Bad Idea

CNN:

A Republican congressman has asked for an investigation into CBS News' use of "apparently forged documents concerning the service record of President George W. Bush." Rep. Christopher Cox, of California, delivered a letter Wednesday to the chairman of the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and Internet saying CBS used the memos "to unfairly damage [Bush's] reputation and influence the outcome of the 2004 presidential election." "Despite the growing abundance of evidence that CBS News has aided and abetted fraud, the network has declined to reveal the source of the disputed documents," Cox said.

Getting the Federal Government involved in this is a horrible, no good, very bad idea. I believe that the media will be able to police itself in this. If it cannot, well, we have bigger problems than a Government investigation can solve. Basically, that would mean that the media as a whole is absolutely untrustworthy, the 1st amendment was a bad idea and, in a sense, democracy cannot work. If laws were broken, then government courts and prosecuters can be used to litigate this matter, but as to a congressional investigation all that would do is place a very chilling hand on free speech. The press will make mistakes. Independant researchers and other press organizations can, and will, as this episode has proved, find and expose those mistakes to the public. The public can then, with this knowledge, evaluate the trustworthiness of the various news services and using the power of the marketplace, reward and punish them as they see fit. No congressional intervention needed.