Posted on 09/19/2005 8:36:17 PM PDT by aculeus
NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - Former CBS News anchor Dan Rather said Monday that there is a climate of fear running through newsrooms stronger than he has ever seen in his more than four-decade career.
Rather famously tangled with President Nixon and his aides during the Watergate years while Rather was a hard-charging White House correspondent.
Addressing the Fordham University School of Law in Manhattan, occasionally forcing back tears, he said that in the intervening years, politicians "of every persuasion" had gotten better at applying pressure on the conglomerates that own the broadcast networks. He called it a "new journalism order."
He said this pressure -- along with the "dumbed-down, tarted-up" coverage, the advent of 24-hour cable competition and the chase for ratings and demographics -- has taken its toll on the news business. "All of this creates a bigger atmosphere of fear in newsrooms," Rather said.
Rather was accompanied by HBO Documentary and Family president Sheila Nevins, both of whom were due to receive lifetime achievement awards at the News and Documentary Emmy Awards on Monday evening.
Nevins said that even in the documentary world, there's a certain kind of intimidation brought to bear these days, particularly from the religious right.
"If you made a movie about (evolutionary biologist Charles) Darwin now, it would be revolutionary," Nevins said. "If we did a documentary on Darwin, I'd get a thousand hate e-mails."
Nevin asked Rather if he felt the same type of repressive forces in the Nixon administration as in the current Bush administration.
"No, I do not," Rather said. That's not to say there weren't forces trying to remove him from the White House beat while reporting on Watergate; but Rather said he felt supported by everyone above him, from Washington bureau chief Bill Small to then-news president Dick Salant and CBS chief William S. Paley.
"There was a connection between the leadership and the led . . . a sense of, 'we're in this together,"' Rather said. It's not that the then-leadership of CBS wasn't interested in shareholder value and profits, Rather said, but they also saw news as a public service. Rather said he knew very little of the intense pressure to remove him in the early 1970s because of his bosses' support.
Nevins took up the cause for Rather, who was emotional several times during the event.
"When a man is close to tears discussing his work and his lip quivers, he deserves bosses who punch back. I feel I would punch back for Dan," Nevins said.
Rather praised the coverage of Hurricane Katrina by the new generation of TV journalists and acknowledged that he would have liked to have reported from the Gulf Coast. "Covering hurricanes is something I know something about," he said.
"It's been one of television news' finest moments," Rather said of the Katrina coverage. He likened it to the coverage of President Kennedy's assassination in 1963.
"They were willing to speak truth to power," Rather said of the coverage.
Rather sidestepped the question of what should happen to the evening news in the expected makeover. "Not my call," he said. And he said he hadn't been asked, either.
"I gave it everything I had, I didn't hold anything back. I did the best newscast we were capable of doing," Rather said.
Nevins, who almost single-handedly has kept the art of the independent documentary on television, said the HBO documentaries show real life and do it with as little damage to the subjects as possible. She said the producers and directors "respect mostly the people on the other side of the camera."
Nevins said she didn't shy away from such R-rated topics as "G-String Divas" and "Taxicab Confessions" but noted that sex and passion have been topics of literature since Chaucer's day. "The most R-rated is a body bag, not a naked body," Nevins said.
lol...the crushing nightmare font is still gnashing upon Danny's soupy fontanel. Thank you, Buckhead.
Pathetic
The internet, talk radio, FNC
A few words, a cartoon, a webpage - they turn into the little lying jerks they always have been
Three FReepers put ol' Danny Boy out to pasture as a tired gelding in a few minutes
They ain't seen nuthin' yet.....
Where do they go when it's all downhill from that dinky sand dune they are sitting on now as the hurricane targets them and the world moves on and forgets they ever existed?
Nite Danny Boy -
Thanks for the ping!
To paraphrase an old Skynyrd Song.
""You can't alway trust your newsman
You can't always trust your best friend
Beware of the ones that you need y'all
'Cause those might be the ones that do you in""
In 1972 Nixon was re-elected in one of the most massive landslide elections in U.S. political history, defeating George McGovern and garnering over 60% of the popular vote. He carried 49 of the 50 states, trailing only in Massachusetts.
Richard Nixon
The coup that overthrew President Nixon was largely orchestrated by Senator Edward Kennedy to reverse the left-repudiating 1972 election and serve Kennedy's presidential ambitions. This coup led to Communist victory in Vietnam, toppling dominoes in Southeast Asia, and encouragement to left revolutionary movements worldwide. It also allowed Kennedy and his liberal media allies to identify the tragic Vietnam War not with President John F. Kennedy, who committed the first 17,000 armed troops there, but with Republican President Nixon.
A Guide to the Political Left
"Nevin asked rather if he felt t he same type of repressive forces through the Nixon administration"
I believe the "repressive forces" by which rather refers to is the current availability of the internet and the quikness of which the lies spread by the msm is reputed. It is rather like having a large pimple on ones ass after being free for so many years to manipulate the masses I suppose.
A hurricane is speaking "truth to power", what the hell is he talking about? How can a weather event be untrue?
Dan Rather, infotainer. The man loves to cry on camera. He did it on Letterman shortly after 9/11, he did it numerous times on-air when he was the CBS anchorman...it's part of his schtick, like his faux-homey colloquialisms or the v-neck sweater he used to wear under his suit. The crying on cue thing is in fact the lamest aspect of Rather's schtick, and that says a lot.
I believe that Rather practices crying. I'm not kidding. I think the man works on it.
In a just world Dan Rather would be in jail.
Aww..come on, Dan Dinosaur! Quit your crying! Courage, dimwit--remember?
These girly-men libs make me sick!! Crying because now most people know what fakes they are!
Har! Thanks for that!
Go enjoy your family & retirement you old goat.
"...and this has been Dan Rather, reporting live from the tar pits..."
***"If you made a movie about (evolutionary biologist Charles) Darwin now, it would be revolutionary," Nevins said. "If we did a documentary on Darwin, I'd get a thousand hate e-mails."***
Evolutionist Freepers, look who your friends are!
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