Posted on 10/04/2004 6:32:03 PM PDT by woofie
SEATTLE--At a joint appearance over the weekend, the network news anchors began to circle the wagons in defense of the beleaguered Dan Rather. "There's a political jihad against Dan Rather and CBS," complained NBC's Tom Brokaw at a New York Public Library event Saturday. "It's a demagoguery unleashed on the Internet."
ABC's Peter Jennings then weighed in. "I think the attack on CBS is an attack on mainstream media, an attack on the so-called 'liberal media," he told the audience. Mr. Rather said CBS executives have asked him not to comment on the botched story involving fabricated memos about President Bush's Vietnam-era National Guard service.
The reason he can't comment is that last Tuesday former attorney general Dick Thornburgh and former Associated Press chief Louis Boccardi began their outside review of the "60 Minutes" foul-up. They began calling in CBS honchos for intense interrogations. New York's Daily News reports that among those summoned were CBS News president Andrew Heyward, Mr. Rather and Mary Mapes, the producer of the Rather segment on the memos.
Most viewers don't know that on TV newsmagazines producers like Ms. Mapes do most of the important reporting. The on-air correspondents normally just parachute into the story at the end. The "60 Minutes" National Guard segment was an exception. Mr. Rather has acknowledged that he was deeply invested in the story, and when he learned Ms. Mapes had gotten the documents from Bill Burkett, a controversial former National Guard lieutenant colonel, he asked Mr. Heyward to take charge. In an interview with the New York Times, Mr. Rather quoted himself as telling Mr. Hayward, "I have to ask you to oversee, in a hands-on way, the handling of the story." According to Mr. Rather, "He got it. He immediately agreed."
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
Interesting read
Brokaw calls it "demogoguery". The term means that you tell people what they want to hear. I wonder if Mr. Brokaw has ever asked himself why people would want to hear that Dan Rather is a biased liar? Could it be because he IS biased liar?
Personally, I can't think of any reason that anyone would have to call him a biased liar if he weren't.
More than even money that she goes. Rather is less likely.
Mr. Carlson says he wishes his former colleague would let the story go. She clearly cared too much about "her" story of George W. Bush slacking in the National Guard. After it aired, CBS proudly proclaimed she had been working on it for five years. Mr. Rather has acknowledged that Mr. Burkett did not approach CBS News with the memos. Rather, Ms. Mapes approached him about whether he could find documents challenging Mr. Bush's military service. He quickly obliged. Ms. Mapes clearly wanted the memos to be real, and she and the CBS executives overseeing it rushed the story on air only four days after receiving all the documents--despite flashing red-lights from the document examiners they consulted.
Mr. Carlson says he wishes his former colleague would let the story go. She clearly cared too much about "her" story of George W. Bush slacking in the National Guard. After it aired, CBS proudly proclaimed she had been working on it for five years. Mr. Rather has acknowledged that Mr. Burkett did not approach CBS News with the memos. Rather, Ms. Mapes approached him about whether he could find documents challenging Mr. Bush's military service. He quickly obliged. Ms. Mapes clearly wanted the memos to be real, and she and the CBS executives overseeing it rushed the story on air only four days after receiving all the documents--despite flashing red-lights from the document examiners they consulted.
bookmark bump
They're all in bed together and the MSM is losing the tiny bit of credibility it used to have. They're shameless shills for Kerry. They've never asked Kerry to sign a SF 180.
Probably because he told them not to.
Bernie Goldberg said tonight on Dennis Miller that Mapes is toast. Rather will have to be brought out feet first.
Blather's "anybody but me" attitude is exactly why Viacom will unload Blather next spring, and then he and Tommy and Petey can cry in their beer at the Stop-and-Barf in TriBeCa.
Jennings and Brokaw would be wise not to condemn the "average" American who would like to see news return to something other than Dan Rather spewing his political agenda using forged unsubstantiated documents called "news" to attack our President. Dan Rather is on a Jihad, the rest of us want honest crap-free information.
"Mr. Carlson says that among its other sins, CBS simply didn't realize that most people don't care if Mr. Bush missed a physical"
It is a sign of Mapes'es feverish left bias that she spent five years on this story. After five years she must have been so desperate to take down the president that she made it up out of whole cloth. And yes, it is funny that she thought someone missing a physical was earth shaking information.
Mary Mapes, a producer for CBS is seen in this 1999 file photo, in Jasper, Texas. Mapes was the producer on CBS's Dan Rather's report on '60 Minutes' questioning President Bush 's National Guard service. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip, File)
She looks like the long lost cousin of Christine Gregoire (WA State Gubernatorial Candidate).
I just cant believe the way the "Vast right wing pajamahadeen" is beating up on the bastions of credibility.
(wow spell check accepts pajamahadeen!) L0L
"There's a political jihad against Dan Rather and CBS," complained NBC's Tom Brokaw at a New York Public Library event Saturday. "It's a demagoguery unleashed on the Internet."
What this means in english is that Brokaw considers Bernie Goldberg as a "mccarthyist" demagogue that is agitating the public to speak out on the internet. This kind of cryptic language is the way media elite a**holes like Brokaw communicate. When you hear it this kind of language sounds gentlemenly, but underneath it is true demagoguery.
It's not just that she ignored that they were forgeries, it's that she ignored the content of the directive was utterly bogus -- and that's a prima facie perpetration of a fraud.
I think that is the way it will shake out. Mapes will get
most of the blame and be fired. CBS does not have anyone ready to replace Rather. My guess, they will let his contract run out in 2006.
One of the primary reasons why I'm now a Freeper is because of the Rathergate scandal. That windbag and his network needed deflating. And it was done through a painstaking, almost fanatical attention to details.
Politics aside, I admire a work ethic. As well as honesty.
John Roberts. Absolutely no diff between him and Brokaw's replacement.
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