Posted on 09/08/2024 5:18:03 AM PDT by T Ruth
An important anniversary [is today]. This anniversary carries implications for how we receive news, how political campaigns are conducted, and the credibility of almost everything we see or hear from the media.
On September 8, 2004, CBS’s “60 Minutes” used forged government documents as the basis for a story that attacked the military record of then-President George W. Bush. It was bad enough that CBS used forged government documents, but what made it worse was that CBS aired this story during the presidential election and timed the airing to coincide with the rollout of Democrat John Kerry’s “favorite son” campaign theme. CBS thus provided the “news” upon which the Democrat candidate based his attack ads. The CBS story was quickly disproven and eventually forced CBS into personnel changes and investigations. Dan Rather was forced into retirement a few months later. But CBS did not give up before a lengthy battle in which bloggers demonstrated that the font and other features in the forged documents did not exist in 1972 (the date placed on the forgeries).
The battle over the truth became a story in itself. The truth about the font spread like wildfire through the blogosphere and the internet, quickly picking up steam. ...
The result was a victory for the truth and a blow to the establishment media. CBS was proven to have lied to influence a presidential election. ...
Why is a 2004 scandal at CBS still relevant [twenty] years later? Even without Dan Rather, the network has not truly changed. The other networks are just as bad – if not worse. Rathergate serves as one example of what the establishment media do. They lie. They lie regularly, and they lie during election years to help elect Democrats. ...
***
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
It’s all tempered by the fact, that as a result we got stuck with Dumbya for eight years.
60 minutes has from the beginning been totally corrupt. I listened to them avidly in the first year. Then, I noticed that in their 2nd anything STEM related was a complete fabrication. Total out of sync with facts that I knew.
I quit watching and put them in the same category as CNN.
Are buckhead & TankerKC still around?
Rathergate was when I saw the media transform from an entity that at least tried to hide its bias, such as by elevating minor stories and dragging them out (Watergate), or spiking major stories (the huge abortion protests in Wichita in 1992) - to an entity that still does that, but now OPENLY LIES to advance its agenda.
In the pre-Rathergate days, if the media got played by a source, they would out the source and quickly issue a retraction and maybe apology. They struggled with that on Rathergate, and kind of went halfway.
In the post-Rathergate days, if the media gets played by a source, they both PROTECT the source and simply ‘move on’ - they never even admit a mistake (think Russiagate, of course). It’s sickening now and they need to lose ALL First Amendment protections, and SOON.
Dan Rather was overly aggressive in his reporting they say Uncle Walter Cronkite noticed it in his days working with Dan.
But CBS once had a board member around 1950 or so named “Prescott Bush” the father and grandfather of future presidents.
Wasn’t Dan thinking when he went after W that it would come back to bite him?
Probably not.
IIRC Rather was the first one to say on radio or TV that JFK was dead after Kennedy was shot.
Rush Limbaugh mentioned Buckhead and Free Republic that week, completely blowing the lid off Rathergate. What a time to be a FReeper!
That was considered going out on a limb more confirmation was needed according to journalistic standards used by the major media back then.
One the White House press official said JFK was dead it was official for NBC and CBS-TV. ABC-TV was a few minutes ahead of them on it as I recall.
On TV, it was Dallas Reporter Eddie Barker who first said that he had heard a source say that Kennedy was dead, and that was about 45 minutes before the official announcement.
The Secret Service agent quote at the scene that Kennedy was dead went out in the early wire copy but was not put on the air in most cases in those early minutes after JFK was shot.
The standard was to wait for more confirmation before putting that out to the public.
Of course there was a lot of “fog of war” in the early reporting. There were reports of LBJ also being shot, and also that a Secret Service agent had been killed, as well.
I remember. I was a lurker at the time, but I remember how members here showed off their investigative prowess in proving that CBS and Dan Rather lied.
The fake documents had been produced with computer software using a Times New Roman Font. They would have been impossible for “W’s” Unit to produce with the equipment they possessed at that time.
Not only were the forgers deceitful; they were also lazy and stupid.
September 8 is Rathergate Remembrance Day.
... and FR played a prominent role in exposing CBS’s lies.
I remember FR role so well. This is when I became a follower of FR.
...when reporting an armed robbery, stated that a Vietnam veteran was the perpetrator. The truth was that the perp had only been in Army basic training in about 1972 and left shortly afterwards and thus saw no action at all, let alone be in Vietnam.
From the late seventies on, there have been a LOT of “news” stories” about “burned out, degenerate and mentally unstable” Viet Nam Vets. When the stories are scrutinized, these “veterans” consistently turn out to have either never been in country, entry level separations or never served at all.
That was TankerKC during the broadcast.
TankerKC!
TankerKC noticed it three hours before Buckhead. Buckhead saw this post and helped spread the message.
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1210516/posts?page=107#107
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.