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.
His comments strike me as "fake, but accurate"
It's called competition. It's a healthy thing. Learn to adapt or become extinct.
"I gave it everything I had, I didn't hold anything back. I did the best newscast we were capable of doing," Rather said.
That's it? That's all you had?
Unreal! The dying, socialist "mainstream" newsrooms are shaking in their boots because now they know that they will be called on every lie, distortion, and forgery that they dream up in order to smear conservatives and Republicans. It is way past time for the old media to simply crawl away and die.
In the meantime we will always be left to wonder: How many brazen lies and forged memos did the dinosaur news media get away with over the decades before us new guys showed up to expose them? It is a frightening question to ponder.
I'm surprised that emotional Dan is not mad at you personally.
Hey Dan ... if ther internet was around in Nixon's day
We would have caught you in your lies then also
Only because their socialistic house of cards is falling. Anything else they say just is spin. They can't handle the truth getting out.
All this 'blather' from Dan about Politicians applying pressure is a hoot.
He and his coworkers were never intimidated by anyone and kept spewing their lying versions until they were finally caught in their lies and their ratings went down the drain.
That's what he's crying about.
God bless you and everyone along the Gulf Coast...we're praying this one will fizzle fast, but if Texans have to evacuate they can be certain they'll be well cared for on the South Plains (and elsewhere).
Brace yourself for the nasty MSM onslaught ("the White House was certainly quicker to protect TX than NOLA)... they're as predictable as a hangover and about as welcome.
BTW, how was the tailgating? ;)
there is a climate of fear running through newsrooms stronger than he has ever seen in his more than four-decade career
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mmmm... Smells yummy!
First of all....I HATE the saying "truth to power" and coming from HIS mouth...whose almost LAST newscast was a LIE...makes me sick...
However, I must also say this....WHAT IS ALL OF THESE MEN CRYING????
Voinivich--twice! Coburn! Rather!
What is the wide, wide world of sports is going on here???
Pray for W and Our Iraq Winning Troops
I wish I had seen this - - I would love to see Rather in tears, with his lip quivering.
He is yesterday's garbage.
Who cares about sad statements of a lying has been.
Was it fake but accurate?
Now, am I the only one to notice that Dan Rather and Baghdad Bob look like body doubles or identical twins?
Dan Rather? No that name doesn't ring a bell. But wait, Pavlov, that's a name that rings a bell.
Dan will be dead within 2 years.
"I gave it everything I had, I didn't hold anything back. I did the best newscast we were capable of doing," Rather said
Memogate the best you were capable of and it was a complete failure - as were you!
"Dan will be dead within 2 years."
18 months.
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