September 2004: CBS and the fake Bush documents

CBS television issued a humbling apology yesterday for a report on an investigative programme, saying that its story claiming that George Bush had been given special treatment during his stint in the Texas air national guard was deeply flawed and should not have gone on air.

It abruptly changed course after days of expressing confidence in the report on 60 Minutes, which relied heavily on four memos purportedly written by a now dead commander in the guard to show that Mr Bush received special treatment during his military service.

“Based on what we now know, CBS News cannot prove that the documents are authentic, which is the only acceptable journalistic standard to justify using them in the report,” a statement by the president of CBS News, Andrew Heyward, said.

“We should not have used them. That was a mistake, which we deeply regret.”

Dan Rather, the anchorman who presented the story and defended it for nearly two weeks, issued a separate apology.

“We made a mistake in judgment and for that I am sorry,” he said.

The statement from Rather, an American television idol for 20 years, went on to make the embarrassing admission that the programme’s producers had been duped by a disgrunted former member of the Texas national guard, who had provided the documents.