Truth And Consequences

Re-enactment of past events is troubling enough, but CBS and anchorman Dan Rather last week faced charges that chill every newsman's heart: airing faked footage. The allegation, denied by CBS and so far unconfirmed, is that Rather's CBS Evening News unwittingly broadcast footage of war scenes in Afghanistan restaged or simulated for the cameras.

During the mid-1980s, Rather showed gripping scenes of battling troops and suffering civilians, most photographed by freelance cameraman Mike Hoover, 45. The images won CBS an award for news coverage. But the New York Post, citing sources in the U.S., Europe and Asia, said some scenes were fabricated. CBS officials said they believed the film was authentic but were looking into the charges. Among the Post's allegations:

-- In broadcasts in November 1984, Rather introduced videotape purporting to show mujahedin rebels blowing up electric-power pylons in the "largest sabotage operation of the war." According to the Post, a former Afghan rebel named Etabari, who was Hoover's translator, said the photographer arrived twelve days after the event and persuaded rebels to restage the incident.

-- Again in 1984, Rather narrated a segment claiming to depict 4,000 Afghans fleeing their villages near Kabul out of fear of Soviet attacks. Etabari told the Post that the film was shot miles away at the Afghan-Pakistani border.

-- Another segment supposedly showed rebels stalking government guards and blowing up a mine. The Post says Etabari claims the footage was faked by Hoover at a camp in Pakistan. The Post adds that CBS in 1987 aired a tape of an exploding red toy and described it as a bomb planted by Soviet soldiers. An unidentified BBC producer called the "bomb" a phony device made for Hoover. Whatever the truth of these allegations, they are a reminder that skepticism is an editor's best -- and perhaps most reliable -- friend.