Posted on 09/17/2004 6:18:44 AM PDT by Mike Fieschko
Over the years, Dan Rather has been fond of saying, "You trust your mother, but you cut the cards."
It's not a widely used phrase. In fact, a search of the Nexis database reveals that nearly every public utterance of it has come from Mr. Rather, who uses it to illustrate his accuracy-above-all-else newsman's creed. "It's just a journalist's way of saying, you check it out," he explained to NBC's Tim Russert in 1999.
These days, the CBS News anchorman is being accused of violating his own rules--of failing to cut the cards--by relying on apparently forged documents in the "60 Minutes" broadcast attacking President Bush's record in the Texas Air National Guard. But that's not really a completely fair accusation. Instead, it appears that Mr. Rather did indeed check and re-check the authenticity of the papers. The problem is that, when each check and re-check cast doubt, he decided to go ahead anyway. And when he was caught out, mostly by a legion of bloggers who seemed to know more about the subject than he did, Mr. Rather responded like a politician caught in a scandal, attributing partisan motives to his critics while ignoring most of the charges against him.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
"CBS was clearly angry that its judgment was questioned-- by nobodies! "You couldn't have a starker contrast between the multiple layers of checks and balances \[at the network\] and a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas writing," said one former CBS executive who defended Mr. Rather.
Well, it turned out that the guy in his pajamas was right, at least this time. "
Go pajama people!
That is a good description. Rather acting more like a politician caught in a scandal. Sort of like someone shaking his finger in your face.
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of bloggers
Will that quiet the storm? Not likely. The moral of it all is that it is infinitely more difficult for journalists to make questionable assertions in the age of the blogosphere than it was in years past. There is an army of well-informed fact-checkers out there, all connected on the Internet. There are people who know about things like computer fonts, or IBM typewriters circa 1972, or the arcane terminology of the Air National Guard. Pick a completely different subject, and there will be people who know about that, too.
CBS was clearly angry that its judgment was questioned-- by nobodies! "You couldn't have a starker contrast between the multiple layers of checks and balances \[at the network\] and a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas writing," said one former CBS executive who defended Mr. Rather.
Well, it turned out that the guy in his pajamas was right, at least this time.
Don't you just love it! Private Pajamapants reporting for duty, sir!
It's either one of two things - either the 'masses' are smarter than given credit, or the forgery was so bad that complete idiots could catch it. Which is it, CBS?
Consider this. Rather identified Marian Knox as Col. Killian's secretary. She told Rather that she never typed the memos that CBS is relying on, but the sentiments contained in them were correct. Rather asked if she had typed other similar memos and she agreed that she had. But why?
Why do you suppose the Colonel didn't trust the competence of his own secretary? Why would a man who didn't type, go to the trouble of duplicating himself, a task that he had delegated to his secretary? Why would CBS go to the trouble of relying on obvious forgeries when legitimate documents, ostensibly, exist?
"a search of the Nexis database reveals that nearly every public utterance of it has come from Mr. Rather, who uses it to illustrate his accuracy-above-all-else newsman's creed."
What people want is sincerity. When you can fake that, you've got it made.
-Groucho Marks (paraphrased)
"At least this time". He almost gets it, but not quite.
Who is more likely to get it wrong, a small self selected group (a reporter and his fact checkers) or 50,000 indiviudals who have a wide range of experience and knowledge?
I think the internet is going to act like a gyroscope, and help bring the media back into line, where they do not dare do more then report facts, and their opinions will be labeled as such.
We all owe Dan Rather a big thank you for going to the wall on something so trivial, and clearly wrong, it is easy to decide who is lying and who is not. He will have his legacy, and it will not be bringing down another President (remember Nixon), it will be for opening he crack in the dyke that has protected big media all of these years.
Thanks Dan, we could not have done it with out you.
The more CBS opens it collective mouth the more lack of collective braintrust these people demonstrate.
Can they actualy be so naiive as to not understand just how many combined experts, Ph.D. MDs., LLDs, teachers, researchers, industrial pioneers, investment bankers, wall street gurus, history profs, political science consultants, etc. are active on these sites. Not to mention is it is the pajama people would foot the bill for any "service" industry like CBS. To insult the very people they depend upon to stay in business, has rarely been shown to be a saavy business strategy.
Viacom has few morons to cull it would seem.
They really should fear and respect these kinds of forums because they cannot hold a candle to them.
That's like saying to the bank, 'Well, he owed me money' after forging a check.
That's one analogy. I think a better one would be this: after people started dropping dead from poisoned Tylenol tablets, what if McNeill (the manufacturer) had gone after the victims to show that most of them deserved to die.
(steely)
Polymathic autodidacts placemarker.
;^)
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