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Disgraced Dan Rather: Media Must Call Out Trump's 'Demonstrable Lies'
NewsBusters.org ^ | January 4, 2017 | Tim Graham

Posted on 01/04/2017 11:51:57 AM PST by Kaslin

Disgraced CBS anchorman Dan Rather keeps pretending he is an expert on The Truth, expecting no one to remember his eternal refusal to admit he used transparently false information to try and smear George W. Bush weeks before the 2004 election. Rather offered another lecture on “truth” and “lies” on his Facebook page  on Monday after Wall Street Journal editor Gerard Baker appeared on Sunday's Meet the Press.

Chuck Todd asked Baker if journalists should call out Donald Trump as a liar, and Baker replied “I’d be careful about using the word, ‘lie.’ ‘Lie’ implies much more than just saying something that’s false. It implies a deliberate intent to mislead.” This sent Rather on a bender:

A lie, is a lie, is a lie. Journalism, as I was taught it, is a process of getting as close to some valid version of the truth as is humanly possible. And one of my definitions of news is information that the powerful don't want you to know.

So this statement (see attached article) from the editor in chief of the Wall Street Journal about how his paper will report on Donald Trump’s potential (likely?) future lies is deeply disturbing. It is not the proper role of journalists to meet lies—especially from someone of Mr. Trump’s stature and power—by hiding behind semantics and euphemisms. Our role is to call it as we see it, based on solid reporting. When something is, in fact, a demonstrable lie, it is our responsibility to say so.

Before lecturing Mr. Baker on the virtues of veracity, perhaps Mr. Rather can address his infamous statement to Bill O’Reilly in 2001 when confronted with Bill Clinton’s world-class lying about Monica Lewinsky, starting with Jim Lehrer on PBS: “I think at core he's an honest person. I know that you have a different view. I know that you consider it sort of astonishing anybody would say so, but I think you can be an honest person and lie about any number of things."

By Rather's own tenuous definition, Clinton's sexual exploitation of an intern was "information the powerful don't want you to know," but Rather thinks it's fine to lie to television reporters....when you're a Democrat and you're doing Good Things.

Nonetheless, Rather on Facebook is warning with the ascent of Trump,

this is a gut check moment for the press. We are being confronted by versions of what are claimed to be “the truth” that resemble something spewed out by a fertilizer-spreader in a wind tunnel. And there is every indication that this will only continue in the Tweets and statements of the man who will now hold forth from behind the Great Seal of the President of the United States.

Some journalists and publications will rise to the occasion. Some will not. You as the paying, subscribing public, can use your leverage and pocketbooks to keep those who should be honest brokers of information, well, honest.

Rather linked to Washington Post blogger Greg Sargent, who ridiculed Baker noting a liberal pro-Clinton bias in the press: "I think people say, “Well, you know what? Hillary Clinton said a lot of things that were false.” I don’t recall the press being quite so concerned about saying that she lied in headlines or in stories like that."

Sargent shot back: "The comparison to Clinton is silly. Trump lied far more often, and far more egregiously, than Clinton did." Like nearly every other liberal journalist, Sargent believes the Clintons lie in a "normal" range, and are thus conveniently excused. Calling that a liberal bias is "silly." It's not as silly as Dan Rather posing as the Guardian of Truth.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: danrather; media; mediabias; msm; psychoprojectionist; trump
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1 posted on 01/04/2017 11:51:57 AM PST by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

Dan Rather: “I was making fake news before it was cool.”


2 posted on 01/04/2017 11:53:46 AM PST by Fedora
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To: Kaslin

Pot...kettle...black


3 posted on 01/04/2017 11:54:21 AM PST by econjack
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To: Kaslin

You mean like the “fake but accurate’ report that got your ass fired?

The dumb$hit had the nerve to say of that incident “we got to the truth but we paid a high price”

NO YOU DIDN’T YOU SACK ‘O CRAP - YOU MADE UP A FAKE STORY AND REPORTED IT AS TRUTH.


4 posted on 01/04/2017 11:55:21 AM PST by Mr. K ( Trump kicked her ass 2-to-1 if you remove all the voter fraud.)
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To: Kaslin

Dan Blather, a typical lying libturd


5 posted on 01/04/2017 11:55:42 AM PST by drypowder
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To: Kaslin

Oh brather!


6 posted on 01/04/2017 11:55:51 AM PST by DoughtyOne (Recall John McCain. NOW, before he gets us in WWIII.)
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To: Kaslin

BUCKHEAD SAYS HI DAN!


7 posted on 01/04/2017 11:55:55 AM PST by Mr. K ( Trump kicked her ass 2-to-1 if you remove all the voter fraud.)
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To: Kaslin

This is coming from “It’s fake but real” that was fired by the Leftist at CBS News


8 posted on 01/04/2017 11:55:55 AM PST by Enlightened1
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To: Kaslin

“information the powerful don’t want you to know,” - unless it’s from a Democrats email.


9 posted on 01/04/2017 11:56:27 AM PST by The Toll
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To: Kaslin
This doofus is the Charmian Emeritus of the College of Journalistic Lies
10 posted on 01/04/2017 11:56:37 AM PST by llevrok (je sui cou rouge !)
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To: Enlightened1

You got it.


11 posted on 01/04/2017 11:57:10 AM PST by Kaslin (Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible)
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To: Kaslin

Using all the credibility he has.


12 posted on 01/04/2017 11:57:50 AM PST by SkyDancer (Ambition Without Talent Is Sad, Talent Without Ambition Is Worse)
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To: Kaslin

The media has no credibility.


13 posted on 01/04/2017 11:58:55 AM PST by Brilliant
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To: Fedora
20 Years On the CBS Evening News: Dan Rather's Outrageous Liberal Bias
14 posted on 01/04/2017 11:59:01 AM PST by Fedora
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To: Kaslin

It is nice that the chickens have finally come home to roost for the biased MSM. They tried to skew the election for Hillary (against Bernie and against Trump) and they failed. They must be feeling a little ignored and unimportant. Lets hope that they figure out what happen and change. Not holding my breath, though.


15 posted on 01/04/2017 11:59:58 AM PST by dhs12345
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To: Kaslin
I agree, the Media must indeed call out Trump's 'Demonstrable Lies'.
Just as they did 0bama's.

16 posted on 01/04/2017 12:00:35 PM PST by BitWielder1 (I'd rather have Unequal Wealth than Equal Poverty.)
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To: Kaslin

"I lost my first job lying as a DJ.
So I know about this."

17 posted on 01/04/2017 12:01:16 PM PST by Diogenesis ("When a crime is unpunished, the world is unbalanced.")
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To: Fedora
Dan Rather: “I was making fake news before it was cool.”

LMFAO

18 posted on 01/04/2017 12:03:38 PM PST by fedupjohn (The Alpha Male Chosen By The People to #MAGA....President Trump...)
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To: Kaslin

“What was the frequency, Kenneth”?


19 posted on 01/04/2017 12:04:24 PM PST by BipolarBob (I thought money was burning a hole in my pocket but it was just my Samsung Galaxy 7.)
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To: Kaslin

Did he talk about how he got out of Marine Corps boot camp by wetting his bed?


20 posted on 01/04/2017 12:04:56 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet (You cannot invade the mainland US. There'd be a rifle behind every blade of grass.)
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