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The joys of seeing an anchor sink
St. Petersburg Times ^ | September 26, 2004 | ERIC DEGGANS, Times TV/Media Critic

Posted on 09/26/2004 12:03:38 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife

He knows it sounds like false modesty. Or a clumsy attempt to seem gracious.

But though he's spent four years maintaining a Web site dedicated to proving CBS anchor Dan Rather is biased; and though RatherBiased.com contributed to the outcry that forced the anchor to admit serious flaws in his Sept. 8 60 Minutes story about President Bush's National Guard service, Matthew W. Sheffield insists one thing is true.

He doesn't hate Dan Rather.

"We just wanted to fully expose and prove beyond a reasonable doubt that any claims to nonpartisanship and objectivity on his part were patently false," said Sheffield, a 26-year-old Web site designer who, with his brother Greg, started the RatherBiased.com Web log (or "blog") in response to the anchor's coverage of Bill Clinton's impeachment proceedings.

"We have no animus against him. But this "Memogate' fiasco is just another example of Dan Rather's long record of lowering his journalistic standards when it comes to Republicans."

But after an hour or so talking to Sheffield, it seems obvious: Rather has burrowed under his skin like a Texas tick on a hot summer day.

Talk to other conservatives with a Rather-sized chip on their shoulder, and you'll hear the same song of complaint. His oddball, corn-fed sayings. His history of confronting Republican politicians such as Richard Nixon and George H.W. Bush. His folksy way of shrugging off any criticisms of his reporting or on-air comments.

Other network TV anchors have absorbed their fair share of criticism and allegations of bias (opinionated cable guys such as Fox News' Bill O'Reilly are another matter). But Rather has built a 30-plus-year history of frustrating conservatives. "Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings . . . they're not so arrogant and self-righteous," said Sheffield. "Dan Rather . . . he takes fairness criticisms personally. He thinks if you accuse him of being a liberal, you're accusing him of being a far-left nutjob."

So Rather's apology last week, in which he admitted CBS News could not guarantee the authenticity of memos purportedly showing that Bush received favorable treatment in the Guard and failed to meet performance standards, felt like a gift from above - the smoking gun critics needed to validate decades of often-fruitless sniping.

"I think this is the greatest story since Noah went on the ark . . . it's like a pinata; you can bash it from any side and sorts of great things fall out," said Jonah Goldberg, a conservative columnist for the New Republic Online. "There is no way you can explain this without media bias being part of the equation.

"This 60 Minutes story never would have happened if the memos had come from Swift Boat Veterans for Truth against John Kerry. Now (Rather) is a joke, and everyone can see it."

Goldberg also cites Rather's arrogance as the primary source of conservatives' hatred, comparing the anchor to a college roomate who drinks your last can of beer and then won't admit it.

"He thinks that you're a partisan fool if you don't see that he is the paragon of objectivity, and that drives me nuts," said Goldberg, who has appeared on a variety of TV and radio shows to debate - and celebrate - Rather's embarrassment.

"I would stop talking about media bias if the establishment press would just admit it. Just admit you took the last beer."

Deluged with media attention last week, a CBS News spokeswoman Friday e-mailed a two-sentence statement on the issue: "Journalists are often the target of partisan factions, and Dan is no exception. However, there is no truth to those allegations."

Marvin Kalb, former director of Harvard University's Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, said Rather's critics often seem to confuse his admittedly puzzling public statements and bulldog reporting style with bias.

Kalb, a former host of NBC's Meet the Press who also worked at CBS News, said conservatives' ire at Rather dates back to his time covering Watergate as the network's White House correspondent - when the anchor's hard-charging style led to public, angry confrontations with then-President Richard Nixon and Vice President Spiro Agnew.

"There's nothing like this long, festering unhappiness with Rather that many conservatives have . . . but I think Dan - he's not oblivious to politics, but he loves covering the story," said Kalb, recalling a failed effort by then-North Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms in 1985 to rally conservatives to buy enough CBS stock to fire Rather. "Yes, every now and then he comes out with the quirkiest comments you can imagine. (But) I don't think Dan Rather put (ideologically) suspect stories on the air."

Top anchor at the network since legendary newsman Walter Cronkite's retirement in 1981, Rather is just the fourth anchor to lead the evening news at CBS, the network which invented the television newsmagazine with 60 Minutes, featured Edward R. Murrow's landmark documentary series See It Now, and dominated the early TV news scene with Cronkite's near-20-year reign as the "most trusted man in America."

Rather's own career history involves starring roles in the country's biggest news stories, from his status as the first journalist to report John F. Kennedy's death to his tough reportage in Vietnam, his work on Watergate, his dispatches from the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and his work on the Iran-Contra scandal.

And as a journalist whose job involves serving as a charismatic, emotionally connected embodiment of a network's news division, Rather wears that history and responsibility more uneasily than any other big name in the game.

"These guys have been in people's living rooms for 20-30 years . . . and Rather has a edge to him," said Jeff Alan, author of Anchoring America: The Changing Face of Network News. "Where I think Brokaw and Jennings are more straightforward, standard TV anchors, Rather has always been different."

Just how different has emerged over the years, from his puzzling use of the word "courage" to sign off his newscasts for a week in the mid-'80s, to a bizarre assault in 1986 by a man shouting "Kenneth, what is the frequency?" to his decision in 1987 to storm off the set when a tennis match came close to interrupting his newscast.

But until "Memogate," there really wasn't an incident that pulled together Rather's tightly wound, quirky personal style with a major journalism gaffe.

Now, he faces a two-person independent panel investigating just how 60 Minutes used memos they couldn't authenticate, given them by a longtime Bush critic.

Some of the more extreme predictions about the scandal's fallout sound more like a conservative's wishful thinking. With no-name backups such as John Roberts and Scott Pelley in the wings, few analysts expect CBS to dump Rather outright. And instead of destroying network news, the blogs' influence in Memogate seems to be speeding up the news cycle - inspiring big news outlets to jump on stories quicker and vetting blockbuster stories for accuracy.

But Rather's critics insist the anchor's excesses might finally be tearing down The House That Murrow Built.

"He's going to become the Michael Moore of TV news . . . preaching only to the choir," said Sheffield, who doesn't believe Rather will be fired by CBS over the incident. "In many ways, he's sort of harmed the credibility and infrastructure at CBS News. And the congregation has left the building."


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Editorial; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 60minutes; bias; cbs; journalism; oldmedia; rather; ratherbiasedcom
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1 posted on 09/26/2004 12:03:39 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

Midnight bump


2 posted on 09/26/2004 12:06:28 AM PDT by tertiary01 ( Dems see Bush having God-like powers, but will they worship him when he's re-elected?)
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To: RatherBiased.com


3 posted on 09/26/2004 12:08:25 AM PDT by Libertarianize the GOP (Make all taxes truly voluntary)
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

Great. Marvin (the pompous commie) Kalb defending cap'n dan. That'll help a bunch.


4 posted on 09/26/2004 12:11:28 AM PDT by ozzymandus
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To: ozzymandus

LOL


5 posted on 09/26/2004 12:12:40 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

This article acts as if Rather's main flaw is using goofy, folksy sayings. It's not his dopey metaphors that are the problem; it's the double standard he has when it comes to covering Democrats and Republicans.


6 posted on 09/26/2004 12:20:09 AM PDT by NYCVirago
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To: NYCVirago
All these "fixers" need to look into a


7 posted on 09/26/2004 12:23:34 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
But until "Memogate," there really wasn't an incident that pulled together Rather's tightly wound, quirky personal style with a major journalism gaffe.

Deggans should change his name to Rip Van Winkle. He must have slept through Rather's public slandering of General Westmoreland, the 120 million lawsuit and the payout by CBS. That was back in the early 80s. He must have slept through all of Rather's deceptions over the years. Oops, I mean "gaffes."

8 posted on 09/26/2004 12:33:53 AM PDT by Bonaparte (twisting slowly, slowly in the wind...)
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To: Bonaparte

Yeah, gaffes.....

LOL


9 posted on 09/26/2004 12:39:49 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

I can't believe Kalb, who is not stupid, can defend Rather with a straight face. Danny boy actually insisted that the Russians liked living under communist dictatorship, enjoyed the brutality, the poverty, the injustice, and had no interest in freedom.


10 posted on 09/26/2004 12:47:54 AM PDT by Bonaparte (twisting slowly, slowly in the wind...)
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To: ozzymandus

Are you telling me that this Kalb is NOT an "unbiased expert?"

I'm shocked, shocked to the core!

I bet Deggans thinks we can't see his thinly disguised hostility towards those conservative "haters" that dare to criticize Dan.

Let's ask Mr. Subtext.

Mr. Subtext: (translating Eric's column) "Okay, you meanies! I hope you're happy now! You tried to ruin a wonderful old man's life because you confuse folksy sayings with bias! Shows how dumb you are, thinking Dan's gonna lose his job BECAUSE HE ISN'T!!! So go ahead and dance, you stupidheads!!!"


11 posted on 09/26/2004 12:49:27 AM PDT by stands2reason (Limousine Liberal--a man who has his cake, eats his cake, and complains that other people have cake.)
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To: Bonaparte
The perils of designer tribalism***...Part of what makes The Tears of the White Man such an important book is Bruckner’s sensitivity to the aerodynamics of liberal guilt. He understands what launches it, what keeps it aloft, and how we might lure it safely back to earth. He understands that the entire phenomenon of Third Worldism is fueled by the moral ecstasy of overbred guilt. Bruckner is an articulate anatomist of such guilt and its attendant deceptions and mystifications. “An overblown conscience,” he points out, “is an empty conscience.”

Compassion ceases if there is nothing but compassion, and revulsion turns to insensitivity. Our “soft pity,” as Stefan Zweig calls it, is stimulated, because guilt is a convenient substitute for action where action is impossible. Without the power to do anything, sensitivity becomes our main aim, the aim is not so much to do anything, as to be judged. Salvation lies in the verdict that declares us to be wrong.

The universalization—which is to say the utter trivialization—of compassion is one side of Third Worldism. Another side is the inversion of traditional moral and intellectual values. Europe once sought to bring enlightenment—literacy, civil society, modern technology—to benighted parts of the world. It did so in the name of progress and civilization. The ethic of Third Worldism dictates that yesterday’s enlightenment be rebaptized as today’s imperialistic oppression. For the committed Third Worldist, Bruckner points out,

salvation consists not only in a futile exchange of influences, but in the recognition of the superiority of foreign thought, in the study of their doctrines, and in conversion to their dogma. We must take on our former slaves as our models. . . . It is the duty and in the interest of the West to be made prisoner by its own barbarians.

Whatever the current object of adulation— the wisdom of the East, tribal Africa, Aboriginal Australia, pre-Columbian America —the message is the same: the absolute superiority of Otherness. The Third Worldist looks to the orient, to the tribal, to the primitive not for what they really are but for their evocative distance from the reality of modern European society and values.

It is all part of what Bruckner calls “the enchanting music of departure.” Its siren call is seductive but also supremely mendacious. Indeed, the messy reality of the primitive world—its squalor and poverty, its penchant for cannibalism, slavery, gratuitous cruelty, and superstition—are carefully edited out of the picture. In their place we find a species of Rousseauvian sentimentality. Rousseau is the patron saint of Third Worldism. “Ignoring the real human race entirely,” Rousseau wrote in a passage Bruckner quotes from the Confessions, “I imagined perfect beings, with heavenly virtue and beauty, so sure in their friendship, so tender and faithful, that I could never find anyone like them in the real world.” The beings with whom Rousseau populated his fantasy life are exported to exotic lands by the Third Worldist. As Rousseau discovered, the unreality of the scenario, far from being an impediment to moral smugness, was an invaluable asset. Reality, after all, has a way of impinging upon fantasy, clipping its wings, limiting its exuberance. So much the worse, then, for reality. As Bruckner notes, in this romance adepts “were not looking for a real world but the negation of their own. . . . An eternal vision is projected on these nations that has nothing to do with their real history.” ....***

12 posted on 09/26/2004 12:58:04 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

Who is Marvin Kalb? Is he as big a moron as he sounds in this story?


13 posted on 09/26/2004 1:06:21 AM PDT by Lancey Howard
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

Thanks, CW. That sounds like an interesting book. To a lot of people the grass always looks greener in foreign hell holes.


14 posted on 09/26/2004 1:22:38 AM PDT by Bonaparte (twisting slowly, slowly in the wind...)
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
"..With no-name backups such as John Roberts and Scott Pelley in the wings, few analysts expect CBS to dump Rather outright..."

The Independent panel investigates and proposes, but Sumner Redstone disposes and he doesn't seem happy.

Ultimately, the findings of the panel and Redstone's evaluation of bottom line considerations will determine if Dan and others are toast or not.

15 posted on 09/26/2004 1:42:12 AM PDT by Anti-Bubba182
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To: Bonaparte
... To a lot of people the grass always looks greener in foreign hell holes.

Bump!

16 posted on 09/26/2004 2:04:54 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: Lancey Howard

May 22, 2003 - An Interview with Mike Wallace: A Look Back and at What's Ahead for Broadcast News


Marvin Kalb, Lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, was the first Director of the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy. He is now Executive Director of the center's office in Washington, D.C. At the Kennedy School, he hosted the PBS series "Candidates '88," and he has appeared regularly on PBS's NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and other television and radio programs. Over a 30-year career as a Chief Diplomatic Correspondent for CBS News and NBC News, and as moderator of Meet the Press, Kalb received numerous awards for excellence in diplomatic reporting. A graduate of the City College of New York, he has an MA from Harvard and was zeroing in on his PhD in Russian history when he suddenly left Cambridge in 1956 for a Moscow assignment with the State Department. His The Nixon Memo was published in 1994. He also is the author of two best-selling novels and a new book entitled One Scandalous Story: Clinton, Lewinsky and Thirteen Days That Tarnished American Journalism.

http://www.brook.edu/gs/research/projects/press/020522.htm


17 posted on 09/26/2004 2:09:50 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
Marvin Kalb Enlightenment:

When it comes to books, reasoning and reality, Kalb appears the loser.
18 posted on 09/26/2004 2:14:36 AM PDT by pt17
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To: pt17

19 posted on 09/26/2004 2:17:04 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

"...(But) I don't think Dan Rather put (ideologically) suspect stories on the air."

In a related comment, Kalb mentioned that he didn't think Stalin doctored photos.


20 posted on 09/26/2004 3:06:20 AM PDT by Bahbah (Proud member of the pajamahadeen)
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