After the CBS TANG story and the subsequent kerning saga, the right wanted someone to pay. The focus of the story soon turned to Mary Mapes, senior producer for 60 Minutes. Mapes, a highly respected, award-winning producer, had previously brought the Abu Ghraib photos to the world's attention. By the end of "Rathergate," however, she'd lost her credibility and her job...and J.D. Guckert was right in the middle.
This diary is not meant to rehash the TANG story, the legitimacy of the documents or the supposed bias of CBS. Its purpose is simply to track the smearing of Mapes, following the story Gannon/Guckert first "broke" as it went its way through the media. Is there a pattern to the way his Talon News reports made their way from Freeperville into the MSM? That's what we're going to find out.
I'll use this diary as a collection point for my research and an eventual timeline. Any research you may have already done is more than welcome!
Update [2005-2-11 8:19:17 by Biblio]:Cedwyn already did a bunch of
research on this, which I will shamelessly steal.
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Timeline (in progress):
9/7/04 Sean Hannity says on his radion show:(quote via Media Matters)
HANNITY: And apparently they're also, according to Jeff Gannon, the -- Talon News -- this woman, Mary Mapes, this Dallas producer, is under pressure for the network, and now there's doubts about their authenticity has taken place. Let me tell you what that means. That means everything's going downhill. And you watch. There's going to be somebody that has to take the fall here, and it's not going to be uh, it's not going to be Dan Rather.
9/8/04 CBS TANG story airs on 60 Minutes II
9/10/04
???At some point Gannon e-mails Sean Hannity to tell him Mapes obtained the documents.
9:50 AM - By this time, Hannity has announced on his radio show:(quote via Media Matters)
Now, Jeff Gannon, who is a terrific Washington bureau chief and White House correspondent for Talon News, actually shot me an e-mail today, and he's about to break a story in an exclusive about these CBS documents."
9:55 AM - Gannon
confirms that it is Mary Mapes on Free Republic.
11:44 AM - Gannon comments on Free Republic that he was the one who "got the scoop and passed it to Hannity."
12:01 PM - Gannon confirms on Free Republic that there will be a story on Talon News the following Monday and that Mapes is "only the beginning"
12:55 PM - Gannon reiterates in another Free Republic
thread that he told Hannity who got the docs.
9/11/04 Washington Post story identifies Mapes as producer, but does not specifically say she obtained the documents.
9/13/04 Talon News posts Gannon's story confiming that Mapes obtained documents.
"If the documents are proven to be forgeries, the scandal would go to the highest level of CBS news. Talon News sources say that Jim Murphy, Executive Producer of the CBS Evening News, approves virtually every word that goes on the air. "60 Minutes II" Executive Producer Jeffrey Fager would also be on the endangered list, since his show originated the document story.
But more likely it would be Mapes who would take the fall along with Janet Leissner, the Washington Bureau Chief for CBS News. Leissner orchestrated the interview with White House communications director Dan Bartlett during which he was confronted with the suspect documents. Dan Rather was originally scheduled to do the interview, but White House correspondent John Roberts was substituted at the last minute for an unknown reason."
9/15/04 Sean Hannity discusses Mapes on his radio show:
9/16/04 David Folkenflik reports in the Baltimore Sun:
Rather's involvement in the politically charged story has led some Bush allies to challenge the network's general credibility.
The conservative talk show host Sean Hannity questioned the legitimacy of photographs obtained by the same 60 Minutes producer, Mary Mapes, that led to the Abu Ghraib prison scandal this year. Yesterday, CBS called Mapes "a well-respected, veteran journalist whose credibility has never been questioned (and who) has been following this story (on Bush) for more than five years."
9/17/04 - AP runs largely sympathetic story by Brooks Barnes and Joe Flint: CBS producer spent years on Bush record
9/17/04 - Gannon posts "CBS "Rathergate" Produce Under Pressure from Network" on Talon News. Cross-posts to Free Republic under Conservativemajority alias. He suggests again that Mapes will be the one to take the fall:
But because Rather is CBS's franchise player with a contract that extends through 2006, fallout from any scandal is likely to fall on someone else at the network. An insider tells Talon News that Mapes is the most likely candidate. She has been working on this story for five years and obtained the documents that are now in dispute.
9/18/04 LA Times prints "THE RACE TO THE WHITE HOUSE;
In the Rush for a Scoop, CBS Found Trouble Fast" by Josh Getlin, Elizabeth Jensen and Scott Collins. Reveals that White House communications director Dan Bartlett vetted docs:
By the night of Sept. 7, CBS was promoting the next day's interview with Barnes and reporters from other news organizations were calling to see if they could get an advance look at what CBS was rumored to have, previously undisclosed documents.
But Howard said, "We weren't comfortable with that. We were keeping this to ourselves until we were certain." He explained that CBS still hadn't decided whether it would use the documents because they hadn't been authenticated to its satisfaction.
Then the morning of Sept. 8 -- as producers and executives including CBS News Senior Vice President Betsy West were meeting -- the call came in from the network's White House correspondent.
"John Roberts said he had just finished the interview with Bartlett, and [Bartlett] had no quarrel with the authenticity of the documents," Howard recalled. "And in fact, in several places in the interview he used the documents to support the White House position that Bush did what he needed to do with regards to his National Guard service."