http://www.dailyhowler.com/So CBS never contacted the person Burkett identified as his source. They aired this story without even hearing a confirmation of this part of Burkett's story.
Let's face it—that is quite a lapse. So why is this story only somewhat remarkable? The story is only somewhat remarkable because of something you won't learn on cable TV. On cable, all good pundits must pretend to be shocked--just shocked--at what has occurred.
In fact, slipshod, lazy, incompetent work has long been the norm for America’s press corps. As we've noted again and again, bungled stories were also the norm in our last three White House elections. Despite what trained pundits tell you on cable, this latest bungling is the norm. Rather's bungling is not the exception.
Why do pundits pretend they don't know about the fake stories on Clinton and Gore? On that matter, we can't instruct you. But we thought David Gergen made an excellent point on last evening's Hardball. Gergen drew back, surveyed the scene, and began an oblique rumination:
GERGEN (9/20/04): You can call it a mistake or you can call it a plunge into—a reckless plunge. But what we're facing, Chris, and what I think is astonishing to all of us is how many news organizations and how often our own government is plunging into things without first thinking it through.
"You mean like the war in Iraq?" Matthews quipped. "Like the war in Iraq with no weapons of mass destruction?" That may be one part of what Gergen meant. Without saying, he continued his point:
GERGEN:
How is it we're getting so--how is it professionals are so often getting it so badly, so desperately wrong? What is it in our culture that causes people to do that?...This is still a professional news organization after all. And here's the Tiffany of the broadcast networks suddenly with egg all over its face.
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