So CBS has finally admitted that the documents on Bush’s National Guard service are of questionable veracity (i.e. they’re fake). One of CBS anchorman Dan Rather’s sources for the story, former guardsman Bill Burkett, has acknowledged lying about the origins of the memos. Rather issued a personal apology to the American people.

The response from the journalistic community has been predictable. Articles citing only “critics” speculate about Rather’s possible resignation. There seems to be a certain glee in the dogged coverage of rival news outlets, as there was in the coverage of The New York Times and USA Today during their respective Jayson Blair and Jack Kelley scandals.

CBS obviously made a terrible error in judgment. Rushing the process on what was sure to be a controversial story is bad enough, but, even in that rush, it had ample warning from experts about the problems with the documents. By most accounts, they are not even particularly sophisticated forgeries — one person claimed to have retyped the memo in Microsoft Word and found it matched exactly.

If we’ve learned anything from these problems in the past, it is that some heads are going to roll. It appears as if Mary Mapes, the producer behind the story, is the one being offered up as a sacrifice. That’s unfortunate, because she is one of the best investigative producers in television journalism, most recently breaking the Abu Ghraib story. Others at CBS seem to be jockeying behind the scenes to avoid the immediate fallout of the situation. And they’re right to do so.

Once CBS prostrates itself in front of the nation, it need never think on this again. None of the major cases of fabrication and shoddy journalistic oversight have had a serious impact on the reputations of news outlets.

Stephen Glass, the supposedly notorious fabulist for The New Republic and various other publications, wrote a book that completely bombed. Jayson Blair wrote one, too, and it did even worse. The public doesn’t care much about these problems as soon as they leave the news.

CBS needs to fire some people, restate how important journalistic integrity is to its institution and then stop talking about it. America cares about this now, but it won’t in two months. Dan Rather doesn’t need to resign — he was obviously just sticking up for his producers and writers.

These events are unavoidable given the competitive atmosphere and individualistic nature of journalism, but, thus far, media outlets have dealt with them effectively. CBS is unlikely to do any differently.