Should Dan Rather resign?
 

When Jason Blair went phony in the NYTimes, the two top editors took the blame and resigned.

When the USA Today writer admitted to faking travel and stories, the two top editors took the blame and resigned.

When Dan Rather's phony documents were revealed, what's up with Dan?

He should resign.

Undoubtedly, for a story this large, he didn't just read the words.

-Rudey

Re: Should Dan Rather resign?
 

Did he have a fake ID or what?

Seriously, I wouldn't mind seeing him retire -- although he's always been my least favorite of the major anchors.

CBS has a little bigger problem than the papers mentioned above, though.

They don't have an Heir to Rather waiting in the wings.

I think Mary Mapes, the high level producer of the story, will probably get blown up. The rest depends on how much Rather was really involved in the investigation. There's no question that by putting his name and face on the project that his credibility will take a big hit.

One thing that does not surprize me is that CBS is admitting and reporting their own failure, as is Rather. As I recall, there was some doubt that they would. Had they not, they would have put not only their credibility in danger, but also their owned station licenses and their very corporate existance in danger.

Opinion Journal says:
 

That Was Then, This Is Now
From an interview with Dan Rather, published by Broadcasting & Cable on Aug._30:

Is the media doing a good job covering the 2004 election? Or is there too much attention on the Swift Boat flap?

Rather: "I would like us to concentrate more on issues and less on campaign process. But there is always a tendency to go with what's sensational. Also, we're human, and humans keep making the same mistakes. In the end, what difference does it make what one candidate or the other did or didn't do during the Vietnam War? In some ways, that war is as distant as the Napoleonic campaigns. What's far more import is this: Do they have an exit strategy for Iraq? If so, what is it? How will they address the national deficit? And what are the chances their plans will work?"

When John Kerry was under attack over Vietnam, Rather pooh-poohed the idea that a candidate's Vietnam record was relevant, and never mind that Kerry sought to build his whole campaign around his war-hero legend. But nine days later, Rather broadcast old news about President Bush's National Guard service as if it were the story of a lifetime (which we suppose it was, though not in the way he'd expected).

Under such circumstances, is it unreasonable to harbor suspicions of partisan bias?

ya know- I havent liked the man in years and I think some new blood may help CBS not only on recovering their status as reputable news but also in the ratings-game.

I don't think it really hurt their credibility in my eyes. About any of the national news networks would have probably run with this story.

The fact that CBS is now trying to make ammends and has admitted to being wrong satisfies me. People make mistakes. I have a hard time believing that this was intentional.

I wonder why hoosier didn't ask the same question when Geraldo gave away the location of the troops he was traveling with which put all their lives at risk.

I sincerely despise that man. Speaking of flip flops. Anyone remember him during the Clinton impeachment? He was Mr. Democratic talking points.

He's a Republican leaner now.

-- Well, I do understand that CNN pays slave wages compared to FOX.

Resign? I thought that Dan Rather was dead.

Re: Should Dan Rather resign?
 

And when Dateline NBC rigged a truck to explode and burn before the impact on its gas tank (remember that?) they ate some crow, made a few on-air apologies, tolerated the usual lampooning by SNL then went right on with the show. Anchors didn't get fired, maybe a few memos went out behind the scenes, who knows.

The difference is, 60 Minutes, like Dateline, is a magazine show. It isn't all about facts - it's about speculation and opinions as well. The NY Times and (believe it or not... :p ) USA Today are of the "hard news" genre that historically separates factual news from commentary.

I think Rather will face what Dateline did and move on.

Although, IMHO, the world won't stop turning if he did retire.

--add

CNN is the network that employs Kerry aides and thinks it can still be unbiased? Yeah Carville you are one unbiased host.

-Rudey

Wow - I'll have whatever you're drinking! You honestly, in your heart of hearts, think this was properly researched before being rushed in front of the public? If so, I surely hope you're not a journalism student - or you're going to find your integrity impeached on a daily basis!

Not only did CBS mess up on their research, but they've given every one of their competition reason to laugh at them at every turn - not pretty.

OK, and one more time, FOX is the network that has a president who ran Nixon's campaign.

While your point may be valid, it goes both ways. And, there's a difference between being a reporter and a commentator. The same as the difference between a reporter and editorial writer in the print media.

As for Snake's points, I disagree with one and agree with another. I think CBS's credibility has suffered substantial damage.

I agree, though, that this was not done on purpose. Again, they couldn't afford risking losing the licenses of their owned stations. Remember again that on-air TV is government regulated.

Re: Should Dan Rather resign?
 

Yes.

So what? How has Fox's president made things bad? It seems that since Fox is considered the least biased that this political involvement does not transfer to his new job or that he doesn't have the power to transfer those views.

As for CNN, well having people on a CURRENT campaign and being ranked with much more bias shows that the network is not willing to say "Hey guys since you're working for Kerry, you can't be an unbiased employee."

-Rudey

One could argue that he has transfered his views and thus Fox News is less biased than other news sources...

Well DeltAlum is implying that the President is biased because he worked on a Nixon campaign several decades to go and, in the past, he has attempted to say that Fox is biased.

-Rudey

I hope he stays on til retirement. He needs to be on every night to remind viewers of what a POS stunt he tried to pull in the election.
And don't tell me he didn't know that Burkett was a nut job. :mad:

I just watched a part of Rather's apology on the local news. He is 74 years old. I suspect that retirement is around the corner for him.

Fox is biased. I haven't tried to say it -- I have said it. Even the survey you like so much says so.

And Roger Ailes didn't work on Nixon's campaign -- He RAN it. He was the brains behind it. He has also worked on Ford's and Bush I's and I would guess every other Republican presidential campaign until joining Fox.

He was what we would all call a "high ranking Republican official." One of the very top. That's even bigger than a "political insider."

The other really important distinction is that Carville is a commentator who is only responsible for his own commentary -- Ailes has final editorial approval for the network. That is a huge difference.

But the thing that makes my mind up more than anything is that the folks I know at the Fox News network level management group don't even pretend that the network isn't far right alligned.

Now, I don't reall care all that much, except that they hide behind this "ballanced" thing -- and some people who have already pre-judged what is right and wrong actually believe it.

You might even say that IF (and I'm not granting the point) the rest of the media is really so "liberal," that FOX ballances that out. But that certainly doesn't make Fox ballanced.

Now, I'm done playing Fox games.

Of course there isn't a single news source that isn't biased. You can't report without showing some bias - even in terms of what you cover. Of course they are the least biased. They are not as biased as CNN and CBS or other major news media companies. They are not trying to balance against the left. They are simply news and, as shown, the least biased.

And again, while this man is president and also ran a campaign several decades ago, evidently this hasn't correlated at all with strong bias from Fox. However, CNN is more biased and also employs current Kerry advisors like Carville.

-Rudey

Carville worked for CNN before he worked for Kerry,

And now he should resign or CNN should remove him.

-Rudey

He would be foolish to resign if it could help his boss. Now CNN removing him is an option if they are worried about being biased.

My biggest problem is this - was info leaked from CBS to Kerry's camp? If so, who knew about it. That to me would put this far beyond a simple mistake and into a whole new level of political play.

NEW YORK - At the behest of CBS, an adviser to John Kerry (news - web sites) said he talked to a central figure in the controversy over President Bush (news - web sites)'s National Guard service shortly before disputed documents were released

Joe Lockhart denied any connection between the presidential campaign and the papers. Lockhart, the second Kerry ally to confirm contact with retired Texas National Guard officer Bill Burkett, said he made the call at the suggestion of CBS producer Mary Mapes.


"He had some advice on how to deal with the Vietnam issue and the Swift boat" allegations, Lockhart said Monday, referring to GOP-fueled accusations that Kerry exaggerated his Vietnam War record. "He said these guys play tough and we have to put the Vietnam experience into context and have Kerry talk about it more."


Lockhart said he thanked Burkett for his advice after a three to four minute call.


Lockhart said he does not recall talking to Burkett about Bush's Guard records. "It's baseless to say the Kerry campaign had anything to do with this," he said.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...ry_1&printer=1

Bring back Cronkite!

(ETA: Whats he, like 108?)

Conkrite was the key note speaker at my brother's graduation from U of Mich and after hearing him speak, I wanted him to run for President. That's a man I would've voted for back then. (That was 1984)

Dee

LoveSpell, examine Lockharte's wording there.

He "Does not recall"...

Sounds strangely Clintonesque, doesn't it? "Does not recall" is Democrat code for "Yes, we did that, but I'm not going to tell you that we did".

Cronkite was pretty amazing. To have the intestinal fortitude to come out against the government and (Johnson) administration and report how it was deceiving the American Public on Vietnam was a remarkable thing -- the kind of thing that hadn't been done since Edward R. Murrow took on Joseph McCarthy.

Of course he was one of the last to remain on the air of the amazing cast of great newspaper writer/reporters Murrow recruited for CBS News during WWII. When on Fleet Street in London, I can't help think about those guys bar hopping after reporting from the roofs of buildings and the BBC studios during the blitz. Talk about drama. Alh, but I digress -- again.

He (Cronkite) was supposed to moderate an early, pre-convention, Democratic presidential debate (The Republicans had an encumbant and thus no competition that year) I directed years ago for the National Association of Television Program Executives, but there was some kind of contract problem, so Linda Elerby moderated and he just did a commentary -- off the cuff -- at the end. Absolutely remarkable ad-libs.

More to the point of the thread, I don't think Rather comes anywhere close to Cronkite in terms of journalism or on camera presence. Of the three majors, in fact, I think Brokaw is closest (he's damned impressive), then Jennings (whom I've never met or worked with) with Rather some distance behind.

I forgot to mention that I see CBS has hired former Attorney General Thorneburg (sp?) to head an investigation into the phony document matter.

They take this stuff seriously.

Saw this in a LJ community
 

Dan Rather, CBS News Anchor

given documents he thought were true

failed to thoroughly investigate the facts

reported documents to the American people as true to make his case

when confronted with the facts, apologized and launched an investigation

number of Americans dead: 0

should be fired as CBS News Anchor?


George W. Bush, President of the United States

given documents he thought were true

failed to thoroughly investigate the facts

reported documents to the American people as true to make his case

when confronted with the facts, continued to report untruth and stonewalled an investigation

number of Americans dead: 1100

should be given four more years as President of the United States?

Dan Rather, says Slate: "barking mad"
 

Dan Rather
The anchor as madman.
By Bryan Curtis
Posted Tuesday, Sept. 21, 2004, at 11:29 AM PT

Of all the gloriously absurd moments in the Memogate scandal, only one qualifies for Dan Rather's greatest hits. Asked last week if he would ever concede that the National Guard memos he showed on the Sept. 8 broadcast of 60 Minutes were forgeries, Rather replied, "If the documents are not what we were led to believe, I'd like to break that story." Never before had Rather so perfectly summed up his career as Journalistic Self-Parody: I'll get you the big story, Chief, even if it means interviewing myself.

On Monday, Rather conceded what the blogosphere had known for a week. The National Guard memos were too dubious to effectively dispute George W. Bush's service record. The next few days will determine whether Rather continues as anchor of the CBS Evening News or exits with a Peter Arnett-like thud.

Rather has already achieved a kind of perfection: He has been accused of liberal bias by every GOP administration since Richard Nixon's. After he pilloried Nixon during press briefings for months, the president growled, "Are you running for something?" Reaganites accused the Evening News of interviewing downtrodden workers to generate pathos and undermine President Reagan's policies. Rather's most famous showdown with a Republican came against George H.W. Bush, when he harangued the vice president about the Iran-Contra scandal. Bush responded with so much vitriol—Rather was left to sputter, "You made us hypocrites in the eyes of the world!"—that the veep temporarily quelled the "wimp factor" and marched through the Republican primaries.

In reponse to these brouhahas and the National Guard story, conservative media critics have demanded blood. They charge that Rather's careless muckraking betrays a liberal bias, but it's actually much worse than that. Rather isn't a liberal hack. He's bonkers.

What other reporter could get away with the spontaneous fits of rage and the homespun corniness that are his trademarks? Raised in Texas, Rather reads the news in a colloquial rat-a-tat: Paul Harvey as performed by Bill O'Reilly. He peppers his copy with aphorisms—e.g., "that dog won't hunt"—and for a while ended the Evening News with a single, baffling word: "Courage."

Rather's taste for the absurd goes beyond mere oratorical style, according to Peter J. Boyer's excellent book Who Killed CBS? In 1981, Rather decided that he couldn't occupy Walter Cronkite's chair, so for his first Evening News broadcast he read the headlines while crouching behind the desk. When a rival TV journalist ambushed him outside of CBS headquarters—a favorite tactic of the 60 Minutes gang—Rather instructed the reporter, "Get the microphone right up, will you?" Then he barked, "Fuck you." The clip played on television for days. Then there's Rather's odd penchant for costumes. He once trekked across the Afghan border on foot and returned with hours of dazzling reporting—all of which he undermined by wearing a ludicrous peasant disguise on camera. TV critics lashed him with the nickname "Gunga Dan."

Rather's most embarrassing tantrum came during the 1987 U.S. Open tennis tournament. When producers told him a match would run long and truncate the Evening News, Rather disappeared and left the network with more than six minutes of dead air. (Such was Rather's cachet that no executive dared summon a replacement.) And don't forget the 1986 "What's the frequency, Kenneth?" attack, in which Rather was accosted by street toughs on Park Avenue in New York. You can hardly blame Rather for that one, but Boyer notes that such things rarely seem to happen to Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings. It's as if Rather attracts half the madness in the universe, and the other half comes out of his mouth.

What makes him bluster? Some say Rather, who attended Sam Houston State College, tries to compensate for his brittle education with hard-charging brio. He often tells a story from his days as a young CBS correspondent, when he bought a Great Books series and plowed through all the volumes. Rather didn't wear his newfound erudition lightly. Once, during a tense moment at the network, he lectured his colleagues, "I only have one thing to say to all of you people. Syracuse, 413." Producers were baffled. Only later did they realize that Rather kept a copy of Sir Edward Creasy's Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World on his desk—Syracuse, 413 B.C., was in Chapter 2.

These days, network news survives in hermetically sealed cocoons—free of commercial pressures and calls for financial viability. CBS News has more cocoons than any other network. There's Evening News, which languished in last place for years; Face the Nation, another ratings disaster; Sunday Morning, which remained unchanged even after the death of anchor Charles Kuralt; and 60 Minutes, which is profitable but has an employee-retirement program similar to that of the U.S. Supreme Court.

The CBS cocoons engender a kind of madness. Rather is paid an outsized salary—he makes $7 million per year—that is in no way commensurate with the number of viewers he delivers. Where most prime-time shows have a few weeks to prove their viability, newscasts often are given years and decades. The network's former glory allows Rather to shroud himself in the aura of Cronkite and Edward R. Murrow. "I'm confident we worked longer, dug deeper, and worked harder than almost anybody in American journalism does," Rather told the Washington Post Sunday, when in fact CBS spent less time verifying the Guard documents than most bloggers.

Rather has labored in Walter Cronkite's shadow for more than 20 years, ever since the old man lumbered off into retirement. The problem isn't that Rather can't match Cronkite's gravitas (though he can't). The problem is that Rather can't duplicate Cronkite's magnificent ratings, which protected him from all sorts of unwanted intrusions. When Rather took over the anchor chair—and ratings dipped—CBS began to slash costs and push for Nielsen-boosting scoops.

"Old anchormen don't go away," Cronkite said on his final broadcast, "they keep coming back for more." When Rather quits—whether this week or at a moment of his own choosing—it will mark an enormous shift in American cultural life. For the first time in a generation, viewers will flip on Evening News, grab a snifter of brandy, and prepare to receive the day's stories from someone who isn't barking mad.


Bryan Curtis is a Slate associate editor. You can e-mail him at curtis@slate.com.

ok, here's probably a REALLY stupid and random thought, but didn't connie chung get the boot when she said, "just between us" to clinton's mom, and then she said she thought hillary was a "bitch" (LMAO), and then it was aired?? am i right in thinking that's how that went? i can't help but think connie was pushed off the air b/c of that, but i could be wrong. :confused:

dan rather's old....it's time for him to go anyway. if he can go out in a blaze of.....whatever......fabulous.

Re: Saw this in a LJ community
 

Who is the moron that thought this up on livejournal?

-Rudey

Or maybe the time that she called Oklahoma City a dump while she was covering the bombing?

What a class act.

Re: Saw this in a LJ community
 

yep, this confirms it: livejournal is the dumbest shit ever

I think Dan Rather should run for President. I have to go the bathroom.