Has Rathergate Been Quietly Closed?
It Looks Like Someone Swung the "Rathergate" Closed While No One Else Was Looking
As a former broadcast journalist who once used the lockout "...for CBS News", I felt a sense of shame when I saw the fiasco now commonly referred to as Rathergate.
But the story isn't the swarm of conservative based websites (www.ratherbiased.com or www.rathergate.com) or the fact that Dan Rather is a liberal who has time and again let his bias show through in his management of the network newscasts at CBS in his role as "Managing Editor". The story here is what happened to the investigation and why all of a sudden, other news outlets have lost interest in covering the story. The question is, why?
The answer may well be found in the support offered for Rather by his colleagues Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings during a recent panel discussion in New York City. Jennings said "I don't think you ever judge a man by one event in his career". Brokaw called the internet discussions of Rather a "kind of demagoguery".
What can we make of this? I think the answer is quite simple. All of these other news organizations who have stopped giving us coverage of Rathergate aren't doing so because they share a liberal bias. They may or may not, but that isn't why they've stopped covering the story. They've stopped because the people in charge are thinking something along the lines of "There but for the grace of God, go I".
The news biz, as it is referred to is just like every other business on this planet, at this point in our evolution, run by humans who by nature are imperfect. Humans make mistakes. What those news outlet managers are failing to realize in refusing to continue to cover Rathergate is that it wasn't just a mistake in running the story. Rather and the producer involved, Mary Mapes were clearly duped by the forged documents and by Bill Burkett, who has his own axe to grind against the Texas Air National Guard. All they had to do was to admit their mistake in rushing to air a story without first having verified their sources and the authenticity of the documents.
But they didn't, and herein lies the real story. Rather's feet of clay are found here, not in the error in judgment in airing the story. Mr. Rather, for all of his claims of impartiality has a bias here and it impacts his decision making. CBS News was the only network that refused to run the story of the disappearance of Chandra Levy, because it involved a Democratic Member of Congress. Their defense at the time was that it was a non-story, too involved in a tawdry mix of sex and politics that was all too reminiscent of the Monica Lewinsky scandal. But I have a funny feeling that if the late Ms Levy had been working for a Republican Congressmember, Mr. Rather would not have engaged in a refusal to run said story.
Another example of Mr. Rather's bad decision making and his bias was his attendance in March of 2001 at a Democratic Party Fundraiser in Texas. The event, held in Austin, raised around $20,000 for the Travis Democratic Party and Mr. Rather said afterwards that he was "...responsible and I'm accountable." Of course, CBS News never did tell us publicly how he was held to account for this total mockery of impartiality.
Finally, in looking at Rathergate, one cannot overlook the documentary film "The Wall Within", a CBS News Reports one hour special aired on June 2, 1988. Mr. Rather interviewed several men who claimed to be combat veterans of the Viet Nam conflict who told tales of civilian massacres, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and in one horrific claim, the skinning alive of 50 Vietnamese men women and children in one hour. Great documentary reporting, except that Mr. Rather and the other psuedojournalists working on the project never bothered to take any action at all to verify the claims of their interviewees. They should have, because it turned out that those men they interviewed were lying. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests submitted by one B.G. Burkett, author of "Stolen Valor: How the Viet Nam Generation Was Robbed of Its Heroes and Its History" (www.stolenvalor.com if you want to know more) revealed that the men Rather interviewed for "The Wall Within" did not do the things they claimed to have done when they spoke on the record for Mr. Rather.
I make no judgment of Mr. Rather, but offer these facts so that the reader can make up their own mind about whether or not Rathergate is a story that is worthy of continued coverage. I think it is. But I also think it needs to be covered by other media organizations and journalists, not by bloggers and websites with their own biases.
As a former broadcast journalist who once used the lockout "...for CBS News", I felt a sense of shame when I saw the fiasco now commonly referred to as Rathergate.
But the story isn't the swarm of conservative based websites (www.ratherbiased.com or www.rathergate.com) or the fact that Dan Rather is a liberal who has time and again let his bias show through in his management of the network newscasts at CBS in his role as "Managing Editor". The story here is what happened to the investigation and why all of a sudden, other news outlets have lost interest in covering the story. The question is, why?
The answer may well be found in the support offered for Rather by his colleagues Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings during a recent panel discussion in New York City. Jennings said "I don't think you ever judge a man by one event in his career". Brokaw called the internet discussions of Rather a "kind of demagoguery".
What can we make of this? I think the answer is quite simple. All of these other news organizations who have stopped giving us coverage of Rathergate aren't doing so because they share a liberal bias. They may or may not, but that isn't why they've stopped covering the story. They've stopped because the people in charge are thinking something along the lines of "There but for the grace of God, go I".
The news biz, as it is referred to is just like every other business on this planet, at this point in our evolution, run by humans who by nature are imperfect. Humans make mistakes. What those news outlet managers are failing to realize in refusing to continue to cover Rathergate is that it wasn't just a mistake in running the story. Rather and the producer involved, Mary Mapes were clearly duped by the forged documents and by Bill Burkett, who has his own axe to grind against the Texas Air National Guard. All they had to do was to admit their mistake in rushing to air a story without first having verified their sources and the authenticity of the documents.
But they didn't, and herein lies the real story. Rather's feet of clay are found here, not in the error in judgment in airing the story. Mr. Rather, for all of his claims of impartiality has a bias here and it impacts his decision making. CBS News was the only network that refused to run the story of the disappearance of Chandra Levy, because it involved a Democratic Member of Congress. Their defense at the time was that it was a non-story, too involved in a tawdry mix of sex and politics that was all too reminiscent of the Monica Lewinsky scandal. But I have a funny feeling that if the late Ms Levy had been working for a Republican Congressmember, Mr. Rather would not have engaged in a refusal to run said story.
Another example of Mr. Rather's bad decision making and his bias was his attendance in March of 2001 at a Democratic Party Fundraiser in Texas. The event, held in Austin, raised around $20,000 for the Travis Democratic Party and Mr. Rather said afterwards that he was "...responsible and I'm accountable." Of course, CBS News never did tell us publicly how he was held to account for this total mockery of impartiality.
Finally, in looking at Rathergate, one cannot overlook the documentary film "The Wall Within", a CBS News Reports one hour special aired on June 2, 1988. Mr. Rather interviewed several men who claimed to be combat veterans of the Viet Nam conflict who told tales of civilian massacres, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and in one horrific claim, the skinning alive of 50 Vietnamese men women and children in one hour. Great documentary reporting, except that Mr. Rather and the other psuedojournalists working on the project never bothered to take any action at all to verify the claims of their interviewees. They should have, because it turned out that those men they interviewed were lying. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests submitted by one B.G. Burkett, author of "Stolen Valor: How the Viet Nam Generation Was Robbed of Its Heroes and Its History" (www.stolenvalor.com if you want to know more) revealed that the men Rather interviewed for "The Wall Within" did not do the things they claimed to have done when they spoke on the record for Mr. Rather.
I make no judgment of Mr. Rather, but offer these facts so that the reader can make up their own mind about whether or not Rathergate is a story that is worthy of continued coverage. I think it is. But I also think it needs to be covered by other media organizations and journalists, not by bloggers and websites with their own biases.
posted by me at 6:36 AM
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