News scam

By letter to the editor

CBS is being used to broadcast false information to the public. Mr. Bob Schieffer claimed on Sunday's program "Face the Nation" that Republicans "cut off debate" on Iraq Senate resolutions. When his guest Mr. Trent Lott informed him that this was not the case, Mr. Schieffer countered that he was reporting what all the other media outlets were reporting, and "they can't all be wrong."

Mr. Schieffer claims to be a reporter, not a repeater, so I suggest he investigate the meaning of the word "cloture" in a dictionary, and then investigate which party proposed a motion of cloture in the US Senate last week, and which party voted to defeat it. Yes, they can indeed all be wrong: CBS is broadcasting a blatant untruth.

I demand that CBS investigate how this inversion of the facts got started, and why a CBS journalist in effect accused a guest of lying on the air for pointing it out. If CBS believes that journalism consists of echoing the reporting of others without question, to the point that its employees will claim on-air that a person who was actually involved in the event knows less than the sources it is repeating from, then this is scandalous.

I understand full well that the rules of the Senate are complex, and that on occasion the overt actions of various parties may be at odds with their actual intent, for example, opposing a resolution that one supports for the purpose of being able to ask for it to be amended and voted on again. I also understand that reasonable people may differ in their interpretation of even apparently simple events. Unfortunately, in this case the statements of Mr. Schieffer and others at CBS have been absolute and without qualification - "Republicans stopped debate". Given that cloture is clearly defined as the cutting-off of debate, and that Democrats proposed and voted for cloture, and Republicans voted against it, the statements of Mr. Schieffer are demonstrably untrue. He is either not telling the truth, or he has outsourced serious investigation to others who are themselves not telling the truth.

I look forward to seeing this deception,and the motivations behind it, exposed.

(name withheld by request)