PROVE IT!!!

I'm not the only one bringing this up, but it's still funny. Just how out of the mainstream are Ms. Mary Mapes' views, the former CBS producer who brought us Rather-Gate? In an interview on Good Morning America, she rather openly and without mincing words said it's not up to news agencies to verify stories. It's up to other people to prove her wrong. Sound like I'm making it up? Well, let me let Ms. Mapes explain, this coming courtesy of Newsbusters:

Mapes: "I'm perfectly willing to believe those documents are forgeries if there's proof that I haven't seen."

Ross: "But isn't it the other way around? Don't you have to prove they're authentic?"

Mapes: "Well, I think that's what critics of the story would say. I know more now than I did then and I think, I think they have not been proved to be false, yet."

Ross: "Have they proved to be authentic though? Isn't that really what journalists do?"

Mapes: "No, I don't think that's the standard."

You almost have to take a step back and let that sink in. The "standard" is not that stories have to be proven authentic. That's not the media's job. It's whoever wants to disprove the story's job. WOW.

The real question is not why she would say such a thing. She's proven quite delusional since she first produced the story, she and poor ole' Dan. What's the big question, and what others are asking is, is this the new journalistic standard? How many other journatlists think that's the proper way to treat facts and anonymous sources. Prove me wrong? What's next, I'm rubber, you're glue...?"

So yes, this is amusing, but at the same time, not terribly reassuring.