Posted on 09/19/2007 12:30:52 PM PDT by abb
Dan Rather, whose career at CBS News ground to an inglorious end 15 months ago over his role in an unsubstantiated report questioning President Bush’s Vietnam-era National Guard service, filed a $70 million lawsuit this afternoon against the network, its corporate parent and three of his former superiors.
Mr. Rather, 75, asserts that the network violated his contract by giving him insufficient airtime on “60 Minutes” after forcing him to step down as anchor of the “CBS Evening News” in March 2005. He also contends that the network committed fraud by commissioning a “biased” and incomplete investigation of the flawed Guard broadcast and, in the process, “seriously damaged his reputation.” As plaintiffs, the suit names CBS and its chief executive, Leslie Moonves; Viacom and its chief executive, Sumner Redstone; and Andrew Heyward, the former president of CBS News.
In the suit, filed this afternoon in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, Mr. Rather charges that CBS and its executives made him “a scapegoat” in an attempt “to pacify the White House,” though the formal complaint presents virtually no direct evidence to that effect. To buttress this claim, Mr. Rather quotes the executive who oversaw his regular segment on CBS Radio, telling Mr. Rather in November 2004 that he was losing that slot, effective immediately, because of “pressure from ‘the right wing.’ ”
He also continues to take vehement issue with the appointment by CBS of Richard Thornburgh, an attorney general in the administration of the elder President Bush, as one of the two outside panelists given the job of reviewing how the disputed broadcast had been prepared.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
“And right there is the problem with all this: the elevation of the reporter, the presenter, the hack — to use the better British terms — into overexposed, overpaid, undermanaged, self-important personality. And as the Times story notes, the new overpaid, overexposed personality in Rather’s chair isn’t helping the network either. The anchor model is not only broken, it’s dangerous. It produces Dan Rathers.”
Many corporations, in particuliar those controlled by liberals seem to have these pampered Princes and Princesses.
They are overpaid egomaniacs, who hurt the company and destroy the morale of the worker bees around them.
The sharks are eating each other.
Another bump for IncPen’s classic (seeBS blinking eye, post #193) on a FR classic thread. Thanks to all posters.
What a community of outstanding people!
It IS a classic. I can’t let it die. It continues to give and give and give... :)
Hope Rather does not get a penny. Rather must have gotten the idea from Imus and hopes for any kind of settlement.
BTW, what is happening with Imus?
DID ANYONE SEE THAT RAT BASTARD ON LARRY KING LAST NIGHT????
HE ACTUALLY HAD THE *NERVE* TO SAY SOMETHING LIKE “NOTICE I ONLY REFER TO THE DOCUMENTS AS BEING FALSE - I DID NOT COMMENT ON THE STORY ITSELF- WHICH WAS TRUE”
IN OTHER WORDS HE WAS STICKING TO “FAKE BUT ACCURATE”
Absolutely priceless.
...There are tears streaming down my cheeks as I look at your post :-).
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