Posted on 06/11/2007 3:12:50 PM PDT by Kaslin
As already noted on NewsBusters, former CBS anchor Dan Rather appeared on Monday’s edition of "Morning Joe" and lobbied for a "a strategic withdrawal from Iraq." He also found time to twice bash his "Evening News" successor Katie Couric for dumbing down and "tarting up" the news. After giving the standard caveat that Couric is a "nice person," he went in for kill. Speculating on the program’s declining ratings, Rather complained to MSNBC host Joe Scarborough that "the mistake was to try to bring the ‘Today’ ethos to the evening news and to dumb it down, tart it up in hopes of attracting a younger audience."
Rather vociferously derided the media’s obsession with celebrities, in particular the hyperbolic coverage of the Paris Hilton affair. (This is a fair point, but it’s a little odd to be making it on MSNBC, one of the worst offenders in Hilton overkill.) For a second time in the 7:30am hour, he attacked the "superficial changes" made in his absence:
Dan Rather: "You know, she tried to change networks, which is always difficult and change the programs at the same time. They've done all of the usual things. They changed the set. They changed the executive producers. They changed the graphics person, lately, forced out a guy who had been there, Ned Steinberg, for many, many years. They make all those kind of the superficial changes. I do want to say that, I think, under Rick Kaplan, that they have tried to harden up the broadcast in recent days, but that is a relative phrase, harden it up. That , you know, the trend line continues, as I say, dumbing it down, tarting it up, going to celebrity coverage rather than war coverage."
The MRC has documented Dan Rather's long history of liberal bias. A collection of "greatest hits" can be found here.
A transcript of the exchange, which occurred at 7:37am on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," follows. You can also download the video of Rather's remarks.
Joe Scarborough: "You know, Dan, the thing that Chris Licht was talking about, maybe you read it in the Times or, I don’t know where you read it– There was, it seemed to me this terrible miscalculation by Rome Hartman and a couple of CBS News execs that they were going to soften up the news and that way they could expand their viewership. I would think, if I am sitting down at 6:30 to get the news to see what’s happened today, I don't want fluff stories. Do you think that that is one of the problems that the Katie Couric’s had coming in is that maybe they tried re-brand the evening news in a way that Americans just didn’t want to accept?"
Dan Rather: "Well, I totally agree with you, Joe. I want to make clear that I have nothing against Katie Couric at all. She’s a very nice person and I have a lot of friends at CBS News. However, it was clear at the time and I think it has become even clearer that the mistake was to try to bring the ‘Today’ ethos to the evening news and to dumb it down, tart it up, in hopes of attracting a younger audience. And I just don't think that people at 6:30, or seven o’clock at night or even 5:30 in the central time zone , six o’clock when it’s seen, that that is what they want. This is a continuation of a trend that we've talked about before, Joe and Mika, and John, and that is the combination of what I call the corporatizing of the news has led to the trivializing of the news. If you notice, it isn’t just anybody's evening news. That the front page of the New York Times took space the other day to talk about, I know we don't mention her name, so I will call her Rome Marriott. This woman, Rome Marriott, Paris Hilton, on the front page of the Times. And then, today’s Washington Post has a big spread, a multi-column spread on the front page about celebrities. And the belief runs strong in the corporate towers of almost every news organization, print or over the airwaves these days, that if you go to celebrities, uh, it increases your audience. There is no empirical evidence to indicate that. But even if it were true, I think that those of us in journalism are going to have a lot to answer for when you put Paris Hilton on the front page and put developments and celebrities on the front page and put developments such as the splintering of the coalition of the Anbar Province in Iraq, which has been helpful to us, but is now splintering apart and the fact that, what, 12 or 13 people were blown up and killed at a police station on Tikrit, when you put the war on the inside pages and Paris Hilton and other celebrities on front pages, it tells you that we have got a lot to answer for in journalism."
Scarborough: "No doubt about it. And, again, with CBS News and with Katie Couric, so many people are trying to kick Katie around. But I think that you're exactly right. I think that the big problem here was a miscalculation that at beginning, you that somehow you're going to bring in 35-year-old viewers if you gave ‘em celebrity, if you gave ‘em, again, the 'Today’ show ethos, and that’s just not working. And Rick Kaplan is over there now, and from all I understand, Rick is trying to bring a harder edge of news to it, but a lot of people watching you and then watching Bob Schieffer have already left. And it seems to me like it's a great challenge."
Rather: "Well, it is a tremendous challenge for her. There are other factors. You know, she tried to change networks, which is always difficult and change the programs at the same time. They've done all of the usual things. They changed the set. They changed the executive producers. They changed the graphics person, lately, forced out a guy who had been there, Ned Steinberg, for many, many years, they make all those kind of the superficial changes. I do want to say that, I think, under Rick Kaplan, that they have tried to harden up the broadcast in recent days, but that is a relative phrase, harden it up. That, you know, the trend line continues, as I say, dumbing it down, tarting it up, going to celebrity coverage rather than war coverage. I couldn't feel stronger, Joe, and I know from listening to you, that you feel the same way, this war, it's a terrible war. We’ve let the people who are fighting the war down. I pent the weekend sort of brooding, and brooding something not my nature, as Mika will tell you, brooding about the fact that we’ve put these young people in the position in Iraq every day where they face dangers, unspeakable dangers. They're out there in the wind and sand, you know, and in the mud and the rain, and we let them down, and the idea that in news that the war is inside, inside news, not front page news is border-line criminal."
I don’t see how CBS could possibly be dumbed down any more.
As for tarting it up, Couric’s got too much flab hanging out for anyone to seriously think that could happen either.
Is that what you wipe after you've had a bowel movement?
So he’s saying everyone younger than him is just too stupid to watch a news report? Can you get both feet in your mouth Dan?
Celebrity newscasters are unnecessary. All that is required is for a group of reporters to get the facts straight and have someone read them on air. In fact, why not just show the teleprompter text on the screen while someone in the background reads it aloud. No celebrity. No editorializing the news by voice inflection or facial expression. Just news. Let the people decide for themselves what the facts mean. Video clips could be shown as appropriate. How does one ‘dumb down’ the news if one is reporting the facts as they are? What you’re complaining about is that Katie isn’t doing as good a job acting serious, grave, and substantive as you ‘acted’. Although she is clearly not objective and is left leaning, at least she isn’t as self important as you.
Dan Rather’s daughter (a lesbian) was chairman of the Travis County Democrat party. Dan favored her with a fundraiser in 2004. He is just another Democrat slut.
You are far to kind.
Replace one P.O.S. with another is much more accurate.
Did Joe ask if Katie was “working the pole”?
(Not that that’s a visual I want to think about).
Rather Attacks Couric: ‘Dumb It Down, Tart It Up’
Takes one to know one Dan.
Dan Blather knows all about integrity and intelligence in the cause of making up the news.
Instead of dumping on Katie, let’s call on CBS to go further down the path of “dumb it down, tart it up” and hire Paris Hilton as their new celebrity newsreader! That dumb tart would do wonders for both their ratings and their journalistic credibility......
Yes, you do.
Good old Dan, always speaking truth to power. /sarc Gunga Dan’s emasculated whining now only shows what a wuss he is. If he’d had a pair he’d have fought CBS on his way out.
I think “tart it up” is a sexist statement and that he should be fired.
Oh, he already has. Okay.
Just sit down and shut up Dan, you Lying Communist Bastard.
What’s the frequency Kenneth!!!!
Dan is on HDNET (an all high definition cable channel) although not viewed by many. When I pass by his show on the cable guide on my tv I am slightly amused. His show is called Dan Rather Reports (which xp38 ignores) and it is on from 6-7pm eastern.
I like a positive attitude! LOL!
Hey, Dan, that’s all very nice, but twenty years from now people will go to Wikipedia and read the following:
“At the end of Rather’s career, the CBS Evening News had fallen to a distant third place in network viewership. Although still garnering some 7 million viewers each evening, the broadcast was behind the NBC Nightly News and ABC World News Tonight, and the networks were all losing influence to cable and the Internet news. Rather’s departure from the anchor chair was troubling for CBS, as his journalistic credentials were questioned during the 2004 Presidential campaign between George W. Bush and John Kerry, when 60 Minutes II ran a report by Rather about Bush’s military record; numerous critics questioned the authenticity of the documents upon which the report was based. Rather retired, possibly under pressure, as the anchor of the CBS Evening News at 7:00 eastern time, 9 March 2005.”
Yep, those were the good old days having Dan Rathernot to kick around (Kenneth what’s the frequency?).
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