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Posted on 09/15/2004 9:59:59 PM PDT by Loopy Picklefink
I've been thinking about the implications of if the CBS memos end up being proven fake. I think very soon, that they will be. There is too much evidence against them, and almost nothing that would support them being real, except for Dan Rather and CBS backing them(which isn't exactly evidence).
Bloggers are comparing this to Watergate, which this case will resemble even more if anyone in the Kerry campaign is found involved with the forgeries. I think, however, that this scandal will resemble the quiz show scandals of the 50's more than Watergate, because a news organization is involved. For those not familiar with the quiz show scandals, I highly recommend you watch the movie Quiz Show, it's a good movie in itself, but also gives an accurate portrayal of the scandal.
In the 50's, two quiz shows, The $64,000 Question and 21 became very popular on television. The producers soon realized, that ratings went up when certain people were on, and they began to manipulate the amount of time the contestants stayed on. The movie is about a particular case on 21 when a nerdy Jew Herbie Stempel wins several weeks in a row, but soon NBC's ratings start dropping. The advertisers, Geritol, are upset, and the producers do not want to lose the money, so they pay Herbie to lose on purpose to Charles Van Doren, a good looking, high-class man that America loves. Ratings shoot up with Charles, so much so that the producers give him the answers, and train him how to answer them in certain ways. Soon, a lawyer from Boston starts investigating, and after talking to former contestants, discovers the secret behind the quiz shows.
The final outcome to the 50's scandal is interesting, and I wonder if the current CBS one will turn out the same.
From PBS:
The television quiz show scandal had wide-ranging consequences. Quiz producers were unofficially blacklisted for years and forced out of television. Many contestants, in disgrace, hid from their past. Networks took control of programs away from the sponsors and federal regulations were enacted against broadcast fraud. The scandal left us feeling betrayed. Television had entered tens of millions of homes and lives in an era filled with trust and the violation of that trust chagned our view of a new medium in an age we still like to think of as innocent.Bold emphasis mine.
In the movie, they show NBC taking the credit for the rigging, and they did not try to blame their sponsor for asking them to do so. People will forget television personalities, but not products and companies, is what one of the producers says. This was proven true when Jack Barry and Dan Enwright later hosted a game show in the early 90's, called Joker something, and the public watched it.
So back to CBS. Will Dan Rather meet this same fate? Even if he is fired and goes to jail, will people "forget" like they did with the quiz show hosts and producers? Will people mistrust CBS? NBC is still around after all of this, so I highly doubt CBS will go away. Will people begin to mistrust the news as a whole? I think they will, at least for a long time. But then again, look at all the so-called reality shows we have on now. Much of America trusts these shows, have they not learned? I think the public will be very uneasy for many years after this scandal is proven, but I think we will forget easily.
Only time will tell.
If it were a non-election year or even a Congressional Election year, I'd be inclined to agree with you. But this is a Presidential Election year, and post 9/11. Congress is already getting involved, the rest of the news media is looking like sharks circling one of their own wounded, and we now have the Blogosphere. I think you are only seeing the tip of this iceberg. My guts are screaming that this is a major turning point in American History.
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