The Thornburgh Report

One of the talking points in the wake of the report is kind of interesting.

I'm reading statements to the effect that the airing of the alleged Killian memos was due to a failure to follow standard journalistic procedures and a "rigid and blind" defense of the report.

Although the timing of the report and other actions taken by CBS prompted suspicions of political bias, the report says, "the Panel cannot conclude that a political agenda at 60 Minutes Wednesday drove either the timing of the airing of the segment or its content."

You know, I think if I were running any news organization when something like this happened, I'd rather cop to a political bias charge and lose credibility on one or two issues (news about one or two political parties) than try and claim this was the sort of error that could strike any report my organization produced.

In other words, tell the public to be skeptical about reports in one or two very specific areas, rather than telling them this sort of problem could affect any of the reports they hear at any time.