High noon for high news

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The recent Dan Rather and Newsweek controversies hardly seem connected. But on closer examination, both incidents symbolize what has gone wrong with traditional news organizations.

The old assumption was that opinion media -- such as the National Review, the Nation and the New Republic -- offer a slant on current events, but that major news outlets, outside their designated opinion sections, do not. This commitment to disinterested reporting -- and along with it the public's trust in mainstream media -- has been shattered in recent years.

It's easy to see why people no longer feel they can rely on a CBS News or a Newsweek for information without bias. At CBS, Dan Rather persistently wished us to believe a clearly forged memo was authentic. Michael Isikoff's reliance on a single anonymous and unreliable source about supposed desecration of the Koran made an already jaded public believe Newsweek was too eager to deliver a one-sided story.

Three now-common themes appeared in each controversy:

(1) The misinformation erred predictably against the current American government. In CBS' case, anchorman Dan Rather impugned the president's past military service. The Newsweek article questioned the ethics and sense of the U.S. military.

(2) These were not minor slips. The counterfeit documents Mr. Rather circulated undercut a sitting commander-in-chief in the midst of a national election. The fraud had the potential to alter the very governance of the United States. Newsweek's wrong information incited the Middle East's lunatic elements. Rioting and death followed, complicating the U.S. military effort.

(3) Neither organization was markedly contrite when exposed. The culpable Mr. Rather refashioned himself as the maligned target of the blogosphere. Newsweek spokesmen whined that a vindictive administration was hounding their management.

In response, the public assumed haughty news organizations were caught exhibiting the usual partiality -- and then on spec retreated to victim status when challenged.

These recent controversies about our flagship news agencies were old news to the public. The New York Times still has not recovered from the Jayson Blair scandal, in which a young reporter wrote fictitious stories. Mr. Blair's compliant editors worried more about political correctness than the qualifications and experience of their own reporters.

The same syndrome was true earlier at The Washington Post and the Boston Globe, which were red-faced over the fabrications of reporter Janet Cooke and columnist Patricia Smith, respectively.