 Helen Thomas |
Helen Thomas, the so-called “dean of the White House press corps,” is not blasting up Dan Rather over his use of unreliable documents about President Bush’s military record, but instead is targeting Bush himself.
“To me, the real issue is why doesn’t the president tell us the truth?” Thomas said Tuesday at a Monmouth University forum on women and journalism in West Long Branch, N.J. “Why doesn’t he put out all the documents? Because he can’t, because there are too many gaps.”
 Dan Rather |
According to the Asbury Park Press, Thomas called Rather “a magnificent reporter” who experienced every reporter’s nightmare in connection with his airing of unauthenticated material in a Sept. 8 broadcast of “60 Minutes II.”
“Truth is our Holy Grail” she said. “I’m sure everybody is feeling bad about it.”
The paper says Thomas wasn’t alone in her defense of the CBS Evening News anchor, as her comments were echoed by longtime Associated Press reporter Linda Deutsch.
 AP’s Linda Deutsch |
“This is all so symptomatic of kill-the-messenger mentality,” Deutsch said. “They are interested more in Dan Rather. … The underlying issue of Bush’s National Guard Service is ignored. … People are gloating over it. I find that very disturbing.”
On Monday, after 11 days of widespread criticism, Rather apologized and issued a statement saying he no longer will defend the authenticity of documents he used in a report that raised questions about Bush’s National Guard service.
Rather’s statement said:
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.
Thomas – the 84-year-old journalist who admits she asks herself “Who do I hate today?” – told the Press both the president and today’s news media have fallen short of peak performance, especially when it comes to the amount of presidential press conferences, less than 20.
“I think this administration is the most inaccessible and most secretive that I have covered,” Thomas said. “I feel a lot of information that should be in the public domain is hidden.”
“I think the press rolled over and played dead,” she continued. “Reporters are human beings. They’re Americans, too. I think we fell down on the job. We were asleep at the switch.
“I just don’t condemn my colleagues. All of us played ball when we should have questioned the president on a regular basis and held him accountable. We defaulted.”
In her syndicated column for Hearst Newspapers last month, Thomas blasted Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry for his continued support of what she calls “the disastrous war against Iraq.”
“Kerry has blown it big time,” she wrote, “rising to Bush’s bait and throwing away his ace in the hole – Bush’s shaky credibility on the profound question of war and peace.”
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