September 13, 2004

Don't Forget USA Today

USA Today also has the four CBS News memos as well as two additional ones. The reporters covering the story say they "obtained copies of the documents independently soon after the 60 Minutes segment aired Wednesday." The story was in Thursday's paper. That could mean one source gave the fakes to both CBS News and USA Today, or more people are involved. If it's the latter there's a greater chance someone will squeal. That also means Dave Moniz and Jim Drinkard had only a few hours to get the story written and handed to editors. CBS News took over six weeks to investigate the memos. USA Today didn't even take six hours. The story's only support for the memos' authenticity is that White House communications director Dan Bartlett didn't claim they were fakes. There is no mention of any experts looking at the documents. At least CBS News has at least one expert on record to authenticate the memos.

Now, on Sunday the newspaper finally had two former FBI document examiners look at the memos. They said they're probably fake. Why not do this before printing the story? This is a case of USA Today jumping on a hot story. But like CBS News they got burned. The paper needs to issue a correction and apology to its readers. The same anger directed at Dan Rather also needs to be aimed at "America's Newspaper." This web page will let you lodge a complaint. Here's a snail mail address if you want to contact them that way:

USA TODAY / USATODAY.com
7950 Jones Branch Drive
McLean, VA 22108-0605

"Memos Debate Eclipses Content"