For young wanna-be investigative reporters there are many lessons to come out of the CBS fiasco involving the discredited report questioning President Bush’s Vietnam-era National Guard service, aired on the network’s “60 Minutes Wednesday” program last fall.

But two of the more obvious would be these:

1) If you are going to take on the president of the United States, make damn sure you have your facts straight (the more so when the republic is in the midst of a volatile presidential campaign, and your reporting could change the course of history); and, 2) In any case, kids, do not try this at home alone, without proper adult supervision.

CBS and its veteran anchorman, Dan Rather, did not meet basic principles of Journalism 101 in respect to the use of confidential sources and proper authentication of damaging documents, according to independent investigators retained by the network to determine why the “60 Minutes” reporting came a cropper. As a result, after the report by former Associated Press executive Louis Boccardi and former Republican Attorney General Dick Thornburgh was made public on Monday, heads rolled – although not the biggest of heads, to no one’s surprise.

Cut loose from the CBS payroll were three well-paid news executives and a producer, the report citing their “myopic zeal” in rushing the bogus story on the air. Rather, who narrated the “60 Minutes” segment and then led CBS in its bunker-mentality denial of culpability once the piece came under fire, was not made to walk the plank, having had the foresight to get out ahead of the posse some months ago by announcing that he would semi-retire come March.

CBS President Andrew Heyward kept his job, as well, at least for now. Perhaps when the furor subsides he’ll quietly slip out of Dodge under cover of darkness, although you probably shouldn’t bet the farm on it.

Boccardi and Thornburgh suggested Rather and crew had “fallen in love with their story,” leaving no room for the possibility that they could have been wrong about Bush having received preferential treatment in the Guard because of his daddy’s clout in big-time politics.

Most observers might agree with that assessment, I suspect. Falling in love with a story, a common occupational hazard in the news business, can render a reporter or editor every bit as blind as can falling madly in love with that sweet little red-headed number next door.

However, if your average bear didn’t roll his eyes heavenward and smirk at the investigators’ assertion that they could detect no evidence of a political bias against Bush in the CBS program – despite the direct line to Bush’s Democratic opponent that the show’s producer apparently maintained – I’ll eat my dawg-eared University of Maine Black Bear hockey hat.

The independent review panel suggested that to conclude CBS was guilty of anti-Bush bias rather than just a series of profound errors would be to make the same mistake “60 Minutes Wednesday” made – drawing a conclusion without enough evidence. And I suppose they have a point there. But geez, Louise…

Apparently, key CBS staffers were sharp enough not to let examples of bias creep into their inter-office e-mails in the matter, since the investigators’ report presented nothing from those documents that could convey a politically biased mind-set. But if investigators could have been privy to newsroom conversations among staffers working the story might they easily have found something else entirely? The Poynter Institute down in Florida, which strives to keep journalists from wandering so far off the reservation they become a danger to themselves and the free world, offers this thought about off-hand conversations in the newsroom and their potential for disaster:

“Think about your newsroom’s e-mail exchanges or your offhand conversations about people and subjects you cover. What’s the tone? Is there sniping? Smart-ass comments? Nonstop cynicism?

“Now think about someone examining those e-mails closely and publishing those findings for all to see. What impressions might someone take away from that reading? The perception, or reality, of bias? Or your journalistic professionalism to even the most skeptical eye?”

Bias, or the perception of it, can be the third rail of journalism; the kiss of death to many a budding career. For once one’s work is perceived as biased, it remains perpetually suspect and can lead to what former Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee, in his memoir titled “A Good Life,” calls “kerosene journalism.”

In that genre of journalism, “reporters pour kerosene on whatever smoke they can find, before they determine what’s smoking, and why,” Bradlee wrote. “The flames that result can come from arson, not journalism…”

Columnist Kent Ward’s e-mail address is olddawg@bangordailynews.net