Posted on 10/07/2015 9:55:23 PM PDT by Brad from Tennessee
“Truth” is revisiting a painful chapter for CBS News. The upcoming movie, starring Cate Blanchett as producer Mary Mapes and Robert Redford as Dan Rather, is an unwelcome reminder of past mistakes for several people who lived through the saga of the 2004 “60 Minutes II” report on President George W. Bush’s time in the Texas Air National Guard.
Some who are depicted in the controversial film, which is based on Mapes’ 2005 book “Truth and Duty: The Press, the President and the Privilege of Power,” are critical of the conclusions drawn by the veteran investigative journalist.
They were hopeful that the picture, which debuts in theaters on Oct. 16, would come and go quickly in limited release. But Blanchett is generating Oscar buzz as a best actress contender for her tour de force performance as the hard-charging producer swept up in a firestorm of partisan politics and media scrutiny of her work.
“It’s astounding how little truth there is in ‘Truth,’” a CBS spokesman said in response to Variety’s inquiry. “There are, in fact, too many distortions, evasions and baseless conspiracy theories to enumerate them all. The film tries to turn gross errors of journalism and judgment into acts of heroism and martyrdom. That’s a disservice not just to the public but to journalists across the world who go out every day and do everything within their power, sometimes at great risk to themselves, to get the story right.”
CBS’ ire and the response from the “Truth” filmmakers and distributor Sony Pictures Classics crystallizes the central debate about the incident that has been re-ignited by the film. Was the problem behind the “60 Minutes II” report an issue of corporate interference with the pursuit of a sensitive story? Or was it journalistic mistakes that compromised the reputation. . .
(Excerpt) Read more at variety.com ...
sup is the HTML. I think that stands for superimposed.
Info about PowerLineBlog.com and their contribution to RatherGate for anyone interested:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Line
For some unknown reason the guy who runs that site went full-retard leftist not long after.
Sad, really.
ping
Ha!
That is sad. It was never truly conservative even at the time. I appreciated their input on the RatherGate issue, but I didn’t love them overall. My husband followed them. I kept warning him that they were not really conservative.
there’s NO debate about it- Dan rather LIED! End of story- It’s sad that the news media got their nose bent and now keeps bringing up this LIE to try to defend themselves even after all these years- talk about sore losers! They arwe hell bent on foisting this LIE on people who may have forgotten the incident, and forgotten that Dan Rather was caught red handed LYING! They will beat this issue to the bitter end-
“Wasn’t that around the time the “pajama media” term started?”
Yes.
Memo to Dan Rather and CBS:
If you are going to forge Military Documents from the 1970s. At least have the common decency to use IBM Selectric II typewriters from that time. And hire someone with experience as an Air Force Clerk/Typist from that same era, Who is familiar with proper addresses, anagrams, initialese for rank. And what boxes to fill in properly or leave blank!
This lame attempt at recent revisionist history may do well on either coast in the U.S. But will bomb miserably and embarrassingly in those many states in between!
How did the movie explain away the obvious fake “but accurate” supposed 70s document using contemporary 21st century Word fonts and superscripts?
Dan Rather and Peter Jennings are toilet paper I flush most mornings.
Sounds like a movie that would cut deep into the time to walk the cat. We have priorities.
It’s a natural!
Liberals have such great memories that they remember things that never happened.
That's all one really needs to know. The movie is supporting the liars.
It is an interesting contrast, one that should be noted by reviewers, that CBS execs were given an opportunity to screen and comment on the film. The original hit piece on Bush was classic ambush journalism, timed for maximum impact on the campaign and carefully kept secret from the target of the "investigation" in order to cripple any possible response. Had CBS conducted a serious investigation, it would have interviewed Bush and others who would have challenged the story. But the intent all along was to spring a surprise political hit job. Tora, Tora, Tora -- but they ended up bombing their own carriers. That would be a fascinating story to tell, but it of course is not where the moviemakers wanted to go.
It will be interesting to see how FR, Powerline, and Little Green Footballs are credited. It would indeed be great cinema to show how bloggers, within hours and working with nothing more than internet images, were able to destroy a fraud months in the making.
The two biggest questions a movie could usefully explore are: (1) coordination with the DNC and the Kerry campaign, which was up with coordinated advertising immediately after the CBS hit piece aired; and (2) the decision by CBS to put its internal investigation under wraps until after the election. Having produced a fraudulent story based on forged documents, failing to vet it by interviewing the target of the investigation, and apparently coordinating its release with Kerry/DNC, CBS sanctimoniously announced that its after-action report must be delayed lest it unduly affect the election. My presumption is that CBS didn't want voters to understand its probably criminal collusion with the DNC and the Kerry campaign. It's as simple as that.
Thanks for posting this. We need such reminders that even victories over the lies of the Left, such as the disgrace and forced retirement of Rather, are only temporary and that they’ll always regroup and come right back at us. The Left never gives up, they never forgive and they never forget. Even when they lose a battle they’ll attempt to rewrite the history of it and turn the public’s perception 180 degrees.
What they’re trying to do here, for example, is replicate their success in what was done in the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill affair. Immediately after Thomas successfully overcame the massive orchestrated lie campaign and was confirmed, polls overwhelmingly showed that the American public believed Anita Hill was lying and Thomas was telling the truth.
That didn’t deter the Left, though. They adopted a strategy of incrementally chipping away at that perception. For the next decade they took advantage of nearly every mention of Thomas in the public dialogue to “casually” insert some type of mention or comment about how he “lied about Anita Hill” or “Anita Hill tried to tell the truth” about him. This was done not just by political commentators or news/media types, but also in popular culture sources such as movies or television programs wherein a character would drop a gratuitous line such as “the suspect is lying just like Clarence Thomas”.
The net result of this insidious drip of propaganda into the public consciousness was that by 2000 the public’s perception of this issue had completely reversed. More people now believe Thomas lied than did Hill. We must never underestimate the power of the media and SJW activists to shape and reshape public opinion.
Redford is such an emotional sap, uninterested in the facts. Soooo Holllywood
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