In the run-up to the 2004 US presidential election, a shocking report was carried by the CBS Wednesday news programme 60 Minutes. It was fronted by Dan Rather with the backing of the brilliant and awarded producer Mary Mapes. The consequences were terrible for the news team: Mapes was fired, Rather resigned and CBS publicly apologised.Based on leaked e-mails whose authenticity was soon derided, the report stated, in effect, that President George W Bush (who in the wake of 9/11 invaded Iraq) was a draft-dodger in the Vietnam era and that political pressure covered up his records in the noncombat Texas Air National Guard, alleging disregard of orders and absenteeism.The chorus of condemnation was that the Mapes report was at the least an overhasty and possibly fraudulent attempt to disgrace Bush, running for re-election — or that Mapes, a “liberal”, had been suckered into a decoy operation. Her “radical feminism” had rushed the contested documents onto the air without the intensity of...
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