 |
|
||
|
|
|
 Rather Bites the Hand That Stabbed HimPosted on Sep 23, 2007WASHINGTON—You’ve heard about Dan Rather’s $70 million lawsuit against his former bosses at CBS, and you’re perplexed. I can almost hear you telling one another, just as Rather once told the nation, “We don’t know whether to wind a watch or bark at the moon.” Well, after reading the court papers (and dusting off a couple of appropriate Ratherisms), I think you can safely “bet the double-wide” that the money is less important to Rather than the sight of certain network executives “standing up like they got stuck with hat pins.” And he might well get his way. It’s too easy to dismiss Rather’s they-done-me-wrong lawsuit, filed last week in New York, as nothing more than a bitter parting shot from a legendary broadcaster whose Emmy-winning, Peabody-winning, everything-winning career with CBS ended under a cloud. Make no mistake, he does intend to settle a few scores. But I hope the brass at CBS and its parent company, Viacom, aren’t dismissing his lawsuit as a mere tantrum. That would be a mistake. Rather’s suit gives his account of how he came to report on the since-discontinued “60 Minutes II” that a young George W. Bush not only relied on political connections to get into the Texas Air National Guard—which allowed him to avoid serving in Vietnam—but also got special treatment while he served. Bush escaped punishment for infractions and indiscipline that could have landed a less well-connected guardsman in the brig, the story said. The story was based in part on a batch of Nixon-era documents. When Internet bloggers noticed that the documents didn’t look as if they had been produced by Nixon-era technology—that in fact they looked as if they might have been written using Microsoft Word software—the story, and Rather’s career, started to fall apart. Advertisement Rather says he was so busy with other assignments that he had little to do with reporting the story. This doesn’t fit the globetrotting-gumshoe image that network anchors like to project, but it’s the reality of TV news—high-priced talent is stretched way too thin to get bogged down in the details of every story. The suit says that Rather still believes the documents are probably genuine. I’m not sure about that—come on, Dan, they’re “shakier than cafeteria Jell-O”—but I do think he makes a valid argument about the larger issue: The point of the story, that Bush got kid-gloves treatment while he was avoiding Vietnam in the Air National Guard, didn’t rest entirely on the disputed documents. But CBS never tried to defend the story’s central thrust. The network backed off, ordered Rather to apologize on-air, eventually fired him as anchor of the “CBS Evening News,” restricted his airtime on “60 Minutes,” and finally let his contract expire. Rather says he offered to hire a private investigator to do more reporting on the story. CBS hired its own investigator, the suit says, but ignored his findings that the documents “were most likely authentic, and that the underlying story was certainly accurate.” Why did CBS back off? Rather contends it was because Sumner Redstone, chairman of Viacom, wanted to avoid being at loggerheads with the Bush administration. Stories critical of the administration, such as the Abu Ghraib scandal—which Rather broke on “60 Minutes II”—got unusual attention from nervous higher-ups, Rather’s suit says. Anyone could use an extra $70 million, but Dan Rather needs it less than most of us; his base salary at CBS was $6 million a year. What he’s really doing with his headline-grabbing lawsuit, aside from calling out some former bosses and colleagues who he believes betrayed him, is making a point about the relationship between journalism and government—and how and why that relationship has changed. The point is that when the next set of Pentagon Papers comes down the pike, how will our corporatized news media react? If such documents happened to be delivered into the hands of CBS News, would Redstone do what the Sulzbergers of The New York Times and the Grahams of The Washington Post did back in the early 1970s? Would he put everything he owns at risk, in service of the public’s right to know? That hope is “as thin as November ice,” Rather would say. Or maybe “as thin as turnip soup.” Take your pick. © 2007, Washington Post Writers Group Previous item: Rather Bites the Hand That Stabbed Him Next item: Rather Bites the Hand That Stabbed Him Elsewhere: . CommentsAre you a Truthdig member yet? Login now, or register with Truthdig. Add Your Comment
|
HOME|Digs|Reports|Arts & Culture|Uncovered|Ear to the Ground|A/V Booth|Cartoons
Tags|Bazaar|Podcast|About Us|Contact Us|User Agreement|Privacy Policy|FAQ: Comments and Moderation 
A Progressive Journal of News and Opinion. Editor, Robert Scheer. Publisher, Zuade Kaufman.
Copyright © 2009 Truthdig, L.L.C. All rights reserved. |
Delay Tactics Worked for Kennedy
Email
Print
Share
BlinkList
del.icio.us
Digg
Facebook
Fark
Furl
Google
LinkedIn
Mixx
MySpace
NewsVine
NewsTrust
Propeller
Reddit
SphereIt
StumbleUpon
Technorati
TwitThis
YahooMyWeb
YahooBuzz
By bc41, September 27, 2007 at 12:12 am #
Dan Rather leaves behind a huge list of accomplishment besides his news program including 20 or so years of the “60 Minutes” show which the Republicans were not to hip to when it came out. I’m not concerned if Rather made a mistake or did not but I do know that he feared no president and was a “burr in the saddle” to Nixon. I have heard before that Congressman’s sons go off to do the patriotic thing then disappear from service, strings pulled, with a document of timed served. There was no excuse to leave that I know of that wasn’t death or dying. I joined the Guard about the same time as the president, in the 70’s, and did the full 6 year term. The war then was about as popular as the Iraq war now but there was a draft then and uncertainty beyond as some waited for it to take them. If you did not attend meetings equal to a full weekend including a friday night (MUTA 5), then (definently here in California) you would be sent back to basic training and then to a tour in Vietnam in the infantry until a two year service in the active army was completed. Believe me, no one missed meetings without a careful arrangement of alternate time if you were sick, sick only. I would sometimes wake in the night to recall absolutely when the next meeting was. One guy did go, so it was not a bluff. They always told me, save your pay receipts in case your records get lost. I still have them.
Report thisBy JM, September 25, 2007 at 10:44 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
I appreciate your thoughts on this interesting development in the saga that never seems to end, and the Dan Ratherisms that you have scattered about your piece. I certainly agree with the point that you made towards the end about government and media being too buddy buddy. However at the same time, is it not the responsibility of news producers and managing editors to determine what material is salacious and what is groundbreaking? Of course what Rather had reported on seemed somewhat groundbreaking, but at the same time it was well known that Bush, and Vice President Cheney, had not served in the military. It then seemed that CBS was just reproducing previous information, trying to make a campaign issue. I also found it interesting that you said how will our corporatized news media react? But has the news media not reported important topics like Mark Foley, the DC Madam and Walter Reed medical hospital. All of which involved very high profile political figures in some way, shape or form. However, I do see the skepticism you have, as I certainly have had, when reporters are pawns in any political figures media strategy, as the lead up to Iraq showed.
Report thisBy TT, September 25, 2007 at 8:55 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
I’d like to know how Dan expects to get a fair trial. It seems that law makes no difference any more unless it favors the elite. Even though Dan was rich, as you pointed out, he is no match for these judges who are owned and operated by Westinghouse & General Electric( the essence of Dans real boss), Exxon, George Bush, Dick Cheney and many others pulling strings behind the scenes with their clean hands.
Report thisI felt Dan was our last hope of getting some scrap of news, before they pinched his head off, on any major broadcast news but even while he was anchor, I did not buy most their propaganda stories, like the run up to war as Dan rode inside of that military tank to Baghdad embedded by the military to sell the war during “Shock & Awe”. I thought Sean Penn did more to get the truth out back then.
I do hope he strikes a blow for the truth. AS IN TruthDig!!
By Outraged, September 25, 2007 at 2:40 am #
RE: #102431 by Ernest Canning on 9/24
You go bro!
Really, I had a comment but after that dissertation what could I possibly add. Good for you, way to shake it up.
Report thisBy zz ziled, September 25, 2007 at 1:47 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
From across the pond:
DAN RATHER: TASED AND CONFUSED
Report thisThe Still-Unreported Story of “Top Gun” George Bush
Greg Palast’s Newsletter Dispatch
Monday September 24, 2007
“New York- Newly unearthed records reveal that, in 2004, when Americans were in the midst of a brutal electoral battle over whether to reelect a president posing as a war hero, a commanding US reporter, Dan Rather, went AWOL.”
[Full article and story @ ]http://www.gregpalast.com/]
BBC Video and other videos @: George W Bush- Draft Dodger - [http://youtube.com/watch?v=gyFdZqWDn3c]
By jake brown, September 24, 2007 at 11:54 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
For a pittance of 70 mil i expect an out of court settlement. No one testifies and the dirty laundry gets white-washed. Does anyone have other expectations?
Report thisBy PatrickHenry, September 24, 2007 at 9:17 pm #
Easy, Bush takes care of Israel and Israel reciprocates through their sayanim here.
http://www.rense.com/general78/mdot.htm
Report thisBy weather, September 24, 2007 at 9:03 pm #
Ernest Canning - thank you
Report thisBy cann4ing, September 24, 2007 at 8:32 pm #
Pretty shoddy piece of pseudo-journalism! Without citing sources or evidence, Mr. Robinson tells us that internet bloggers claimed the Nixon era documents relied upon by Rather for the 60-minutes dubya/AWOL piece looked like they had been composed on Microsoft word software and were “shakier than…Jello.” Compare that to the detailed account provided by Mary Mapes, the 60 minutes producer who broke the Abu Ghraib scandal and was, like Rather, fired for her role in exposing dubya’s AWOL status with the Texas air national guard.
The story was grounded upon two basic elements—a candid concession of former Texas Lt. Governor Ben Barnes that he had pulled strings to get young George into the guard—an assignment that would permit dubya to evade service in Vietnam, and a series of documents that support the claim dubya had failed to fulfill his service obligation. When interviewed by Amy Goodman, Mapes insisted that the documents CBS obtained from former Guard Lt. Col. Bill Burkett were valid—documents which she vetted with multiple experts, some with thirty years experience, who opined they were valid though they could not state this with certainty because they were copies. By noon of the following day, “all hell broke loose….Everyone from the Drudge Report to websites [Ms. Mapes] never heard of, like FreeRepublic.com, LittleGreenFootballs, all kinds of conservative sites attacked the story, all of them claiming the documents were not authentic, that they had been forged, and they were citing really obscure type-face issues….They were also, by the way, totally and completely wrong.” Mapes says she later reseached the National Guard archives in Texas, finding all of the proportional spacing and type-face in place. She also noted that the secretary to Bush’s former commander, though quoted in the wake of the broadcast as having stated that she did not prepare the memos, also stated that they accurately reflected what had been taking place at the time.
This is a perfect example of how the corporate media operates in 21st Century America and why Mark Twain observed that a lie can travel half way around the world before the truth can get its boots on. The right-wing media echo chamber assaults someone or some story, repeating their lies so often that they then are picked up by mainstream media pundits like Eugene Robinson, who act more as stenographers than journalists, accepting the right-wing echo chamber fabrication as gospel. Sadly, these pseudo-journalists are then given play on sites like Truthdig. The lie echoes through cyberspace.
Report thisBy rage, September 24, 2007 at 8:09 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
GOOD!
Anything to get that rat-bastard Les Mooves, bald turd-wad tyrant.
These repug-wads may as well face it: Dumya was AWOL and should be under the jail right now for gross dereliction of duty during wartime. That rascal did not serve his country, even though he expects each and everyone else to die for his oil profits. The truth is that no one saw Dumya in uniform once drug testing became mandetory. Few working for corporate media had Dan Rather’s guts to say that out loud though.
That numbed skull cokehead mcFlightsuit probably couldn’t pass a drop-test today. He needs to be impeached with the quickness on the grounds of pretentious stupidity alone, especially after that USS Lincoln show. Mission Accomplished! Yeah, right. “We’re kicking ass in Iraq!” I couldn’t beleive he said that crap Down Under. Then the addle brained little idiot didn’t even realize he wasn’t talking to OPEC when he bragged so proudly about his evil mayhem. “Psst - you’re at APEC, sir.” What an utter moron!
No Bush has donned a uniform since Poppy left the Navy. Check out all the official BFEE Family photos; no one is in a military uniform. All they do is reap the benefits of oil money gained from the sacrifice of our children. The Bush Twins travel by limo while our kids are stowed in coffins in the cargo hulls of commercial flights, so as not to offend the affluent living passengers returning from Euro Disney or Disney Dubai. For that reason alone, the entire population of the United States of America ought to gather at the White House just to kick chimpy’s AWOL ass. The GSA needs to mail each citizen a ticket offering one literal free kick in Dumya’s well exercised ass as restitution for his going AWOL when the nation needed him to die in Nam, subsequently saving us from this horrific presidency. I’d use precious vacation time and borrow the fare from my credit union to get my good kick in.
Go, Big Danny! Get ‘cha paper, Big Dog. I hope CBS has to come deep out the pocket for you, Dog! You told us the truth and deserve to get paid.
Report thisBy Joe R., September 24, 2007 at 7:52 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Dan Rather was a victim of a well run CIA style dis-information operation. Not only did the Fascist get rid of one of the only real reporters left, they probably were able to steal another election away from the Democrats. I hope Rather gets 100 million.
Report thisBy boggs, September 24, 2007 at 4:14 pm #
Did anyone think that the message Rather gave us could have been untrue?
Report thisRather was much too professional and trusted to play loose with false statements or documents.
All the whitehouse would have to do to clear up this whole mess would be to produce the presidents LOST records!?
Who looks guilty?
By bking7698, September 24, 2007 at 2:14 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
I couldn’t agree more about the Rove connection. It was, for me also the first thing that came to mind. It is classic Rovian dirty tricks. However, with the complicity of Redstone and CBS, that angle would never even be considered, let alone investigated. Karl Rove is hailed as the “boy genius” and “the architect” when in reality he is nothing more than a cynical, ruthless and unscrupulous regurgitator of Lee Atwater-style vicious media manipulation. Genius? Puhleez!
Report thisBy Eric L Prentis, September 24, 2007 at 1:54 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
The super corporate ownership of mainstream media outlets, such as Viacoms ownership of CBS, and the infotainment approach to the news has make the product unbelievable and silly beyond words. Non-news corporations controlling the news have destroyed the news and Americans are no longer listening to them.
Report thisBy Mudwollow, September 24, 2007 at 12:48 pm #
Rather just bites. If this lawsuit hits the fan and comes before the public eye it would be astonishing. More likely the same media moguls interested in cozying up to the Bush administration will keep the wraps on the entire lawsuit.
It’s interesting that the author mentions the Pentagon papers. But it was certainly not media moguls, or news anchor people who worked to release the Pentagon papers to the American people. The release of the Pentagon papers was only accomplished because a single senator, Mike Gravel, had the tenacity to read them aloud before Congress.
The current Democratic “leadership” in Congress doesn’t have even a minute fraction of the conviction and fortitude of a Mike Gravel.
Report thisBy Light the Watchtowers, September 24, 2007 at 11:38 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
I trace the beginning of the problems
with network news to the door of
Don Hewitt. He stumbled on a way with
“60 Minutes” (and boasts about it)
to turn a profit for the news department.
Prior to Hewitt, television news
departments operated at a loss and
were expected to. They were right-offs
that were financed by everything else
the network did. Because of this they
were, to a degree, left alone.
Today’s network news departments are
in the business of profit. And profit
is why corporations bothered to even
look in their direction.
To turn a profit, the price of add-time
Report thishas to kept high. The price is determined
by number of viewers. (What commercial
television has always done is sell an
audience to advertisers.) Its this
commercialization of news that I see as
the underlying problem.
By leftyrite, September 24, 2007 at 8:39 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
It’s interesting. We are conditioned to yawn at the outrageous ineptitude, cowardice, callowness, and sloth of people on the ideological Right, accepting their sleaziness as part of the social landscape.
On the other hand, we hold a magnifying glass upon those who would wish for reform. Just look at the controversy over the Move On ad. The New York Times is already willing to bail.
Maybe they’ll find another corrupt Clinton donor to keep things “fair and balanced” like Fox, the New York Post, and the Wall Street Journal would require them to do.
Dan Rather has paid for his excellence as a journalist with his nervous system. Of course, he’s right about the general thrust of the Bush military story. Dan’s only real error was that he stayed too long at a corrupt fair.
Report thisBy PACRAT, September 24, 2007 at 7:59 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
RATHER BE RATHER THAN BE WRONG!
I for one am pleased that Rather is sticking to his story about the president’s national guard history - and a trial will eventually trot out the full story!! Bush’s “disappearance” otherwise will continue to be open to speculation.
Rather has been around too long to be so easily dismissed by the owners and publishers and republican neocons (not the healthy republicans who also want to know where Bush was while he was awol) who are afraid to clash with the Administration.
The neocons still control congress - along with the white house and the supreme court. Can’t anyone break their stranglehold?
And if Rather wins and uses the money to improve the sad state of journalism today - winning becomes more than a personal vindication.
Maybe Rather can!
Report thisBy dsmith, September 24, 2007 at 7:30 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Damn man! You have balls to try to defend Rather and the bogus documents CBS touted as real. The explanation I will never forget went like this,“Well the documents may not be real but we think what they said was real.”
Huh?
Believe me, I’m no fan of Alfred E. Bush, but I believe Rather and Mapes were trying to throw the election by presenting this smear as documented. We got enough of that with the lead up to the invasion of Iraq.
Report thisBy weather, September 24, 2007 at 5:14 am #
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting can never be a good thing. PBS and especially NPR are highly manipulated vehicles for mis and disinformation.
Truly tragic because they’re perfectly packaged, seemingly erudite and believable - but they report at the end of the day to Exxon/Mobil.
One could say it started when Disney bought ABC, but the fact is it started long before. Please look at the profile of publishers/producers. Its a rolodex of the same fraternity. Not good.
The only remedy is to dislodge the networks from their current owners and fire management.
Jennings dies, Brokaw retires and Rather’s shown the door All w/in a year.
Report thisBy thomas billis, September 24, 2007 at 3:11 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Mr Robinson why did you not look at the recent past.Did your paper or the New York Times or anybody else but Mcclatchy really serve the public need to know in the run up to war.You all served your corporate masters who in turn served the White House.Mr Robinson you may not wish to remind people of medias complicity in this runup to war which by the way also makes your point but remember this there are many of us out here who will never forget it.
Report thisBy republicanSScareme, September 24, 2007 at 2:07 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Dan Rather is a good man and a good reporter. He owned up to the mistakes he made. He has also pointed out the disaster caused by the corporate media and the new breed of wimpy reporters.
America’s right-wing thugs brought him down through ruthless character assination…their stock-in-trade.
Despite the controversy over certain documents, the fact remains that George W. Bush was AWOL and a deserter. He was a disgrace to his uniform and should have received a dishonorable discharge.
Report thisBy ocjim, September 23, 2007 at 11:54 pm #
I know it sounds smug, but I knew from almost the beginning that Rather was set up by Karl Rove. It is so much like Karl’s MO from decades of subterfuge and dirty tricks that all parties should have known right away. If you know the history of Karl Rove, you know that his signature deceit is planting evidence and saying the political opponents is doing dirty tricks. Decades ago he was even helped by the FBI in this endeavor. Rove must have laughed his ass off when Rather was forced to resign by either a disingenuous management or a management pressured or intimidated by Rove forces.
Report this