For whatever reason, the original papers seen by the producer, Mary Mapes, were almost certainly planted forgeries – very clever ones. With the rest of the evidence and witnesses all stacked up, it made sense. So 60-Minutes aired the story just prior to the election. Then it all quickly came tumbling down with witnesses backing off, withdrawing their story and CBS withering under a storm of criticism, much of which no doubt came from the White House. The end result was that Dan Rather resigned from CBS after 44 years and Mapes and her team were either fired or dismissed.
The movie was filmed two years ago – before Donald Trump came on the scene as a Presidential candidate and before fake news and alternative facts became the favourite phrases of the Trump cohorts. Cate Blanchett is wonderful as Rather’s producer. Facing the tribunal set up by CBS in the wake of what the network felt was a PR nightmare but which many, including Rather, still believe was the truth, she finally gives an impassioned speech to its members –
Out story was about whether Bush fulfilled his service. Nobody wants to talk about that. They want to talk about fonts and forgeries and conspiracy theories because that’s what people do these days if they don’t like a story. They point and scream, they question the politics, your objectivity – hell, your basic humanity and they hope to God the truth gets lost in the scrum. And when it is finally over and they have kicked and shouted so loud, we can’t even remember what the point was.
How prophetic those words have turned out to be!
After Mary Mapes was fired, CBS won a Peabody Award for her earlier production of the 60-Minutes Report on the Abu Ghraib scandal. It was one of the most important news scoops of the year. Meanwhile all the official records of Bush Jnr’s time in the National Guard are sealed and locked away until 2050! Does that suggest something is rotten in the State of Texas?