# Rather



## VirginiaHuguenot (Nov 23, 2004)

(Feel free to move this thread if need be.)

Dan Rather is finally resigning. I'd rather he did it sooner, but it's a step in the right direction.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/TV/11/23/rather.anchor.ap/index.html


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## ReformedWretch (Nov 23, 2004)

Do you think they will appoint someone who better than Rather? I have my doubts.


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## VirginiaHuguenot (Nov 24, 2004)

Nah, I don't have any confidence that CBS will "reform" the network news in their choice of a successor. Nevertheless, I am glad to see some of the old dinosaur anchors finally starting to fade away. Rather is leaving under a bit of a cloud of disgrace that he brought upon himself and while I rejoice not that my "enemy" falls, I do rejoice that he will no longer be broadcasting his opinions to the world every night.


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## VirginiaHuguenot (Dec 1, 2004)

Adios, Tom Brokaw!


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## govols (Dec 2, 2004)

Tom's not going too far.


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## Average Joey (Dec 2, 2004)

The smartest thing CBS could do is get an Independant anchor.Maybe they should try to steal away O`Reilly from Fox News.Ratings would go through the roof.But then again this is CBS.


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## VirginiaHuguenot (Jan 10, 2005)

The fallout at CBS continues!

http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/TV/01/10/cbs.guard/index.html


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## VirginiaHuguenot (Jan 14, 2005)

Here's a decent editorial on Rathergate by a liberal Washington Post columnist: 

Rather Biased

By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, January 14, 2005; Page A19 

First comes the crime: Dan Rather's late hit on President Bush's Air National Guard service, featuring what were almost immediately revealed to be forged documents. 

Then comes the coverup: 12 days of CBS stonewalling, with Dan Rather using his evening news platform to (a) call his critics "partisan political operatives," (b) claim falsely that the documents were authenticated by experts, and (c) claim that he had "solid sources," which turned out to be a rabid anti-Bush partisan with a history of, shall we say, prolific storytelling. 

Now comes the twist: The independent investigation -- clueless, uncomprehending and in its own innocent way disgraceful -- pretends that this fiasco was in no way politically motivated. 

The investigation does note that the show's producer called Joe Lockhart of the Kerry campaign to alert him to the story and to urge him to contact the purveyor of the incriminating documents. It concludes that this constitutes an "appearance of political bias." What would producer Mary Mapes have had to do to go beyond appearance? Show up at the Kerry headquarters? 

CBS had been pursuing the story for five years. Five years! The Manhattan Project took three. Five years for a minor episode in a 30-year-old byway in the life of the president? This story had been vetted not only in two Texas gubernatorial races but twice more by the national media, once in 2000 and then yet again earlier in 2004 when Michael Moore's "deserter" charge and Terry McAuliffe's "AWOL" charge touched off a media frenzy that culminated in a Newsweek cover. 

To what, then, does the report attribute Mapes's great-white-whale obsession with the story? Her Texas roots. I kid you not. She comes from Texas and likes Texas stories. You believe that and you will believe that a 1972 typewriter can tuck the letter "i" right up against the umbrella of the letter "f" (as can Microsoft Word). 

Did Mapes and Rather devote a fraction of the resources they gave this story to a real scandal, such as the oil-for-food scandal at the United Nations, or contrary partisan political charges, such as those brought by the Swift boat vets against John Kerry? On the United Nations, no interest. On Kerry, what CBS did do was ad hominem investigative stories on the Swift boat veterans themselves, rather than an examination of the charges. Do you perceive a direction to these inclinations? 

Now comes the National Guard story, the most blindingly partisan bungle in recent journalistic history, and the august investigative panel, CBS News and most of the mainstream media do not have a clue. The bungle is attributed to haste and sloppiness. Haste, yes. To get the story out in time to damage, perhaps fatally, the president's chances of reelection. 

This is not an isolated case. In fact the case is a perfect illustration of an utterly commonplace phenomenon: the mainstream media's obliviousness to its own liberal bias. 

I do not attribute this to bad faith. I attribute it to (as Marx would say) false consciousness -- contracted by living in the liberal media cocoons of New York, Washington and Los Angeles, in which any other worldview is simply and truly inconceivable. This myopia was most perfectly captured by Pauline Kael's famous remark after Nixon's 1972 landslide: "I don't know how Richard Nixon could have won. I don't know anybody who voted for him." 

Multiple polls of the media elite have confirmed Kael's inadvertent sociological insight. One particularly impartial poll, taken by the Freedom Forum in 1996, found that of 139 Washington bureau chiefs and congressional correspondents, 89 percent supported Bill Clinton in the previous election, vs. 7 percent for George H.W. Bush. The rest of America went 43 percent to 37 percent. 

Some argue that personal allegiance does not matter because it is possible to be partisan at home and yet consciously bias-free at work. 

Possible, yes. Actual? The Project for Excellence in Journalism did a careful study of mainstream media stories in September and October. The numbers are stunning. 

To take one example, Oct. 1-14, 2004: Percent of stories about Bush that are negative -- 59 percent. Percent of stories about Kerry that are negative -- 25 percent. Stories favorable to Bush? 14 percent. Favorable to Kerry? 34 percent. 

That is not a difference. That is a chasm. And you do not have to be a weatherman to ascertain wind direction. When, in February 2003, Gallup asked Americans their perception of media bias, 45 percent said the media were too liberal, 15 percent said they were too conservative. That's 3 to 1. 

Bias spectacularly, if redundantly, confirmed by Rathergate. All that is missing is a signed confession.


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## fredtgreco (Jan 14, 2005)

Andrew,

I like the article, but please note that Krauthammer is not a liberal. At most he is a neo-con.


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## VirginiaHuguenot (Jan 14, 2005)

> _Originally posted by fredtgreco_
> Andrew,
> 
> I like the article, but please note that Krauthammer is not a liberal. At most he is a neo-con.



You're right, Fred. I have a tendency to think of _any_ Post columnist as liberal. I also have a tendency to think of any neo-con as liberal. I think of Jesse Helms as a liberal. But that's just me. I'm rather-biased, I suppose.


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## VirginiaHuguenot (Jan 20, 2005)

Katie Couric and Jon Stewart to replace Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News??? 

Katie Couric, CBS Anchor? It's Like Night And 'Today'

By Tom Shales
Thursday, January 20, 2005 
Washington Post

What to call the speculation about a certain Ms. Couric of NBC's "Today" show taking over the "CBS Evening News" from a certain Mr. Rather? There seems no other choice: "Katiegate." 

Not that there's anything wrong with her. Katie Couric has proven a very versatile and lovable "Today" anchor. But the two broadcasts have relatively little in common. By contemplating radical changes for the "Evening News" and, reportedly, other parts of CBS News, CBS President Leslie Moonves is sending shock waves through the division, even as it attempts to recover from the trauma caused by a much-criticized segment that aired on "60 Minutes Wednesday" and led to plans to sack four prominent staffers. 

That story isn't over by a long shot. Joe Hagan reported yesterday in the New York Observer that producer Mary Mapes, considered most responsible for the Sept. 8 report -- on George W. Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War -- issued a statement insisting she had done "nothing wrong" in preparing it. The three other staff members, told by CBS to resign, have so far declined to do so, Hagan reported, and are considering "legal action" against CBS News. 

Luring Couric away from her $20 million NBC contract is only one of the changes being loudly pondered by Moonves, a former actor who still appears once each season on a CBS drama or comedy and knows nothing about news. That hasn't stopped him from deciding that Dan Rather's exit from the anchor chair and the brouhaha over the flawed report constitute good excuses for making sweeping changes in the third-rated "Evening News" that could leave it virtually unrecognizable -- and signal a huge plummet in prestige for the network news division long considered television's finest. 

Rather had long planned to retire later this year, but the date was moved up to March after controversy arose over the "60 Minutes Wednesday" report, for which Rather, busy with other news duties, basically just served as on-air correspondent. He did not do the reporting. The segment dealt with Bush's National Guard service and with his allegedly being found deficient by a commanding officer. It's common knowledge that Bush was a spoiled little rich boy who did not serve with any great distinction, so this story wasn't exactly a blockbuster. It was more a matter of new details. 

Unfortunately, the details weren't true. Or at least the segment made a sloppy case for their being true. Some of the documents uncovered were apparently faked by a longtime Bush basher. Mapes apparently failed to subject her sources to enough skeptical scrutiny and should have been more careful about the documents. 

Unquestionably it was a blot on the record of CBS News but hardly the end of the world. Every news organization has its blots. 

Stern action by Moonves, on the heels of an independent report criticizing the segment, was seen at least partly as a sop to quiet angry conservatives; for decades, going back to Edward R. Murrow's heroic debunking of Joe McCarthy, CBS News has been the far right's punching bag. But CBS News staffers are puzzled, if not furious, over Moonves's rumored plans to remodel the "Evening News" completely when Rather leaves and turn it into a nighttime version of the morning shows -- replete, perhaps, with comedy capers, jokes and satire, maybe some showbiz gossip and someone like Couric as a very "viewer-friendly" host who appeals to the young-adult demographic that generally doesn't watch the news. 

Moonves reportedly would like to not only lure Couric but also add alleged satirist Jon Stewart to the "Evening News" as a commentator; Stewart hosts "The Daily Show" on cable's Comedy Central. Speaking to TV columnists and reporters in Los Angeles, Moonves would not confirm the rumors but did say that he wants "a revolution and not an evolution" and that "I think we have to do something really different to get people's attention" to raise the "Evening News" broadcast's ratings. 

These musings have been met with incredulity, resentment and contempt within the ranks of CBS News. CBS News President Andrew Heyward, instead of standing up for the news division as network news presidents are supposed to do, is reportedly working with Moonves on the radically overhauled broadcast and other changes throughout the division. Heyward is supposed to come up with exciting new news programming, but his record on that score isn't very impressive: such debacles as "Eye to Eye With Connie Chung" and "Public Eye With Bryant Gumbel." Both were flops. 

Moonves is also despised by some insiders and observers for what he hasn't done. He has failed to come to Rather's defense even after Rather's 30 years of unquestioned loyalty to the company. Rather is such a team player that he apparently felt that standing by the controversial report, even as it was being condemned left and right (mostly right, of course) was the equivalent of standing by his colleagues and being supportive of people he had worked with and grown to trust. 

Over the years, Rather defended the team much more often than the team defended Rather. Smug old fossil Andy Rooney, paid millions to sit on his duff and compose smirky essays for "60 Minutes," scoffed at Rather's "Kenneth, what is the frequency?" story years ago (Rather said he was mugged by two men, one of whom uttered that seemingly coded rhetorical question) and continued scoffing even after the culprits were found and the story verified. 

Instead of standing by Rather, Moonves has snidely said that Rather will report for "60 Minutes Wednesday" -- but only if it isn't canceled. The show had strong ratings until this season, when the ABC breakout hit "Lost" bloomed in the same time slot. Even one of Moonves's beloved "CSI" shows would have trouble holding its own against "Lost," an excellent and high-rated smash. Moonves says Rather would remain merely as "a reporter," sounding almost as if he were being busted back from general to private. 

Rather, reached in the Washington broadcast booth from which he will anchor today's network coverage of the presidential inauguration, declined to comment on any of these issues yesterday. 

Network bosses love nothing so much as beating up on their own news departments, especially when the entertainment division is doing well. CBS prime-time has made a tremendous rebound under Moonves's supervision, CBS has been king of the daytime soaps for decades and David Letterman's ratings are up in late night, though he still loses to NBC's empty suit, Jay Leno. 

Now Moonves has become a terror himself, trashing the news division at a moment when it seems vulnerable. Perhaps even the title the "CBS Evening News" will be jettisoned and replaced with something livelier. In honor of Ed Sullivan, they could call it "The Really Big News Show." 

Or, in the interest of truth-in-labeling: "Almost the CBS Evening News."


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## king of fools (Jan 20, 2005)

I heard that Dan Rather was offered the job as the chairman of the DNC.


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## Ivan (Jan 20, 2005)

Maybe he'll run for President...I'm sure there are many here that would vote for him.

   

...maybe not...


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## Average Joey (Jan 21, 2005)

> _Originally posted by houseparent_
> Do you think they will appoint someone who better than Rather? I have my doubts.



I think if they got a box of rocks and set it on camera it would be better than Dan Rather.

[Edited on 1-21-2005 by Average Joey]


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## Ivan (Jan 21, 2005)

> _Originally posted by Average Joey_
> 
> 
> > _Originally posted by houseparent_
> ...



Nah, just the box would better...more personality.


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