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Goldberg: CBS Brass Ordered Me to Go Easy on Dan Rather
NewsMax ^ | December 3, 2001 | Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff

Posted on 12/03/2001 1:51:06 PM PST by RMeek

With Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff
For the story behind the story...

 

 

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Monday Dec. 3, 2001; 5:13 p.m. EST

Goldberg: CBS Brass Ordered Me to Go Easy on Dan Rather

In 1993, when longtime CBS News journalist Bernard Goldberg proposed an investigative report on media bias featuring interviews with top network news stars, CBS brass approved the project, but ordered Goldberg to go easy on Dan Rather.

In his first interview since word of his explosive new book, "Bias: A Veteran CBS Reporter's Account of How the Media Distorts the News" leaked out Friday, Goldberg told WABC Radio's Sean Hannity about an incident where he suggested the media bias report to CBS News boss Andrew Heyward for the new show Heyward was then producing, "Eye to Eye with Connie Chung."

"He looked at me like I must be on drugs," Goldberg said. But after some cajoling Heyward agreed to take the idea to the then-president of the news division.

"He came back and said, 'The president of the news division says you can do it. But you can't ask Dan any tough questions.'

"I thought he was kidding," Goldberg said. "I mean, could you imagine if I said, I want to do a piece on - I want to interview Newt Gingrich, but don't ask him any tough questions?"

When told he couldn't ask Rather what he wanted, Goldberg decided to drop the media bias report altogether.

The veteran reporter had words of praise for Rather, but said he also shared character flaws that bedeviled Rather's old nemesis, Richard Nixon.

"Dan is a great guy a lot of the time," he told Hannity. "He's funny, he's charming, he's intelligent, he's all the things you want a guy to be."

But Rather could also be ruthless and unforgiving, Goldberg said.

"When Dan sneezes, (Rather's staff) all catch cold. When Dan says jump, they all say, 'How high?'.....Any kind of serious disagreement, especially about liberal bias, was seen as treason," he added.

The CBS veteran told Hannity about a network vice president who once warned, "Just like Nixon, if you cross Dan once - if he perceives you as an enemy for a second - you're an enemy for life."

"The irony," said Goldberg, "is (that) Dan Rather, the great journalist who exposed Nixon for what he was, sort of became Nixon."

Order Bernard Goldberg's book "Bias" at an unbeatable price at NewsMax.com's bookstore.

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:

Dan Rather/CBS
Media Bias




TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Front Page News; News/Current Events
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Link to RatherBiased.com:

RatherBiased.com
( http://www.ratherbiased.com/ )

1 posted on 12/03/2001 1:51:06 PM PST by RMeek
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To: RMeek
No way Rather is really from Texas. No way. Must be some kind of mistake. There is just nothing Texan about him.
2 posted on 12/03/2001 1:55:45 PM PST by isthisnickcool
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To: RMeek
Order Bernard Goldberg's book "Bias" at an unbeatable price at NewsMax.com's bookstore.

It's like two bucks cheaper at Amazon.

3 posted on 12/03/2001 1:56:10 PM PST by Rodney King
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To: RMeek
Good post! Thanx.
4 posted on 12/03/2001 1:56:47 PM PST by Bogie
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cover
Click Here!

5 posted on 12/03/2001 1:57:35 PM PST by shuckmaster
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Comment #6 Removed by Moderator

To: RMeek
Does anyone remember the riotous democrat convention in Chicago in 1968? Dan Rather was on the floor, berating Mayor Daley for the police handling of the violent rioters outside. At a signal from the mayor, two security guards grabbed Rather by his arms and hauled him out, face up, heels dragging, as he sputtered into his microphone. Another fond memory....
7 posted on 12/03/2001 2:04:34 PM PST by thucydides
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To: boston_liberty
I'm intrigued by this book more than any other in a LONG while...
Got my copy reserved thru Chapter 11. Hope they don't "accidently" lose it.
8 posted on 12/03/2001 2:08:31 PM PST by The Drowning Witch
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To: isthisnickcool
He is not from Texas, of course unless you think Austin is really part of Texas.
9 posted on 12/03/2001 2:09:10 PM PST by wiscon
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To: isthisnickcool
His daughter is involved in Save Our Springs. This is a left wing environmental wacko group that puts progress behind Salamanders.
10 posted on 12/03/2001 2:09:35 PM PST by Capitalist Pig
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To: RMeek
Only a few times in life do we get to enjoy spectacular admissions that totally back some long-suspected belief or "common knowledge". I'm 50, and I've heard all of the official denials.

Well, soak it up, FReepers, because they were guilty and lying, and we were right. Now everybody sees them with their pants around their knees.

The importance is overwhelming because now they will have "legitimate" preesure to address it AND fix it.

Never thought I'd see the day..........

11 posted on 12/03/2001 2:12:46 PM PST by bond7
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To: thucydides
I remember Dan in the 1972 Demo Convention, running around, trying so hard to break/make news. He so wanted to be the first to announce Ted Kennedy had agreed to be nominated....but for poor Dan, it never happened.

Since that display, I have never been able to watch Dan Rather without gagging.
12 posted on 12/03/2001 2:12:58 PM PST by TomGuy
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To: shuckmaster

13 posted on 12/03/2001 2:13:32 PM PST by SerpentDove
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To: Capitalist Pig
I thought "Save our springs" was a wacko group who were against having sex in bed.
14 posted on 12/03/2001 2:16:23 PM PST by Uncle George
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To: isthisnickcool
No way Rather is really from Texas. No way. Must be some kind of mistake. There is just nothing Texan about him.

I'm sure you're right, metaphorically. Undoubtedly, at an early age, Dan recognized himself as a snooty, effete, elite, girly-man trapped in a Texan's body. I could be wrong; he may have developed the "snooty" at a later age.

15 posted on 12/03/2001 2:16:59 PM PST by laredo44
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To: RMeek
From latest Limbaugh Letter- "Stupid Quotes" section:

"Keeping your energy up is not hard in a situation like this, but I did rely on something I call 'zoom juice'.... Frankly, I don't know what's in the damn stuff. It gives you a burst of energy, you can gulp it down quickly, and it's liquid, so you're not chewing when you come back on the air."

- Dan Rather, explaining how a "high-protein smoothie" helped him cope with the pressure of reporting on September 11, quoted in the New York Post

Rush's comment: Next time, try truth serum.

16 posted on 12/03/2001 2:28:18 PM PST by Mark
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To: Mark
Sounds like Captain Dan's gulping cocaine milkshakes.
17 posted on 12/03/2001 2:33:21 PM PST by mountaineer
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To: isthisnickcool
"No way Rather is really from Texas. No way. Must be some kind of mistake. There is just nothing Texan about him."

Sure, it fits. He's got the kind of personallity you get when you're beat up several times a day for being a sissa-boyh.

18 posted on 12/03/2001 2:35:23 PM PST by Born to Conserve
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To: isthisnickcool
No way Rather is really from Texas. No way. Must be some kind of mistake. There is just nothing Texan about him.

Are you trying to tell us that there are no PissAnts in Texas? How about LBJ, Molly Ivins, Jim Hightower, Anne Richards, Lord Bentsen, and I could go on and on? Rather fits right in with this bunch.

19 posted on 12/03/2001 2:46:45 PM PST by jackbill
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To: thucydides
I don't recall it at the time it happened, although I watched the conventions faithfully, but over the years I have seen news clips of it, and it is just priceless!
He was a young guy then, not in the upper crust of CBS yet, so he wasn't an anchor man.

Now I dream that he is on the air spouting his liberal bias and a group of Freepers come in, grab him by the arms and haul him out of the studio while he mutters into the microphone!

20 posted on 12/03/2001 2:51:32 PM PST by ladyinred
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