Sunday, September 12, 2004

CBS may be about to pop

I want to tell the story about the origin of the name Hootsbuddy, but more important issues are taking my attention. It seems that last week's 60 Minutes story by Dan Rather looking for dirt under the president's rug has resulted in an avalanche of attention from the blogosphere. Bloggers are all over the story and CBS has circled the wagons. According to this writer to Instapundit the case is a ticking bomb. Look at this:

Reader John Steele emails from Palo Alto:
CBS is full of smart people. It makes no sense to say they're not stalling because they believe these things are genuine. They know what we all know. They are stalling to get their ducks in a row:
They are speaking to lawyers to see if a crime has been committed.
They are speaking to lawyers to see if they can/must/may disclose the source.
They are speaking to lawyers to see if they must make disclosure in their SEC filings.
They are speaking internally to see who will resign.
They are speaking internally to see how they will word their retraction.
All that takes time. That is why CBS hasn't updated anything on this for too long. That is why their intitial counter-attacks (e.g., the first version of Times New Roman was invented in 1931), which are obviously inadequate, aren't being buttressed by anything new.
As a news organization and as a publicly traded company, they can't issue half-truths once they suspect what really happened. They are getting ready to make all their announcements at once.
Within 48 hours, CBS will come clean with a noise rivaling the disappearance of Krakatoa.


Trent Lott is out of national politics because when the mainstream media was about to overlook his remarks endorsing Strom Thurmond's racism, the weblog community wouldn't let him get away with it. This time the response to what CBS has done is a lot more dramatic. And this time there is a lot more at stake for a lot more people.


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