Retelling of the complex events that led to the airing of 60 Minutes II report of Bush's Texas National Guard years. The report focused on arguing that Bush received special treatment in going into the Guard and used documents called the Killian memos as evidence that contradicted Bush public statements on why his military service was curtained while nevertheless ending with an Honorable Discharge. The best part of the book is Mapes evaluation of the Viacom/CBS corporate investigative response to the situation. Mapes claims that the conservative blogosphere overwhelmed CBS with negative publicity. CBS had never before encountered in such a high volume of immediate criticism via the internet. Mapes claims that for the first time the blogs were taken seriously as problem of "perception", in the words of the CBS public relations branch. This is probably true as far as network television goes. But she hardly alone in being publically scapegoated and personally ruined in American history.
Mapes concedes that her investigative piece was flawed, as are all reports that are aired. She also concedes competitive pressure, a storm, Dan Rather baggage, overwork, reediting and ignorance of the source of the memos as contributing to rushing a story too soon to be broadcast. She acknowledges that she should have never allowed the story to be aired in the broadcast version. At the end of the book Mapes says that the criticism of her piece tore apart a legendary news organization for reporting a story many long believed to be true (p. 315). For as much as I enjoyed the clean style of the writing Mapes never sees clearly that her reporting was more than providing evidence to widely shared doubts. By the claim of preferential treatment she was implying that the memos were a smoking gun for Bush not having 'fulfilled' his National Guard duty. Mapes never does see that her evidence would have had to have been more than merely the unmasking the preferential treatment Bush supposedly received. She would have had to trump the honorable discharge to have any chance at winning support. Mapes was entering a highly volatile controversy (the Vietnam War question) which, incredibly, she seems to have not foreseen. Mapes did not explicitly state what her report was not-saying. That was the logic of her downfall. Index, appendix.