So where does Guard story go from here?

By MICHAEL J. BUGEJA
SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE
AMES, Iowa -- As director of a school of journalism, I am increasingly at a loss on how to teach aspiring journalists about story follow-ups in the wake of poor reporting by national news media during a politically charged news cycle.
My latest dilemma concerns reports of a possible hoax in memos said to have been written by George W. Bush's commanding officer during the president's Air National Guard service in Texas. Some sources maintain the memos' formatting, typeface and other characteristics suggest that they were composed with Microsoft Word rather than on a 1970s-era typewriter.
Still others say that is not so.
Regardless, those memos were aired recently by "60 Minutes," a show that has one of the best authenticity records in broadcast news. But that record was established in a different media environment, one in which CBS News would publicly follow up with an investigation at the mere mention of the word hoax.
Scenarios
Here are a few scenarios of where we are:
Scenario A: It is possible that the memos are authentic.
Scenario B: It is possible that the memos are authentic but what they allege is false.
Scenario C: It is possible that the memos are fabricated but what they allege is true.
Scenario D: It is possible that the memos are fabricated and that what they allege is false.
CBS News and all other major news organizations are considering only the first possibility. By dismissing Scenarios B through D, they are missing possibly bigger stories and, in the case of Scenarios C and D, ones potentially as serious as Watergate if hoax letters were planted by political operatives.
Of course, the likelihood of that is slim, but nonetheless worth pursuing in the interests of fair, balanced coverage, which Fox News says it embraces and which "60 Minutes" claims to have possessed for decades now.
Which news organization, if any, these days is consistently providing fair, balanced coverage, especially on stories demanding follow-up?
Case in point: Fair, balanced coverage of news would have informed the public about bizarre reports concerning Marine Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun, a translator with the First Expeditionary Force in Iraq. In late June, news organizations depicted a blindfolded Hassoun being held by terrorists brandishing a sword over his head. Then those news organizations informed the public that Hassoun had been beheaded. But then, in early July, Hassoun emerged in his native Lebanon, reporting to the U.S. Embassy in Beirut. Eventually he was returned to the United States and, at last word, was cooperating with the military.
End of story.
What concerns me is how the story ended.
At a press briefing July 8, Lawrence Di Rita, principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, said, "Almost nothing that's been reported about Corporal Hassoun has been accurate. ... So we're just going to stick to what we've told you, which is, he is now in U.S. control at the embassy compound in Lebanon.
"That's all we're able to confirm. And beyond that, time will tell. We'll let it sort itself out."
Months later, the public is still waiting for the story "to sort itself out."
The government is not to blame. News organizations are because they failed to follow up.
Four choices
Again, here are some possible scenarios:
Scenario A: Hassoun was kidnapped, released; and the media accurately informed the public.
Scenario B: Hassoun was kidnapped, released; but the media misinformed the public.
Scenario C: Hassoun was not kidnapped; but the media accurately informed the public.
Scenario D: Hassoun was not kidnapped and the media misinformed the public.
Again, scenarios B through D are newsworthy, just as they are in the Bush case involving his military service, or the lack of it.
As for the type font at the center of the controversy and the possibility that Bush's commander, Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, was using a sophisticated typewriter capable of Microsoft-like formatting, "60 Minutes" has chosen, simply, to stand by its report.
Neither will it recheck its story. According to a statement, "(N)o internal investigation is under way at CBS News nor is one planned. We have complete confidence in our reporting. ..." Indeed, CBS also has stated "with absolute certainty" that the memos could have been produced on typewriters available in the 1970s.
That's not confidence. That's arrogance.
CBS should investigate allegations of a hoax by requesting via the Freedom of Information Act all memos by Killian written during 1972-73, analyzing them to see if they had similar formatting and superscript. If so, he probably had access to an expensive typewriter. If not, something may really be amiss.
I am training journalists to be skeptics, to follow up on stories and to investigate any allegation of a hoax. When reporters bust hoaxes, they not only identify those who would manipulate the news media; they also usually uncover a bigger story.
By not investigating allegations of a hoax, CBS News, especially, is risking that the bigger story may end up being itself.
XBugeja, a former journalism professor at Ohio University, is director of the Greenlee School of Journalism at Iowa State University.