CBS violates its own Standards and Practice by altering online transcript of McCain interview

By: John Amato
CrooksandLiars
Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008

As C&L and many others have reported last night, CBS news had a huge scoop Tuesday night on John McCain, because he falsely claimed that the surge was responsible for the “Sunni Awakening in Anbar.” That is FALSE. The Sunnis changed positions before the surge was ever discussed so—McCain once again makes a major mistake on the one issue his campaign is running on—The Iraq war.

However, CBS probably violated its own rules (Standards and Practice) by altering the video of Katie Couric’s interview with McCain that left out his major blunder on this issue and then broadcast it on our airwaves. Here’s what happened. ON CBS Nightly News, Katie Couric started off the segment with question #3 of her interview:

Couric QUESTION #3: Senator McCain, Sen. Obama says, while the increased number of U.S. troops contributed to increased security in Iraq, he also credits the Sunni awakening and the Shiite government going after militias. And says that there might have been improved security even without the surge. What’s your response to that?

They then editied out his major gaffe on “the surge” and inserted his partial answer to question #1 and spliced in a partial answer to question # 3

(Continued here.)