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Mapes: Mainstream Press Fell For Blogs' Critiques

based on a report by E&P Staff. October 7, 2005

Howard Kurtz of The Washington Post quoted from the first chapter of the forthcoming book by former CBS producer Mary Mapes that covers, among other things, her controversial experience with the Dan Rather/Bush/National Guard “60 Minutes” segment.

Among the excerpts: "I was incredulous that the mainstream press -- a group I'd been a part of for nearly twenty-five years and thought I knew -- was falling for the blogs' critiques. I was shocked at the ferocity of the attack. I was terrified at CBS's lack of preparedness in defending us. I was furious at the unrelenting attacks on Dan. And I was helpless to do anything about any of it."

“And right now, on the Internet, it appeared everything was falling apart. I had a real physical reaction as I read the angry online accounts. It was something between a panic attack, a heart attack, and a nervous breakdown. My palms were sweaty; I gulped and tried to breathe... The little girl in me wanted to crouch and hide behind the door and cry my eyes out."

"Faxing changes a document in so many ways, large and small, that analyzing a memo that had been faxed -- in some cases not once, but twice -- was virtually impossible. The faxing destroyed the subtle arcs and lines in the letters. The characters bled into each other. The details of how the typed characters failed to line up perfectly inside each word were lost."

"To these people, there was no such thing as unbiased mainstream reporting, certainly not when it came to criticism of the president, no matter how tepid. To them, there was Fox News and everything else -- and everything else was liberal and unfair."


You have been reading excerpts from "Mary Mapes Hits Bloggers and MSM in Upcoming Book" by E&P Staff. You can read the entire piece here: tinyurl.com/d7ruy. Thanks to editorandpublisher.com. We visit often and we hope you will too.

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