![[Photograph: Dan Rather
sitting in a sunlit office with his hands on a manual typewriter. Behind him, a desktop computer
diplays a Web site.]](http://www.ratherbiased.com/photos/dan-computer.jpg)
Posted on 08/21/2002 8:19:09 PM PDT by RatherBiased.com
2002-08-21 05:48 pm PT
The political atmosphere during the months following September 11, 2001 was conciliatory and a truce had formed between Democrats and Republicans. Everyone, including Dan Rather, refrained from partisan sniping for political gain. Rather abided by the truce, until his fellow Democrats in Congress realized that they needed to get back on track for the 2002 off-year elections. But with Democrats and the media trying to connect George W. Bush with Enron, and both sides blaming each other for 9-11, the tranquil period--unprecedented in American history-ended.
When the grace period was over, the normal tendencies of both parties were no longer suppressed. It's to be excepted that Democrats are partisan, as are Republicans, but it's not to be expected that journalists take part in this eternal scuffle.
Except during the 9-11 détente, Dan Rather has been taking part in this scuffle for 40 years. With Rather now back in the political fray, RatherBiased.com is now back in service.
48 Hours has an interesting story in the history of CBS News. As chronicled by journalist Peter Boyer in his book, Who Killed CBS?, during the 80s, a power struggle emerged between CBS News president Ed Joyce and Rather:
"Rather's incessant theme, his constant obsession, was the matter of resources for the Evening News." In June 1985, Rather complained that two star reporters, Meredith Vieira and Jane Wallace, were recruited to be on a new CBS News show called West 57th: "If Vieira and Wallace were going to be in prime time, that meant they were not going to be on Rather's Evening News. What's more, the two correspondents had been given the assignment without him being consulted. He was predictably angry and seldom missed the chance in the Evening News postmortem sessions to remind all that his broadcast had been hurt by the loss of the two correspondents. 'Every thirty seconds,' said one Evening News producer, 'we were reminded that we were missing those two people.' Rather constantly worried that the broadcast had too few A List correspondents on the air on any given night." News president Ed Joyce disagreed with him and told him in a memo that he was demanding "a disproportionate share of the total resources of CBS News." Rather responded by telling him his memo was "loaded with shit."
West 57th later died because of its lack of resources and Joyce was later forced out by his adversarial anchor. A later CBS News president, Howard Stringer, came up with a plan to make sure Rather would never undermine his new program, 48 Hours, by naming Rather as its anchor. "With Rather as anchor, Stringer's new show was guaranteed fairly free access to Evening News resources, rather than the opposition that new CBS News efforts usually were accorded."
And 48 Hours has survived ever since.
I've enjoyed your posts in the past and flagged them to friends.
Anyone interested in a good read about where the wheels fell off TV news (as an untouchable totem of the left) should read Ken Auletta's "Three Blind Mice" about the takeovers of the networks in the 1980s, and the machinations behind the scenes by Rather and others. Aueletta had unfettered access to all the players as the deals came together and fell apart and came together again. It's fascinating.
The book is a quick read and has many things to recommend; in particular the book paints Walter Cronkite as a paranoid narcissist.
Now, that reads a little better ; )
I gotta confess I'm having trouble figuring out how to do searches using John R's new system. I've had to create a shortcut on my desktop to open the *ping* list that I don't check on as often as I should. Maybe someone can enlighten me on the search procedures.
In any case, it's good to have youse guys back. You've done excellent work documenting the captain's lunacy.
FGS
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