Posted on 01/21/2005 9:55:35 PM PST by RayChuang88
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - NBC's top executive sharply criticized CBS News and anchorman Dan Rather on Friday for broadcasting a botched report questioning President Bush (news - web sites)'s military record -- and said such a mistake could never happen at his network.
In a public rebuke of a rival network's news judgment that was rare for its bluntness, NBC Universal Television Group President Jeff Zucker said NBC News had learned its lesson from a discredited report on automobile safety aired by "Dateline NBC" in the early 1990s.
Asked about the recent CBS News gaffe at NBC's annual winter presentation to TV critics, Zucker said, "Nothing like that could have gotten through at any level (at NBC) because of the safeguards that we instituted more than a decade ago."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
However, the fact that even that a high-level executive at NBC Universal is denouncing what CBS News tried to foister on an unsuspecting American audience tells me that Viacom COO Leslie Moonves has a major PR fiasco on his hands with Rathergate and it may be many, many years before CBS News gets its reputation back, if ever. 
Asked about the recent CBS News gaffe at NBC's annual winter presentation to TV critics, Zucker said, "Nothing like that could have gotten through at any level (at NBC) because of the safeguards that we instituted more than a decade ago."
B.S. If you have everyone on staff hating the administration and rooting for the other guy and they happen to be DimocRATS, it wil happen.
Slandering a sitting President up for re-election in wartime is JUST a touch more serious than fudging an auto-safety report. The mainstream television media needs a MASSIVE spanking on the part of its viewers. Not viewing at all would be a dandy start.
Total, naked hypocrisy from NBC. The nerve of them, trying to lecture another news organization when they themselves are questionable.
The NBC rebuke still misses the point by calling it a "mistake". His statement carries with it the assumption that no mischief was involved.
NBC also had Kitty Kelley on the Today Show for quite a few days to promote her book of lies about the Bush family so, they are no better than CBS!
Then why did Lisa Myers tell Broaddrick that "the bad news is, you're very credible?" Why did NBC sit on the story and then pared the interview down from 3 hours to a little 10 minute Dateline snippet?
I see you missed the sarcasm in my post.
On the night of the Dateline interview NBC spent the beginning of their evening news program talking about a special on ABC.
Watching Zucker lecture CBS on ethics is like John Kerry giving a speech on honor.
Yeah...the pot here is at the very least calling the kettle black! As you point out, it's certainly very interesting that a high level exec is making such a statement, but, after clearly helping the other alphabet networks dump pails of manure on conservatives, Republicans and conservative views in general for decades, I'm not convinced of NBC's objectivity by this one statement.
One supposes that NBC is rather (LOL, no pun intended!) opportunistically tryng to create the image of high standards of objectivity to capture some apparently available market share. :-\
In any case, even if sincere, as 'jennyscool' has pointed out, the so-called mainstream media needs a spanking and still has a drastic lesson to learn - and, I'll add, has a long, long way to go before conservatives, and serious truth seekers generally, can rely on them.
- knightshadow.
"Watching Zucker lecture CBS on ethics is like John Kerry giving a speech on honor."
Yup!!
- knightshadow.
You're right, that's how I looked at it too. This is more of a "Damn CBS, why'd you have to do something stupid and make us look bad too?" speech from Zucker than actual criticism.
The sharks smell blood in the water. The fact that it is another shark that's bleeding is immaterial.
I'd recognize the sarcasm if the typing was a little more cohesive...
It is too late for CBS News. The "investigation" of CBS's attempt to fix a Presidential election by using forged memos has already been thoroughly exposed as a whitewash. CBS is toast. The only (very slim) possibility that CBS has of beginning a long, slow recovery would be for the network to unceremoniously axe Rather, Heyward, and Moonves and then bring in a complete surprise (from the outside) as the new anchor. And that new anchor would have to be one heck of a choice.
Of course, the "old" (formerly "mainstream") news media is a dying institution anyway, so there may not even be any point in trying to recover. Good riddance to the lot of them.
pot, meet kettle.
Yes, it should be used for this article.
NBC playing this little line would be the same as Noah standing deckside on day 20 and asking the zebras if they think it will rain.
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