Why it's important to remember Rathergate

American Thinker ^ | October 5, 2020 | David Lanza

[T Ruth]

An important anniversary [is today]. This anniversary carries implications for how we receive news, how political campaigns are conducted, and the credibility of almost everything we see or hear from the media.

On September 8, 2004, CBS’s “60 Minutes” used forged government documents as the basis for a story that attacked the military record of then-President George W. Bush. It was bad enough that CBS used forged government documents, but what made it worse was that CBS aired this story during the presidential election and timed the airing to coincide with the rollout of Democrat John Kerry’s “favorite son” campaign theme. CBS thus provided the “news” upon which the Democrat candidate based his attack ads. The CBS story was quickly disproven and eventually forced CBS into personnel changes and investigations. Dan Rather was forced into retirement a few months later. But CBS did not give up before a lengthy battle in which bloggers demonstrated that the font and other features in the forged documents did not exist in 1972 (the date placed on the forgeries).

The battle over the truth became a story in itself. The truth about the font spread like wildfire through the blogosphere and the internet, quickly picking up steam. ...

The result was a victory for the truth and a blow to the establishment media. CBS was proven to have lied to influence a presidential election. ...

Why is a 2004 scandal at CBS still relevant [twenty] years later? Even without Dan Rather, the network has not truly changed. The other networks are just as bad – if not worse. Rathergate serves as one example of what the establishment media do. They lie. They lie regularly, and they lie during election years to help elect Democrats. ...

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[Az Joe]

Where is Buckhead when we need him?!