On Oct 28, 6:13 pm, "John W. Kennedy"  wrote:
> David E. Powell wrote:
> > On Oct 26, 10:45 am, "John W. Kennedy"
 wrote:
> >> David E. Powell wrote:
> >>> On Oct 23, 4:08 pm, "John W. Kennedy"
 wrote:
> >>>> David E. Powell wrote:
> >>>>> Dude, Fox News hardly has a monopoly even if they
got caught in some
> >>>>> fabrication. Actually fake documents sounds more
like the CBS story
> >>>>> that left Dan Rather in trouble.
> >>>> The only /proven/ falsifications in that affair were
those coming from
> >>>> the ignorant (or lying) "experts" who
claimed that typewriters available
> >>>> in the 70s couldn't do proportional type. Hell, my
father's secretary
> >>>> had a proportional-spacing typewriter in the 50s.
> >>> Check out the comparison, font for font, with a modern
computer using
> >>> MS software at this link:
> >> That has nothing to do with the fact that these people
/provably/ either
> >> lied about 70s typewriters or lied about being typewriter experts.
>
> > How rare was any sort of typewriter that did that, compared to common
> > office models then?
>
> I have no idea, but they were regular IBM catalog items.

However, even accepting that premise, I do not believe they were
anywhere near as common as manual typewriters, and have yet to see any
analysis of how their type set and font compare to the modern. If
there was an argument to be made that they compared favorably, given
the stakes invested in the story, I would have expected to see that.
The only reason I can see that CBS did not release anything like that
given said circumstance is that it would not be favorable to CBS.

More font analysis between period typewriters and the documents is
at:

http://www.lesjones.com/posts/cat_media_behaving_badly.shtml

DefeatJohnJohn slogged through the IBM Selectric Composer manual.
Conclusion? It could make superscripts and subscripts, but couldn't
reduce the size of the superscripted and subscripted letters, as seen
in the CBS Killian document.

(Image at site)

WizBang points to the Selectric Typewriter Museum, which has this to
say:

For those who want my opinion...the documents appear to be done in
Word, and then copied repeatedly to make them "fuzzy". They use
features that were not available on office typewriters the 1970s,
specifically the combination of proportional spacing with superscript
font. The IBM Executive has proportional spacing, but used fixed type
bars. The Selectric has changeable type elements, but fixed spacing
(some models could be selected at 10 or 12 pitch, but that's all). The
Selectric Composer was not an office typewriter, but apparently did
use proportional spacing. These were very expensive machines, used by
printing offices, not administrative offices.

...

>From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rathergate#Authentication_issues

Authentication issues
Main article: Killian documents authenticity issues
No generally recognized document experts have positively authenticated
the memos. Since CBS used only faxed and photocopied duplicates,
authentication to professional standards is impossible, regardless of
the provenance of the originals.

Document experts have challenged the authenticity of the documents as
photocopies of valid originals on a variety of grounds ranging from
anachronisms of their typography, their quick reproducibility using
modern technology, and to errors in their content and style.[69]

Other commentators disagreed. Dr. David Hailey, director of the
Interactive Media Research Labs in the English Department of Utah
State University has argued that the Killian documents were produced
on an unspecified typewriter, though he does not assert their
authenticity.[70]

The CBS independent panel report did not specifically take up the
question of whether the documents were forgeries, but retained a
document expert, Peter Tytell, who concluded the documents used by CBS
were most likely produced using modern technology.[71]

Tytell concluded ... that (i) the relevant portion of the Superscript
Exemplar was produced on an Olympia manual typewriter, (ii) the
Killian documents were not produced on an Olympia manual typewriter
and (iii) the Killian documents were produced on a computer in Times
New Roman typestyle [and that] the Killian documents were not produced
on a typewriter in the early 1970s and therefore were not authentic.
For a detailed analysis of these issues, see Killian documents
authenticity issues.



> > Computerized typewriters were not the majority by
> > any means.
>
> Computers have nothing to do with it; these were just improved electric
> typewriters that did their magic with ordinary cams, gears, and levers.
> As I said, my father's secretary had one back in the 50s.

OK. So this would have been electronic switches, etc. rather than a
modern computer. Still, I would want to see a comparison of fonts to
confirm if such a machine could have bene used to type them, and if so
how to prove their authenticity. Given the resporces CBS has at its
command, I would think that if this was possible they would have done
it and been very public about it given the stakes.

The question I don't recall anyone out in the media following up on
regarding the story was that whoever might have been involved in
feeding CBS the documents, if they were badly done forgeries, ended up
leaving CBS to hang out to dry on the bad info. I'd think the media
would want to look at that so as to watch for similar moves in the
future from sources with faulty info.

> --
> John W. Kennedy
> "There are those who argue that everything breaks even in this old dump
> of a world of ours. I suppose these ginks who argue that way hold that
> because the rich man gets ice in the summer and the poor man gets it in
> the winter things are breaking even for both. Maybe so, but I'll swear I
> can't see it that way."
>    -- The last words of Bat Masterson- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
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