In a story rich with irony, the Los Angeles Times reported last night -- before NBC made the Al-Qaqaa story moot -- that CBS had the story first but couldn't nail it down before the New York Times published it:

CBS News' "60 Minutes" landed a major story last week: the disappearance in Iraq of a large cache of explosives supposed to be under guard by the U.S. military. But the network nevertheless found itself in the journalistically awkward position of playing catch-up when it wasn't able to get the piece on the air as soon as its reporting partner, the New York Times, which made the report its lead story Monday.

Breaking the story would have been a welcome coup for CBS News as it seeks to emerge from the cloud cast by its use of unverified documents in reporting on President Bush's 1970s military service.

Unnoticed in all of the attention given to the NY Times was CBS's broadcast of essentially the same story, based on its own reporting, which turned out to be just as incomplete as the NYT. The Gray Lady graciously gave its partner some of the credit/blame:

Jeff Fager, executive producer of the Sunday edition of "60 Minutes," said in a statement that "our plan was to run the story on [Oct.] 31, but it became clear that it wouldn't hold, so the decision was made for the Times to run it."

"That's what happened, and it was only fair to credit them," said Lawrie Mifflin, executive director of television and radio for the New York Times.

I suppose that Andrew Heyward felt appreciative of the gesture yesterday morning. Today, he must be grateful that his network didn't break the story as planned, as it would have forced Viacom to step in once again to rescue its once-golden news division from complete ignominy. Isn't it funny how congratulatory fluff pieces like this one at the LA Times can so quickly become journalistic autopsies?

In the future, the grown-ups should make CBS and the New York Times sit apart from each other. It's obvious that they can't work together without someone getting hurt.

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» Found in Translation... from My Sandmen
Ed at Captain's Quarter's points out that CBS was at it again. Not only did they too run with this bogus story about lootedd weapons in Iraq, but they were producing another 60 minutes hit piece based on it. [Read More]

Tracked on October 26, 2004 9:25 AM

» Yet Another Journalistic Oops. from The Sundries Shack
It appears that again the New York Times and John Kerry have stuck their feet squarely in their mouths, this time over explosives in Iraq. The NYT reported yesterday that Iraqi authorities reported 380 tons of missing high-explosives from a facility... [Read More]

Tracked on October 26, 2004 9:30 AM

» Found in Translation... from My Sandmen
Repaired Link. [Read More]

Tracked on October 26, 2004 9:58 AM

» NY Times Story on Al QaQaa if Full of CaCa from Infidel Cowboy
Via Drudge, we discover that Kerry's stooges in the MSM were breathless with excitement about this New York Times report indicating that 380 tons of weapons disappeared in Iraq: **ABCNEWS Mentioned The Iraq Explosives Depot At Least 4 Times **CBSNEWS... [Read More]

Tracked on October 26, 2004 10:27 AM

» NY Times Story on Al QaQaa if Full of CaCa from Infidel Cowboy
Via Drudge, we discover that Kerry's stooges in the MSM were breathless with excitement about this New York Times report indicating that 380 tons of weapons disappeared in Iraq: **ABCNEWS Mentioned The Iraq Explosives Depot At Least 4 Times **CBSNEWS... [Read More]

Tracked on October 26, 2004 10:27 AM

» Alright, I'll bite: missing explosives pseudo-scan from INCITE
If you haven't yet heard about the missing Iraqi explosives flap which the NYT first reported on Monday, you might want to think about leaving your bomb shelter for fresh air a little more often. [Read More]

Tracked on October 27, 2004 8:08 AM