Fact Checking, CBS Style

Sun, Sep 12, 2004 at 10:53:24 am PDT

Here’s the latest from CBS News, still doing the Denial Two-Step: Bush Documents Debate Rages On. (Hat tip: Glen Wishard.)

Saturday’s edition of the Boston Globe reports that one document expert, Phillip Broussard, who had expressed suspicions about the documents, said “he now believes the documents could have been prepared on an IBM Selectric Composer typewriter available at the time.”

Anchor Russ Mitchell of the Saturday edition of the CBS Evening News says CBS News contacted Broussard Saturday, and Broussard said he could not dismiss the documents as fake, but he needs to do more analysis before coming to a final conclusion.

Uh, CBS? Your case isn’t helped much when you can’t even be bothered to double-check your expert’s name.

His name is Philip Bouffard.

UPDATE at 9/12/04 4:51:50 pm:

They have now corrected Dr. Bouffard’s name in their story. Welcome to our visitors from CBS!

UPDATE at 9/12/04 4:55:56 pm:

And LGF reader Captain Nemo points out another incredibly sloppy mistake in CBS’s article:

Some analysts outside CBS News say they believe the typeface on these memos is New Times Roman, which they claim was not available in the 1970s.

Need I say that the name of the font is “Times New Roman?”

Is this starting to smell a little like desperation?