CBS fires four news staff over Bush military report

David Bauder, New York

The network fired Mary Mapes, producer of the report; Josh Howard, executive producer of 60 Minutes Wednesday; Mr Howard’s top deputy Mary Murphy; and senior vice-president Betsy West.

Dan Rather, who narrated the report, announced in November that he was stepping down as anchorman of the CBS Evening News, but insisted the timing had nothing to do with the investigation.

Mr Rather “asked the right questions initially, but then made the same errors of credulity and over-enthusiasm that beset many of his colleagues in regard to this segment,” top CBS executive Leslie Moonves said.

CBS News president Andrew Heyward kept his job. The panel said Mr Heyward had explicitly urged caution before the report aired.

The report cited documents purported to be from one of Mr Bush’s commanders in the Texas Air National Guard. The documents say the commander, the late Lieutenant Colonel Jerry Killian, ordered Mr Bush to take a medical exam and the future president did not.

Questions were quickly raised about the memos, with some document

experts saying they appeared to be written on a computer not invented at the time they were supposedly written.