Murrow’s mantle

Editor & Publisher reports that the December issue of Vanity Fair will carry an excerpt from Mary Mapes’s forthcomnig book on Rathergate. Like Joseph Wilson’s The Politics of Truth, Mapes’s book has a title beyond satire: Truth and Duty. Amazon had previously posted a chapter of the book (now removed) from which the Vanity Fair excerpt seems largely to be derived.

Editor & Publisher notes:

Throughout the article, Vanity Fair frequently cuts away for bracketed response from others involved in the episode who answer or rebut some of her charges.

At one point, for example, she asserts that CBS News chief Andrew Heyward said that if the bloggers could come up with “lousy analysts” to attack the authenticity of the memos CBS could find its own “lousy analysts.” In an e-mail to Vanity Fair, Heyward denied this.

The Vanity Fair excerpt refers to Power Line and the other sites that questioned the authenticity of the 60 Minutes II documents on September 9 as “far-right.” I wish Vanity Fair had afforded us and the other sites the opportunity to comment on that.

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