Spelling Counts

We have posted here, Charles Johnson has posted here, PowerLine has posted here. The long and the short of it is that, in a story fronted by Gloria Borger, an interview with Kenneth Starr was edited so as to make it seem he was saying something he was not saying.

The question before the house is whether this was done on purpose, or otherwise.

We have perhaps a more moderate view, since we know Ms. Borger very slightly. This should come as no surprise. If one is a permanent resident of Washington, an upper-middle class professional, of a certain age, with children of a certain age, then one will necessarily cross paths at schools and Little League games with folks like Ms. Borger.

But because we know her slightly we are perhaps more willing than others may be to see her as a real person, rather than a faceless political operative, a cog in a great corporate conspiracy. Of course, it is possible that Ms. Borger is a fool, a hack, or possessed by demons. But we think she is not.

This lapse by CBS and Ms. Borger differs in an essential element from, for example, RatherGate, or the CBS story of missing explosives in Baghdad. In those stories the structure of the situation made it clear that there existed no individual who was in a position to authoritatively deny the truth of the story as reported. In the present case Judge Starr can (and has) denied that he said what the edited interview has him saying. Ms. Borger, of course, was entirely aware of this fact. It is simply silly to suggest that she would approve the bizarre editing of the piece that actually occurred. To think otherwise, one must assume that Ms. Borger concluded that neither Judge Starr, nor anyone in a position to call upon Judge Starr, would notice. This is absurd.

The problem is one of proofreading. Without knowing, of course, we are nevertheless confident that after the interview was taped, and edited, and various fact checkers, producers, writers, sound editors and the like had done their work, and the introductions and additional voice-overs and such had been written and recorded, one critical thing did NOT happen: Ms. Borger, as the face of the piece, did not sit down, well-rested, with enough but not too much coffee having been drunk, and view the entire story exactly as it would air and determine that it should be released as her work.

And we come now to the point of this lesson. We have been treated recently to lectures from the usual suspects as to ethics in the blogosphere. The NYT explained that we needed to get serious. Cal Thomas suggests that what we do "diverts attention" from "real and serious" journalism.

We think that CBS needs to get serious. The piece you are reading now has a single author. It is either correct or not correct, useful or not useful, biased or not biased. In that, it is typical of the blogosphere. There is only one Instapundit. There are only three writers at PowerLine. There is only one Little Green Football. But the piece run by CBS is the work of a large number of editors, writers, producers, fact-checkers and, finally, "talent." Ms. Borger is "talent." In the final analysis, she can apologize and explain that the editing mishaps were committed by others, who were not aware of the entire situation, with everyone working under extreme time pressure, and that all concerned are ever so sorry if anyone has been misled.

But at one end of the blogosphere Professor Reynolds is wholly responsible for what he posts, and at the other end, we are wholly responsible for what you are reading.

The vast corporate media empires need to take a lesson from the blogosphere. Perhaps, at the end of every story (as there is at the end of every political commercial paid for by the candidate) there should be included a straightforward, declarative statement: "I’m Gloria Borger, and I’ve approved this report as my own work." There would then be no doubt who to blame, or who to praise.

Because spelling counts.