The New York Times reports that after an independent panel published its findings on CBS’ use of unverified documents …
… in the Rathergate scandal, several blogs noted that the posting of the report had been altered two days after it was placed on the Web.
From the New York Times:
“…But several Web sites noted that the posting of the report had been altered two days after it was placed on the Web page.
“I’d written a couple of pieces on the document earlier in the week,” said Ernest Miller, a fellow of the Information Society Project at Yale Law School who writes a popular blog on Internet law (www.corante.com/importance). “Then I noticed that I couldn’t copy and paste from the report as I did in days past.”
With the help of Seth Finkelstein, a programmer and fellow blogger (sethf.com/infothought/blog/), Mr. Miller found that the document’s encryption settings had been changed and, as a result, the text could not be copied.
Anyone who downloaded the panel’s report from either the CBS News servers or those of the law firm would have to retype any passages they wished to include in, say, an e-mail message or a blog post.”
Steve Rubel is a PR strategist with nearly 16 years of public relations, marketing, journalism and communications experience. He currently serves as a Senior Vice President with Edelman, the largest independent global PR firm.
He authors the Micro Persuasion weblog, which tracks how blogs and participatory journalism are changing the public relations practice.
