Making A "Federal" Case

By: Vaughn Ververs
Topics: CBS News Issues

NRO media blogger Stephen Spruiell has an issue with this story that appeared on CBSNews.com and was the lead item for much of the day. He says the story "misquotes" President Bush in the story's opening, which reads:

President Bush Tuesday took responsibility for government failures in dealing with Hurricane Katrina and said the disaster raised broader questions about the government's ability to respond to natural disasters as well as terror attacks.

Spruiell writes:

Read on and you see that Bush actually said, "Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government, and to the extent that the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility."

It's admirable the Bush is taking responsibility for FEMA's failures. But he made very clear that this breakdown occurred on the federal, state and local level. Meanwhile, CBS News rushes to pin all the blame on Bush. Why?

I asked Michael Sims, director of News and Operations for CBSNews.com, to answer the question and here's his response:

Although our story clearly stated "Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government, and to the extent that the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility," we could have been more clear higher up in the piece, adding the word "federal" before "government."

Seems to me like a rather semantic issue but one illustrative of the current dialogue. Spruiell says leaving the word "federal" out of the story's lede was an intentional attempt to mischaracterize Bush. Sims admits outright they should have been clearer. But journalistically, how does journalism-guardian Spruiell know with such certainty that CBSNews.com intentionally piled on Bush?

What do you think?

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by egriff1 September 15, 2005 1:49 PM EDT: The damage has been done.The initial nuanced phases will always stay in the minds of listeners and be the first thoughts recalled, no matter the follow up, when the issue returns. Apologies are thoughtful, but are a sad substitute for the truth. egriffin; Reply to this comment


by mattcat25 September 15, 2005 1:04 PM EDT: Over the last 6 years George W. Bush has taken a slipshod attitude towards every issue facing our country. Bush and the right wing have emerged as being better suited to managing public relation posture then to actually manage the government. Katrina was a natural disaster that no one (most everyone) could really anticipate the extent of damage and effects. The fact remains that there were two disasters in the Gulf, the Hurricane and then the Federal response.; Reply to this comment


by egriff1 September 15, 2005 1:02 PM EDT: The damage has been done.The initial nuanced phases will always stay in the minds of listeners and be the first thoughts recalled, no matter the follow up, when the issue returns. Apologies are thoughtful, but are a sad substitute for the truth. egriffin; Reply to this comment


by jamesychen September 14, 2005 10:14 PM EDT: Virutually all of the media outlets I have seen left out the word \"federal\" from the headline. Reuters\' story headline is typical: \"Bush - I Take Responsibility\".; Reply to this comment


by sspruiell September 14, 2005 9:22 PM EDT: My response to this post is up here: http://media.nationalreview.com/076354.asp Thanks for looking into this Vaughn.; Reply to this comment