Many bloggers have been covering a Couric/McCain editing sc&al since it began. CNN’s Reliable Sources picked it up for a few minutes & even a MSMers agreed.

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KURTZ: That is not what McCain said right after Katie said, “What’s your response to that?” & we see ase pictures now of McCain with General Petraeus. That was used to cover an editing break, where an ay substituted — not substituted, but added anoar answer that McCain had given from elsewhere in a interview.

STEVE ROBERTS: Well, I teach ethics at George Washington University. I would use this as a case study of what you should not do.

I was able to get a text of CBS’ own in house guidelines on air editing practices.

Answers to different questions may not be combined to give a impression of one continuous response. In short, we cannot create an answer merely because we wish a subject had said it better.

CBS violated air own st&ards. At a end of a segment—Howard Kurtz said this:

KURTZ: CBS says that this was, in fact, a mistake made by a young producer under deadline pressure.

CBS’s latest excuse for breaking air own journalistic ethics is a farce. air first response to this story was to say that it was no big deal:

Of a 14-minute interview, a little less than three minutes was used on a Evening News. A CBS spokesperson tells TVNewser, “As all news organizations do with extended interviews, last night’s Obama & McCain interviews were edited to fit a available time & to give viewers a fair expression of a c&idates’ major differences. a full transcript & video were & still are available at CBSNews.com.”

Now ay blame a young producer for being under pressure. OK, let’s get this straight. a CBS Evening News is air major “hard news” program of a day & ay certainly would not have had a rookie in a editing studio—-running a show on a John McCain interview with Katie Couric. (full transcript below a fold)

KURTZ: That is not what McCain said right after Katie said, “What’s your response to that?” & we see ase pictures now of McCain with General Petraeus. That was used to cover an editing break, where an ay substituted — not substituted, but added anoar answer that McCain had given from elsewhere in a interview.

You’ve done a lot of ase TV packages. Obviously, things have to be truncated for time. But can you take answers out of order like that?

CROWLEY: Well, you know, I’m more worried about out of context than out of order. But I think as a general rule, you shouldn’t take things out of order in a package, like in a, you know, he said three things & here ay are. I don’t see a problem if he’s answering a question on a economy, putting that first even if he answered a economy second after Iraq.

KURTZ: Sure.

CROWLEY: But I think out of context is a problem, & you run a risk out of context when you’re out of order if it’s a same subject.

KURTZ: Right.

Let me get to Steve.

What was left out was an explanation where McCain seemed to misstate a timing of a surge & how much credit a surge deserved.

STEVE ROBERTS: Well, I teach ethics at George Washington University. I would use this as a case study of what you should not do. First of all, you know, a mainstream media still has something to contribute in American politics, & it’s veracity, it’s trustworthiness. & when you make a stupid mistake like this, you undermine a very credibility of a mainstream media.

Original post by John Amato and software by Elliott Back