The report issued this week by CBS News concerning the controversial 60 Minutes Wednesday broadcast last September 8 relating to George W. Bush’s service in the Texas Air National Guard closes one difficult chapter in journalistic history. Nevertheless, it continues to fuel the debate about the mainstream media and its methods and points up the role of blogs and other internet media outlets.

The 60 Minutes Wednesday segment hosted by Dan Rather, produced in the midst of a heated presidential race, claimed, based on four documents allegedly taken from the files of Mr. Bush’s now deceased commander in the Guard, that Mr. Bush had disobeyed a direct order and had received preferential treatment. The underlying documents were published on the CBS News website and their authenticity was questioned almost immediately on the internet. A number of handwriting experts expressed a suspicion of recent fabrication on Microsoft Word, rather than production on an early 1970’s typewriter. In addition, the commander’s family believed that it was unlikely that he had written the reports in the files. Within a few days, many major news outlets like the Washington Post wrote highly critical stories about the 60 Minutes report.

CBS, and particularly, Dan Rather, initially went into a defensive crouch. At first, they dismissed criticism as being by “political operatives” and then asserted that the report was substantially true even if the underlying documents could not be authenticated. Eventually, 12 days after the report was issued, CBS caved, with Dan Rather issuing an on-air apology. Perhaps not coincidentally, Mr. Rather recently announced his retirement in March as anchor of the CBS Evening News.

Eventually, CBS retained Louis Boccardi, a former Associated Press executive, and Dick Thornburg, a former Attorney General, to issue a report on the 60 Minutes story. The report, which led to the termination of four senior CBS employees, faulted the network for a “myopic zeal” to be the first to broadcast the report and said that this excessive enthusiasm caused the network to ignore journalistic standards and to produce a story that was not fair and accurate.

The most controversial part of the report was that it did not find that a political agenda motivated the timing or the content of the 60 Minutes Wednesday segment. Many conservatives take it as an act of faith that CBS, and in particular Dan Rather, is biased against them. Mr. Rather famously got into a confrontation with George H.W. Bush in 1988 and 60 Minutes has not been hesitant to broadcast reports, such as the interview with national security adviser Richard Clarke last year, that the current Bush Administration regards as hit pieces. I personally find it hard to believe that the National Guard piece was not significantly driven by a desire to help John Kerry and hurt George W. Bush.

This may be where the blogosphere, as it likes to call itself, comes in. While it is perhaps true that news bias is in the eye of the beholder (for example, there are leftists who consider The New York Times to be conservative), bloggers and internet forums are playing an increasingly important role in keeping the mainstream media on its toes. For example, factchecking and rebuttal can be accomplished almost instantaneously. Of course, most internet writers are purveyors of opinion and are not attempting to be objective, and few of them are subject to any editing process. Still, as CBS found out, the time has now passed when unverified information can be presented unchallenged, even by the most august institution.