BRILLIANT COMMENT BUMP!
The LA Times’ take on the story, fwiw.
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/tv/la-ex-rather20sep20,0,6465400.story?coll=la-home-center
From the Los Angeles Times
Dan Rather files $70-million lawsuit against CBS
By Matea Gold
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
1:26 PM PDT, September 19, 2007
Longtime CBS anchor Dan Rather filed a $70-million lawsuit today against his former employer, alleging that executives at the broadcast network broke the terms of his contract by marginalizing him in his final days at CBS News and forcing him to retire early.
The lawsuit, filed in New York State Supreme Court this afternoon, comes as a startling postscript to the saga that dominated the news division three years ago, when a political furor erupted over a piece Rather anchored about President Bush’s service in the Texas Air National Guard, later found to be based on unsubstantiated documents.
In the wake of the controversy, a producer was fired and three executives were forced to resign. Six months later, Rather stepped down from the anchor chair of “CBS Evening News,” a year shy of his 25th anniversary in the job.
His lawsuit, first reported on the New York Times website, claims that CBS and its former parent company, Viacom, violated the terms of his contract and sought to tarnish his reputation and restrict his abilities to seek work in order to contain the political fallout from the story. The complaint names CBS Chief Executive Leslie Moonves, Viacom Chairman Sumner Redstone and former CBS News President Andrew Heyward as defendants.
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