Nightline just pointed out something interesting - amid all the charges of who is stingy and who is generous, the other Muslem countries qualify as stingy by any measure.

The Scandal that wouldn't die. The Columbia Graduate School of Journalism has a piece defending CBS and Dan Rather's use of the forged memos. Somehow such a prestegious school completely misunderstood the typographic proof that the documents are forged.

This is what they are teaching in journalism schools now? Among the problems in the article:

They completely misunderstand the significance of reproducing the memos using the default settings for Microsoft Word. While individual features of the memos can be argued, the idea that someone would use rare and expensive typesetting equipment to type a private memo and that it would happen to match Word's default is inconceivable. They also gloss over Killian's secretary's statement that she did all of Killian's typing and that she never used any of this equipment.

Later they mention David Hailey who perported to have recreated the memos on a typewriter but who actually used a typewriter-inspired computer font.

They also misunderstand when to be sceptical. The source of the memos and the story was Bill Burkett. They say about Burkett's web postings:

[...] Burkett says corporations will strip Iraq, obliquely compares Bush to Napoleon and “Adolf,” and calls for the defense of constitutional principles. These supposedly damning rants, alluded to in USA Today, The Washington Post, and elsewhere, are not really any loonier than an essay in Harper’s or a conversation at a Democratic party gathering during the campaign. While Burkett doesn’t like the president, many people in America share that opinion, and the sentiment doesn’t make him a forger.

It may not make him a forger but it neither does it paint him as a neutral citizen who is only interested in the truth.

Burkett was making an extrordinary claim, contradicting four other officers. That means that his claims have to be verified. The memos were supposed to have provided this verification but Burkett lied about their source and the form, as mentioned before, is too close to MS Word's default to be accepted without further documentation.

Columbia should be teaching these kids how to do it right. That includes dropping a story if you cannot substantiate it no matter how much you believe it.