarvis points to Command Post, which is all over the situation. Over at hiphopmusic.com, Jay Smooth has a collection of links to London bloggers and Flickr feeds.

[update 10:26 a.m.] Fortune reporter Nelson Schwartz shares his account of being on a bus behind the one blown up in London today.

The Wall Street Journal announced today that an RSS feed for 30 days worth of their free content was now available. You can access the feed here. The free content index can be found here.

Susan Mernit breaks the story about Topix.net's acquisition by a joint venture of Knight Ridder, Tribune and Gannett. They'll each own 25% of the company, the New York Times' Katharine Seelye reports, with the company keeping the rest. Most importantly, this will allow Topix to "deploy their skills across the KRD-Trib-Gannett platform," as Mernit describes it.

As much as this is big news for the companies involved, it's also proof of the importance of today's technology, and how things like RSS and new distribution channels are what's hot today - and not just for those tech savvy folks floating around the 'net, either. While many are quick to trash "old media" for doing what they've been doing for years and years, this is the proof that they're in the game for the long run - not that there were really any doubts - right?

The Wall Street Journal's David Kesmodel and Vauhini Vara have more, including the situation with Agence France Presse and Google News, where AFP is upset at GN for harnessing its content and publishing it on the Google News pages. And the WSJ piece answers a question we all had - about placement of the joint venturers in the news annals of Topix.

Palo Alto, Calif.-based Topix said it won't give higher placement in search results to stories from those sites. However, Topix recently launched a program that lets newspapers buy a paid spot at the top of certain pages. It already has a deal with the New York Times Co., in which article links for the NYTimes.com Web site appear in a special box at the top of certain pages. Rich Skrenta, Topix's chief executive, said he expects more news outlets to buy similar ads.

Not surprising, of course. Topix has always been wise of any conflicts or confusion on their site. That's not to say that some observers won't call them out on a regular basis if something looks awry. I expect that someone will start a tally of Knight Ridder, Tribune, and Gannett articles on a blog somewhere soon.

[update] Tony Gentile has a bunch more, plus some great links and the press release, over at buzzhit!

Last word (for tonight, at least) comes from Rafat Ali over at paidcontent.org. He's got comments from Topix.net co-founder Chris Tolles about how the deal was struck and how revenues have been working for the site.

Over at Johnny Dollar's Place, Mark Koldys has video from FOX News of the end of a manhunt for a man who went on a shooting spree at an Atlanta courthouse on Friday.

[update] Trey Jackson's got much more, including police radio transmissions and a video of the crowd cheering as Brian Nichols was captured.

On Thursday, San Francisco-based Business Wire quietly launched two new features in their online service, both related to RSS feeds. PressPass users now have the opportunity to receive the latest stories in "My PressPass" via an RSS feed, which is available after logging into the system and scrolling to the bottom of the page - each individual's RSS feed will be different, based on their subscriptions to Industry and Subject selections.

Additionally, an RSS feed is now available under the "Photos & Multimedia" heading, at the bottom of the "Smart News Releases" section. This feed is exclusively made up of releases that contain images or audio and video.

Business Wire's closest competitor, PR Newswire, has had an RSS feed for about a year now, but it appears to be limited to "Today's News," not any subscriptions that a user may have. In September of 2004, MarketWatch.com columnist Frank Barnako wrote that "BusinessWire [sic] doesn't get it" on his weblog, which he was probably right about - then. At the time, PR Newswire was indeed the only one of the two sites to have a feed. And yes, it appears that the individual at Business Wire that he traded e-mails with did not know what an RSS feed was. Fortunately, they quickly caught on, publishing five industry-specific feeds in November, and progressing to the point they are at today. As of today, Business Wire does get it - the only question remaining is whether they're moving at the pace that today's media needs to receive information. Early reports would say yes. So, as they say on the playground - "Tag, you're it!"

Laura Sturaitis, Business Wire Vice President, New Media Development explains the strategy behind the further adoption of RSS, stating, "Business Wire is committed to using the best technology tools for the job in our effort to serve the media and get them our members' news in the fastest and easiest way they can use it on deadline, so naturally we wanted to make RSS part of that mix.

Business Wire's strategy towards making RSS a part of their business was to get it right the first time, hence the aforementioned launch of five industry feeds in November and the evolution into what exists today. Those five (Automotive, Entertainment, Health, Sports Business and Travel) are set to grow into the eighteen individual industry categories that are available to PressPass users under the "News by Industry" option - Communications, Construction & Property, Consumer, Education, Energy, Government, Manufacturing, Natural Resources, Philanthropy, Professional Services, Retail, Technology and Transport.

Also included in this week's launch are RSS feeds for "Hot Topics," which are located at the top of the left-side menu bar. These are determined based on "what's going on" in the news at the time, such as "Politics" during election season. Currently, feeds exist for Tsunami and Nanotechnology topics.

Sturaitis also informed TMD that the "Smart News Releases" feed was created in response to journalists' requests for an quick and easy way to find news releases that contain photos, graphics, logos, slideshows, or A/V content. She confirmed that Businss Wire is committed to help PressPass subscribers successfully manage the news and information in a manner they are not only accustomed to (through e-mail and the website) but also through this new transmission method, on their customers' terms - RSS.

[editor's note: this post was updated Friday, 2/18 to include comments and additional information from Business Wire's Laura Sturaitis]

Just read over at LGF that CNN News exec Eason Jordan has resigned after recent statements he made about journalists being targeted by the American military overseas went public, causing a furor on the 'net.

Here's the AP story.

Wow.

[update]

Michelle Malkin: "How brave of him to hand in his resignation on Friday night."

She also points out that CNN hasn't picked it up yet. Their search yields nada as of 8:04 p.m. Eastern. This item has a dateline of 3:45 p.m. Eastern, however. Then again, do we really expect them to cover it as news right now?

Jay Rosen has the statement from Jordan/CNN.

Jeff Jarvis: "For a lesson, see: Dan Rather." Read the whole thing.

My feelings on this are that I believe that Jordan has to, at least somewhat, believe his statement about the "targeting" of journalists to have said it in the fashion that he did. He's just of too high up a level in a news organization to not realize that - off or on the record - what he said would be construed exactly how many people have portrayed it as. I can't believe that this couldn't be seen as a result of such a comment.

Am I surprised that he has resigned at this point from CNN? Yes, I definitely am. Do I expect Jordan to turn up elsewhere in the news industry? Absolutely.

However, I think this is another moment when triumphalism, especially by bloggers, might get a little overboard. I've already seen "scoreboards" on two different website comment sections, and one would presume that there are more. Let's all continue to realize that this isn't just a way to "take down" people that some people may disagree with. The last thing bloggers want to be known as is for being good at writing hit pieces.

Oh, and make sure and check out memeorandum's roundup.

On Monday, the Federal Communications Commission denied indecency complaints in two separated orders, as investigated after receiving 36 complaints through the Parents Television Council (PTC).

The Commission concluded that, in context, none of the segments were patently offensive under contemporary standards for the broadcast medium, and thus not indecent. The Commission also found that the material was not profane, in context. [pdf]

The FCC released the two orders in their entirety, which you can find in PDF form here [21 complaints] and here [15 complaints].

Shows in question include NBC's Friends, FOX's The Simpsons and the WB's Dawson's Creek. You can check the appendices of the documents for the details in the complaints, but it seems that the use of the word "dick" to describe a person is a common thread.

Additionally, FCC Commissioner Michael Copps made a statement, which informs that he approves - and dissents - in part on the rulings. I've included some of the key statements below. You can read the full statement here.

We continue to hear from citizens who are concerned about sexually explicit and profane programming on the airwaves and the potentially detrimental effects of this programming on our children. As an initial matter, I would note that this Commission has a solemn obligation to respond to consumer complaints. These complaints are increasing exponentially from a few hundred only a couple of years go to over 1 million in 2004.

...snip...

Exemplary of the complaints that should not have been summarily denied is one concerning The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer, which I believe may very well violate the statutory prohibition against indecency.

The Associated Press reported a short time ago that the Justice Department is working on a "preliminary investigation" into the New York Times Company's acquisition of 49% of Metro Boston. The concern here is that the free daily would "compete" alongside NYTCo's Boston Globe newspaper with the rival Boston Herald.

Also noted is a Gannett purchase of a "community newspaper publisher in Michigan." That company appears to be HomeTown Communications, which the publisher announced it would be buying in November of 2004. Less than a week later, on November 24, the Cincinnati Post ran a story [discussed here] where "scrutiny from the U.S. Justice Department" was expected.

It should be pointed out - as it is in the AP item linked above - that the Boston Herald has been on the forefront of the antitrust push in that city. Globe ombudsman Christine Chinlund commented on the situation this morning, coincidentally, before the AP story broke.

Reuters' Martha Graybow reports that Catherine Mathis, NYT Vice President of Corporate Communications has stated that the "We have not been contacted by the Justice Department, nor to the best of our knowledge have any of our advertisers."

This morning, word got out that FCC Chairman Michael Powell would be resigning from the commission as early as today. It is curious, as Glenn Fleishman states, why this is happening a day after President Bush was inaugurated for a second term. Fleishman makes some great points about how he may differ in opinion on how some media regulations have been handled, but at the same time believes Powell did some good things for technology.

MSNBC has a live vote running Friday, asking "What was the most important issue during Michael Powell's tenure as head of the FCC?" At the moment, with 4,256 votes, "Broadcast decency rules" leads with 61% of the voting, with "Concentration of media ownership" in second place at 27%. As much as the decency issue is huge in this country, I would argue that that it's just the "sexy" topic (sorry for the pun-based nature of that statement), and that media consolidation is a much bigger evil, in the long term. Both have free speech implications, and one does impact the other.

The fine folks at RatherBiased are all over the breaking news coming out of CBS this morning:

Asked to resign were Senior Vice President Betsy West, who supervised CBS News primetime programs; 60 Minutes Wednesday Executive Producer Josh Howard; and Howard's deputy, Senior Broadcast Producer Mary Murphy. The producer of the piece, Mary Mapes, was terminated.

Mapes' firing is not unexpected in most circles. She has been heavily criticized all along for being "behind" the Memogate fiasco at "60 Minutes Wednesday," and bears the brunt of responsibility here. RatherBiased's Matthew Sheffield told TMD that "The firings are a good start. We'll see if the report was as forthcoming as it needs to be."

The report Sheffield refers to is the expected result of an independent panel that CBS News announced on September 22, 2004. On Sunday, RatherBiased pointed out that it had been 110 days since the panel was put forth - Monday brings day 111, and the complete report [pdf], via Instapundit.

Scylla & Charybdis lead us to CBS CEO and Viacom Co-President and Co-Chief Operating Officer Les Moonves' response [pdf] to the panel's report. Moonves does not appear to hold back any contempt for the actions of the former CBS staffers.

There was, in short, no effective vetting of these critical documents by those at CBS News required to do so, or of many other statements in the September 8th report, or of the reports that followed on the CBS Evening News. Once again, the system broke down, relying on trust rather than the implementation of existing standards.

That, alone, is pretty damning for a news organization to have to admit.

After the jump: Recommendations from Moonves' response.

Acting on the Panel's recommendations, I would like to announce the following further steps that will be implemented immediately, not just for 60 Minutes Wednesday, but for all of CBS News.

Responding to perhaps the most important recommendation of the Panel, we will immediately create a position of Senior Vice President of Standards and Special Projects, reporting to the President of CBS News. This executive will be assigned expanded new duties as part of upholding and enforcing CBS News Standards. Before an investigative report proceeds, the Standards Executive will review the use of confidential sources; will determine the completeness of the authentication and/or chain of custody of materials received from outside sources, ranging from documents to video to photos; and will approve all hidden-camera investigations.

The Standards Executive will be identified throughout CBS News as someone with whom employees can communicate on a confidential basis, without fear of retaliation, if they have concerns that a planned segment may not meet CBS News standards of accuracy and fairness. This executive will also undertake a comprehensive review of the CBS News Standards Manual and will institute a program for regular review of the standards.

Assuming this important new role will be Linda Mason, who has been named Senior Vice President, Standards and Special Projects, reporting directly to the President of CBS News.

Linda has a long and distinguished career at CBS News, which she joined in 1966. She was the first woman in many of the positions she has filled at CBS News: from desk assistant in radio to writer in Newsfilm syndication, to writer/associate producer at WCBS-TV News to writer then producer at the CBS Morning News, to producer, investigative producer, senior producer at the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite and then Dan Rather, to executive producer of The CBS Weekend News and then executive producer of CBS News Sunday Morning as well, to vice president of Public Affairs and executive producer of CBS Reports. She has won 13 Emmys, two 2 Peabodies, a Dupont and various other awards.

Linda has acted as the liaison between CBS NEWS and the Independent Panel during the preparation of the Panel's report. She has been a calm, steadying influence within CBS News throughout that difficult process, and she was recognized for her contributions by the Panel. I know she will be invaluable in this new and crucial role, and I consider her appointment to be an integral part of the re-vitalization of CBS News after this difficult time.

Further, in the midst of this ordeal, the original 60 Minutes has continued to shine as a beacon of light. The broadcast has continued to blaze a trail of outstanding journalism and competitive success as the #1 news magazine program under the leadership of Executive Producer Jeff Fager, who launched 60 Minutes Wednesday in 1999. We have therefore asked Jeff to oversee both 60 Minutes broadcasts - 60 Minutes Wednesday as well as 60 Minutes - at least until the end of the season.

Other steps that will be implemented immediately include, but will not be limited to, the following:

1. If the validity of information presented in a segment comes under a significant challenge, such as occurred with the 60 Minutes Wednesday segment, reporting on the challenge will not be left entirely in the hands of those who created the segment at issue. Instead, an additional team, led by someone not involved in the original segment, will be assigned to take the lead in the coverage.

2. In sensitive stories relying on sources who cannot be identified on the air, senior management must, when appropriate, know not just the name of the source, but all relevant background that would assist in editorial news decisions. Difficulties in this regard should be reviewed with the Standards Executive.

3. CBS News management must make it clear to all personnel that competitive pressure alone cannot be allowed to prompt the airing of a story. As the Panel points out, it would have been better to "lose" the story on the disputed memos to a competitor than to air it short of vetting to the highest standards of fairness and accuracy.

4. Correspondents, producers and associate producers must disclose to the executive producer and senior producers all relevant information unearthed in reporting the story, both supporting and challenging the segment's findings.

5. On primetime broadcasts, all on-camera interviews done for a segment, whether or not aired, should be reviewed by the person assigned script review responsibility to ensure that the segment presents fairly and accurately what was said in the interviews and is not contradicted by interviews which do not appear in the finished segment.

6. CBS NEWS producers and management will work closely with the CBS Communications area to ensure that all information provided to the department and then disseminated to the public is fair and accurate.

7. CBS NEWS management should require correspondents to regularly and fully participate to the maximum extent possible in the preparation, vetting and pre-broadcast screening of stories. Management should review instances where the press of other responsibilities does not permit this and make any appropriate changes to the production and vetting structure to take account of reality.

In addition to these steps, in the future we will pursue any other reforms we feel are needed to help CBS News uphold its decades-long tradition of reporting with integrity and without fear or favor.

Matt Marshall and Michael Bazeley report in SiliconBeat that columnist / blogger Dan Gillmor will be leaving the Mercury News at the end of December. "Dan will be starting a grass-roots journalism venture," they say - no specifics available just yet. Read the whole thing.

[update] Dan just posted on his blog. "Something powerful is happening, it's in the early stages and I have a chance to help figure this out."

Good luck, Dan!

The Associated Press reports that NBC Sports president Dick Ebersol survived a plane crash in Colorado on Sunday. Also on the plane were Ebersol's sons, Charles and Teddy - the latter of whom is still missing at this time. Both pilots were killed in the crash, which happened on takeoff.

[update] Lost Remote's Cory Bergman posted on this earlier today, linking to a news item from Denver's News 9 NBC affiliate, which stated that the pilot, one flight attendant, and another passenger were killed.

[update 11/29 8:18pm] On Monday evening, the Associated Press reported that Ebersol's youngest son, Teddy, is presumed to have been killed in the crash along with Luis Alberto Polanco Espaillat and Warren T. Richardson III. While the AP has not identified which man was the plane's pilot, a commenter on this site has stated that Polanco was the pilot and her uncle. This has not been confirmed otherwise.

[11:45pm] Lost Remote's Cory Bergman posts an update on this story - Edward Ebersol's body has been found in the wreckage - he was 14.

A short while ago, CBS News announced that evening news anchor Dan Rather would be stepping down after the March 9, 2005 newscast, but will stay on with the network. Check out all the details here at RatherBiased.com - where you can also find the statement that Andrew Heyward, news division boss, sent out to CBS affiliates today.

MSNBC, just posted an Associated Press report stating that a verdict has been reached in the Scott Peterson murder trial, and that the public announcement of the decision will be at 4pm Eastern.

[Thanks to Suzette for the tip]

[update] Guilty of murder in the first for Laci Peterson, guilty of murder in the second for the Petersons' unborn child. Special Circumstances also included in the verdict.

MSNBC has the story on the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

Robert Cox has the translation from NBC News of the latest Osama bin Laden videotape.

Drudge has a headline up right now about CBS News' reportedly "saving" the story about 377 missing tons of explosives in Iraq, which has come to light in the last two days, in order to pull it out next week just before Election Day.

News of missing explosives in Iraq -- first reported in April 2003 -- was being resurrected for a 60 MINUTES election eve broadcast designed to knock the Bush administration into a crises mode...

CBSNEWS PLANNED BUSH MISSING EXPLOSIVES STORY FOR ELECTION EVE

Matt Drudge has updated his previous report, but makes a statement that's a little off base - "It is not clear who exactly shopped an election eve repackaging of the missing explosives story." The story was apparently NOT shopped as "election eve" fodder, CBS News had only planned on running it on October 31, as executive producer Jeff Fager is quoted as saying. The source does not appear to have pushed it to go public by that date. As documented in the earlier item, the reason the source went elsewhere was that "the beleaguered network wasn't able to get the piece on the air as fast as the newspaper could print" - which was on Monday.

Just read [via Gawker] that Matt Drudge is reporting on speculation that one of Rupert Murdoch's sons, Lachan or James, may have been killed in a car accident on the Santa Monica Freeway early Saturday morning.

However, Drudge's statement includes a "36-year-old man" as the fatality. But Lachlan should be about 32 now, as the New York Observer had him at 27 in 1999, five years ago. And according to this BBC article from November of 2003, other son James should be 31 now.

According to a news release this morning, Howard Stern is leaving Viacom to join SIRIUS satellite radio as of January 1, 2006.

The statement goes on to say that "Stern only would need to generate approximately one million subscribers in order to cover the costs of the deal." I don't think that's out of the realm of possibilities. I am already a SIRIUS subscriber, love the service, and even listen to their online streaming while I'm away from my radio. Today is the first time I have ever been unable to reach the company's website.

Joe Territo posts some comments from Stern this morning. He says that "This news is as big as Howard hypes it to be."

Jeff Jarvis, over on the West Coast, is up and at 'em and comments here - looks like he's already signing up for SIRIUS. He also speculates that Stern may leave the Infinity/Viacom airwaves even sooner than January of '06.

The Globe and Mail picks up an AP story about Stern's departure, including a quote that certainly expresses Howard's opinions on the subject.

"The FCC ... has stopped me from doing business," Stern said. "... Clear Channel, you (expletives), I will bury you."

Let's think about that last comment for a second - is it possible that Stern could swing enough listenership over to satellite radio as a whole - SIRIUS or XM - that it could dramatically impact the business of Clear Channel (among other radio owners)?

[11:47am] Well, the SIRIUS site seems to be up and running now, and it's got an excellent little slideshow for the Howard Stern announcement.

MarksFriggin.com, a site written by Mark Mercer, has a runthrough of everything said on Stern's show this morning about the big move - some of the best information I've seen so far. [this will be moved to this page sometime today or tomorrow, you'll just have to scroll a little bit right now - just look for "Howard Moving To Sirius Satellite Radio In 2006! 10/06/04. 8:20am"] Looks like Stern doesn't plan to "screw around" with anything on the show, and he might just make it all the way to the end of 2005 - that is, if "Howard said he's going the make the next 15 months the best 15 months of radio they can" means anything. The quote about Clear Channel goes a little further than what was posted above - Mercer writes, "Howard said he just wants to bury Clear Channel and make each of their radio stations worth 3 cents."

One caller said "he'll be turning his FM radio off once Howard is done." Wow. I can honestly say (and I don't have SIRIUS in the car yet) that I really don't listen to FM radio that much anymore, except some very specific shows here and there. I listen to a ton of sports and talk radio on AM, and SIRIUS at home. So it sounds like this has some legs. Jeff Jarvis had speculated that this "is the last nail in the coffin of broadcast as the central medium in America." Howard, according to Mercer, agreed with that sentiment when answering questions from a reporter for New York's WABC-TV on air. Is this the beginning of the end for traditional FM radio?

RatherBiased.com, plagued with server troubles yet again, doesn't fail to bring yet another scoop to the 'net. Last night (and updated this morning) they reported that an item on CBS News about suspicions that Selective Service will reinstitute a military draft if President Bush was re-elected was based on....more "sources" that aren't exactly clean.

Thanks to Rathergate.com for helping out with hosting RBDC's postings - they're also responsible for setting up a way to support RatherBiased's needs, which have increased based on the interest these latest CBS News stories have garnered. They've stepped up big here, so if you would like to help out, drop by their site and donate some funds.

Power Line has more, including a statement from Selective Service that says it is "not getting ready to conduct a draft for the U.S. Armed Forces."

CNN reports Tuesday afternoon that producer Riad Ali was released after being held for almost 24 hours by a group who appear to oppose Israeli rule, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. Ali had been kidnapped at gunpoint on Monday in Gaza City.

In early July, news came out that the editor of the Russian edition of Forbes, Paul Klebnikov, had been killed - possibly for something he wrote or investigated. On Tuesday, Jeff Quinton posted details from Reuters that two Chechens had been taken in by police for being involved with the crime. I expect there will be more news to come on this story, as it is not apparent whether these two individuals are suspects in the actual murder or just conspirators to some point.

[via Rusty Shackleford - who has "a healthy neutrality until all the facts come to light."]

Monday afternoon came with the news that CNN producer Riad Ali had been kidnapped in Gaza City. Details here at TVNewser and here in CNN's coverage.

Matt Drudge has the scoop on a big announcement from NBC - that Conan O'Brien will take over the "Tonight Show" from Jay Leno in 2009. More details here at MSNBC. I wonder if O'Brien will move out West to Tinseltown to do the show...

I've seen this elsewhere, but just received it a few moments ago.

STATEMENT FROM DAN RATHER:

Last week, amid increasing questions about the authenticity of documents used in support of a 60 MINUTES WEDNESDAY story about President Bush's time in the Texas Air National Guard, CBS News vowed to re-examine the documents in question—and their source—vigorously. And we promised that we would let the American public know what this examination turned up, whatever the outcome.

Now, after extensive additional interviews, I no longer have the confidence in these documents that would allow us to continue vouching for them journalistically. I find we have been misled on the key question of how our source for the documents came into possession of these papers. That, combined with some of the questions that have been raised in public and in the press, leads me to a point where—if I knew then what I know now—I would not have gone ahead with the story as it was aired, and I certainly would not have used the documents in question.

But we did use the documents. We made a mistake in judgment, and for that I am sorry. It was an error that was made, however, in good faith and in the spirit of trying to carry on a CBS News tradition of investigative reporting without fear or favoritism.

Please know that nothing is more important to us than people's trust in our ability and our commitment to report fairly and truthfully.

Will Rather and CBS News President Andrew Heyward make it through this?

Below is the full statement I just received in my email box moments ago from CBS News.

September 20, 2004

MAN WHO GAVE CBS NEWS DISPUTED DOCUMENTS DESCRIBES HOW HE OBTAINED THEM; IN TELEVISION INTERVIEW, HE ADMITS HE DELIBERATELY MISLED CBS NEWS PRODUCER

CBS NEWS ACKNOWLEDGES THAT, BASED ON SUBSEQUENT REPORTING ON QUESTIONS ABOUT DOCUMENTS, IT CANNOT PROVE THEY ARE AUTHENTIC AND, THEREFORE, THEY SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN USED IN THE "60 MINUTES WEDNESDAY" REPORT

CBS NEWS AND CBS MANAGEMENT ARE COMMISSIONING AN INDEPENDENT REVIEW

Bill Burkett, in a weekend interview with CBS News Anchor and Correspondent Dan Rather, has acknowledged that he provided the now-disputed documents used in the Sept. 8 60 MINUTES WEDNESDAY report on President Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard. Burkett, a retired National Guard lieutenant colonel, also admits that he deliberately misled the CBS News producer working on the report, giving her a false account of the documents' origins to protect a promise of confidentiality to the actual source. Burkett originally said he obtained the documents from another former Guardsman. Now he says he got them from a different source whose connection to the documents and identity CBS News has been unable to verify to this point. Burkett's interview will be featured in a full report on tonight's CBS EVENING NEWS WITH DAN RATHER (6:30-7:00 PM, ET/PT).

In light of this and other developments reported by CBS News and other news organizations, CBS News President Andrew Heyward issued the following statement: "60 MINUTES WEDNESDAY had full confidence in the original report or it would not have aired. However, in the wake of serious and disturbing questions that came up after the broadcast, CBS News has done extensive additional reporting in an effort to confirm the documents' authenticity. That included an interview featured on last week's edition of 60 MINUTES WEDNESDAY (15) with Marian Carr Knox, secretary to the late Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, the officer named as the author of the documents; the interview with Bill Burkett to be seen tonight (20); and a further review of the forensic evidence on both sides of the debate. Based on what we now know, CBS News cannot prove that the documents are authentic, which is the only acceptable journalistic standard to justify using them in the report. We should not have used them. That was a mistake, which we deeply regret. Nothing is more important to us than our credibility and keeping faith with the millions of people who count on us for fair, accurate, reliable, and independent reporting. We will continue to work tirelessly to be worthy of that trust."

CBS News and CBS management are commissioning an independent review of the process by which the report was prepared and broadcast to help determine what actions need to be taken. The names of the people conducting the review will be announced shortly, and their findings will be made public.

From the world of people who start blogging well before I've even woken up comes this post from Michele at A Small Victory. She has a couple good points in a roundup of a few bloggers' takes on today's Jim Rutenberg article in the New York Times, "CBS News Concludes It Was Misled on National Guard Memos, Network Officials Say."

In Michele's post, she blockquotes Allahpundit, who asks if there is a way "a single known crackpot like [Bill] Burkett could have perpetrated a giant hoax upon the entire CBS News division using ridiculously amateurish forgeries?" Allah also says that "the RatherBiased guys will disagree with me and say that yes, Dan Rather really is that stupid and blind with Bush-hatred." While I understand that Allah might feel that the RBDC folks might believe it's a one-man job, I don't think they're one to miss facts. If the "sinister cabal" concept comes up here, it won't be ignored. But to be honest, haven't stranger things happened? Could an entire news division be duped by a bunch of forged documents given to them by one person? I don't see why not. Plus, you wouldn't have to dupe the whole organization, only the people in decision making positions. Hell, we still have news outlets picking up stories that originated in The Onion to this day!

I will say, however, that it is probably unlikely that one person is involved here on the documents front. That's my belief, and probably one that is shared by a lot of people familiar with the situation.

RatherBiased.com reports that someone tried to shut down the site Saturday morning by filing a complaint against their webhost. It seems to be functioning properly now, however. No word if any other sites covering the ongoing MemoGate situation at CBS have received similar "requests."

James Joyner posts the item first seen on Drudge. Referring to the Air National Guard memos that have been talk of the town for the last few days, CBS News boss Andrew Heyward says "given all the questions about them, we believe we should redouble our efforts to answer those questions, so that's what we are doing."

RatherBiased has more, posted at 6:16 - Dan Rather interview with WCBS reporter offered to affiliates.

Jeff Quinton is providing color - and play-by-play for those of us not in front of a television.

Still no statement via email from CBS media relations.

The Associated Press has a story Thursday about the Aspen Daily News finally having an article about the Kobe Bryant sexual assault case this week. According to the AP, the paper had a "10-month-old ban" on coverage of the case after claiming a lack of interest by readers.

[ed: the story says "...the Times said its readers were losing interest..." - I'm guessing they mean the News]

Both Reuters and the Associated Press (via Fox News) are reporting that Italian journalist Enzo Baldoni, kidnapped in Iraq a few days ago, has been killed. Both services state that Al-Jazeera has received a video showing his murder, but the network has not aired it.

CNET's Dinesh Sharma confirms that online auction site eBay has purchased 25% of listing site Craigslist. No details on whether branding or other eBay information will appear on Craigslist, but Sharma quotes both companies as saying they would come together on "expertise, resources and creativity." On August 5, CNN/Money's Eric Hellweg speculated on Craiglist going public [via Techdirt], a move that many folks on the web thought was pretty unlikely. Looks like the "where there's smoke..." rule was partially right on this one.

[update] If you happen to read the CNET article linked above, make sure you check out Craig Newmark's post on the subject, too. It wasn't really clear in the CNET piece, but it looks as if this wasn't as simple as eBay walking in and asking for a slice of the pie.

Thanks to Suzette for pointing this out - television cooking show host and multiple book author Julia Child has died at 91 years old. She would have been 92 on Sunday. The Associated Press reports that Child died in her sleep Thursday, cause unknown at this time.

Yes, it's not media related, but it's news to those of us in the Garden State.

Jeff Jarvis informs that NJ Governor Jim McGreevey will step down today, for reasons not clear as of yet. A 4pm news conference is scheduled.

[update] More comments/transcript at Buzz Machine. Gov. McGreevey announces that he is gay, and that he plans to leave office on November 15.

The National Debate's Robert Cox followed up on an editorial review on Amazon.com that didn't seem right. The review was for a book critical of presidential candidate John Kerry, Unfit for Command, previously discussed here. As it turns out, the review was submitted by what an Amazon rep is calling a "bad actor," someone who had access to publishing editorial reviews - which are looked at by Amazon staff - and has since been removed, Cox reports.