PBS Ombudsman: Swifties “Smear” Comment “gratuitous political shot”

The minimum one should expect of a media ombudsman is to present public comments to management, get their reply, and offer a professional opinion as to appropriateness. PBS’ ombudsman, Michael Getler, fulfills the minimum with regard to an allegation against the Swiftboat Veterans For Truth, which is more than most in major media, but what he omits is telling of major media myopia regarding self and basic research skills.

PBS Ombudsman Michael Getler was surprised at receiving so many viewer criticisms of an ending comment on the July 9 showing of “History Detectives,” that Getler says presents a lesson in “how to shoot yourself in the foot — at least in the minds of a fair number of viewers — by injecting something debatable, political and seemingly irrelevant into a program…”

Wes Cowan, an anthropologist and owner of an auction company that specializes in historical Americana, delivered a brief commentary that started off talking about the historical battle for veterans' benefits. But he ended up talking about Sen. John F. Kerry's role in 1971, when, as a young Naval officer, he was a leader of those veterans who turned against the Vietnam War, and how, in 2004, a group known as the "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and funded by a wealthy Republican campaign donor smeared Kerry's military record and possibly cost him the election."

Getler, then, presents a number of the messages he received from viewers. For example:

* My dismay comes from the questions this raises about your show, which I love. If you are so sloppy and partisan about current history, is everything else you present on this show similarly slanted and shoddy?

* Mr. Cowan, I defy you to name just ONE allegation made by John O'Neal and the Swift Boat vets that has been found to be untrue. To this day, John Kerry has a standing invitation to debate John O'Neal, but continues to run from the opportunity to face his nemesis. Every fact the Swift Boat Vets have brought up about Kerry has withstood the test of public inquiry.

The reply by the show’s executive producer defends the comment by citing his sources:

In stating that Swift Boat Veterans for Truth "smeared Kerry's military record" we carefully and believe accurately summarized and characterized a great deal of objective reporting by established media organizations, respected media watchdog groups, and an official Pentagon investigation, regarding whether Kerry had accurately represented his war record, and whether his service medals were justified.

We wrote our interstitial based on reporting by, amongst others, the Washington Post, the Center for Media and Democracy, the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, historian Douglas Brinkley ("Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War"), and the Navy Inspector General.

Getler, nonetheless, opines that the comment on the show “seemed to me to come out of nowhere, be irrelevant to the segment viewers had just watched, and jumped out as sort of a gratuitous political shot…” But, Getler continues,

In the end, the Navy's Inspector General said that "our examination found that existing documentation regarding the Silver Star, Bronze Star and Purple Heart medals indicates the awards approval process was properly followed" and that "the senior officers who awarded the medals were properly delegated authority to do so" and that "Senator Kerry's awards were properly approved."

Getler concludes, “But the issue here for me is the appropriateness, or rather the lack of it, of Cowan's commentary.”

Newsbusters addresses, in part, the sources that the show’s executive producer and PBS’ ombudsman rely upon:

Those "objective" reporters included The Washington Post, and the Annenberg Center’s Factcheck.org, which also relied on the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Boston Globe, and a Kerry pal’s commentary in the Wall Street Journal. But the "objective" label gets more hilarious when Bryson also cited John Kerry’s incredibly sympathetic liberal biographer and pop-historian Doug Brinkley, and the left-wing Center for Media and Democracy’s online Sourcewatch encylopedia. CMD puts out paperback books with obviously left-wing and partisan titles such as Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush’s War on Iraq and Banana Republicans: How the Right Wing Is Turning America Into a One-Party State.

Newsbusters, and Getler, could have added that the Newsweek reporters privy to the inner workings of Kerry’s campaign told how major newspapers were fed Kerry talking points. Newsbusters, and Getler, could have added that, indeed, Douglas Brinkley’s hagiography of Kerry was widely criticized for its poor historiography and, indeed, stimulated the Swiftees to reply. Newsbusters, and Getler, could have added that it was Kerry who made his war record the centerpiece of his qualification for president, therefore requiring examination, which the major media failed to do. Newsbusters, and Getler, could have added that the Swiftees’ case was an indictment backed by facts from 60+ qualified eyewitnesses. Newsbusters, and Getler, could have added that most of the Swiftees’ ads concerned Kerry’s undisputable, recorded accusation that our forces in Vietnam were like “Genghis Khan.”

At the end of the Kerry war record dispute, the Pentagon said it could find nothing in its record of Kerry’s medals to dispute them. However, the case presented by the Swiftees, and others (notably independent investigative journalist Thomas Lipscomb) who studied the records, presented information not contained in the decades old records. There was no follow-up by the Pentagon, nor media.

Wartime medals raise sensitivities. Some, who deserved to be recognized, never are or only later after independent investigations present evidence. Some, as many who received them will say, may not have been or felt by the recipient to be merited, for various reasons. Some, again as many will attest, result from particular commanders or politics, and may reflect “medal inflation.”

Defenders of Kerry refuse to recognize the case and evidence presented against Kerry’s war record: inflated, indeed self-inflated. Instead they cling to a documented as exaggerated and, even, mendacious self-presentation by Kerry, and the major media’s central role in avoiding its examination.

For a summary of the “unsubstantiated” charge by major media, see here.

It’s welcome that PBS’ ombudsman, at least, recognizes such Kerry-defense comments as gratuitous. That’s more than most in major media who continue to insert “unsubstantiated,” without substantiation, into their news articles. May we hope, next, that the major media may get around to actually being a “History Detective”?