No! It's "Separated at birth" time...
Posted on 02/03/2003 1:02:46 PM PST by fight_truth_decay
Dan Rather: "I'm an idiot, but that's beside the point." Another instance of extended live CBS coverage of a breaking news event, another instance of CBS and Dan Rather falling for an obvious crank call from a jerk trying to impress Howard Stern. Just as occurred on a Saturday in July 1999 when Rather was on the air to cover the crash of John Kennedy Jr.'s plane, on this Saturday CBS and Rather were once again gullible enough to be fooled by an obvious Stern caller and, once again, Rather was so clueless that he had to be informed by a colleague it was a crank call.
Before the exchange ended, however, the crank caller got Rather to concede: "I'm an idiot."
At about 10:55am EST on Saturday, Rather announced: "We have, we think, somebody on the phone now who believes that he may have some, may, underscore the word, may have some debris from the shuttle in his back yard. Let's try to bring him up now. Sir, are you on the phone with us?" "Mike Weller," identified on screen as "eyewitness, Euleff, TX," confirmed: "Yes I'm here Mr. Rather." Rather: "Dan please. If you would tell us who you are, where you are and what you see." Weller: "My name's Mike. I'm in Euliss Texas and a little over an hour ago I heard a loud explosion and a big piece of what appeared to be metal landed on my property. And it's lying there now and there's a lot of people here, obviously, looking at it. And they believe that it's one of Babbabooey's teeth." Russ Mitchell who was sitting next to Rather, barely audible off mike and off camera, recognized the reference to Stern's nick name for his producer: "Oh, we got a crank." Rather was undeterred from his scoop: "Hold on just one moment while I keep you. Mike, a lot of people don't know where Euleff Texas is. From Dallas you're in what direction and where?" Weller: "You're a real idiot, you know that?" [sound cut off during the word "that"] Mitchell pointed out what eluded Rather: "Unfortunately in these breaking news situations you have goofballs like him calling up. That was a crank call, unfortunately." Rather: "Well it was a crank call and it is true I'm an idiot, but that's beside the point. There's some times when our system of keeping these crank callers off of the phone works and sometimes it doesn't. This morning it didn't work. We apologize to you for that. That was a mistake on our part. Abject apology for it and we move on."
Don't producers do any kind of call-screening? These Howard Stern callers make crank calls during every major news event and they continue to get through. Makes you wonder how careful the networks are about other things they put on the air as accurate.
For Rather's gullibility during the Kennedy plane search, refer back to the July 19, 1999 CyberAlert: http://www.mediaresearch.org/cyberalerts/199/cyb19990719.asp#3
In these cases it's one part of the CBS family embarrassing another since both Rather and Stern work for the same company.
Rather assured viewers: "It is deep within the professional id of CBS News to check and double check. Before we say something is a fact we like to have two independent sources. We’ll be clear with you as we go along what’s fact and what’s in the way of speculation."
Almost exactly two hours later, at about 1:15pm ET, Rather announced: "We now have Lieutenant Ed Gaynor of the United States Coast Guard, that they’ve now found some debris. Lieutenant, what can you tell us about this debris?" [yes, verb missing but that’s what he said.] By phone "Gaynor" reported: "Some debris has been spotted and it is consistent with debris from a Saratoga, whether it’s John F. Kennedy’s Saratoga we don’t know. We also found Bababooey’s teeth were laying all in the bay too. And Howard Stern and Bababooey were all there." [Bababooey is a reference to the producer of Stern’s radio show.] Rather, unfazed by how the caller had made abundantly clear he was phoney, plowed ahead with his big scoop: "Excuse me, when you said you have determined this debris is from a Piper Saratoga. [pause as Gaynor is barely heard as producer probably tunes him down] Well, I’m not sure that we heard correctly there Lieutenant Gaynor of the Coast Guard telling us, this is breaking information, I remind you again this is live television, we take in raw information, we do the best we can to be rock solid in stating fact. But now earlier there was a report of debris spotted, then there was a report from the FAA, Bob Orr said, well the FAA in effect steered us away from making any conclusions that the debris might or might not have anything to do with John Kennedy’s plane. But now, this just in, the Coast Guard Lieutenant says they have found debris. That debris, I believe that he said, we’ve lost him for the moment now, is consistent with a Piper Saratoga but that they couldn’t determine whether it was John F. Kennedy Junior’s Piper Saratoga aircraft. But this puts the late information in a whole new context, a whole new perspective."
Only after endorsing the caller’s information three times did Rather, maybe at the prompting of an amazed producer screaming in his ear, suggest that his big scoop was not so reliable: "I want to emphasize to you that this is raw information. Sometimes people call in and say things that aren’t true, sometimes you know cranks, that sort of thing happens. So let’s be very, very careful here with this information. One thought comes to mind. Was this actually the Coast Guard Lieutenant that we thought we were talking to? He jumped off that phone very pronto. Let’s go to Bob Orr in Washington."
be an idiot?
I finally agree with Rather on something.
No! It's "Separated at birth" time...
Boy, that's a real knee-slapper!
7 people burned alive on TV, yep... what an APPROPRIATE time to joke! </ sarcasm>
What an a$$clown.
Russ Mitchell who was sitting next to Rather, barely audible off mike and off camera, recognized the reference to Stern's nick name for his producer: “Oh, we got a crank.” Rather was undeterred from his scoop: “Hold on just one moment while I keep you. Mike, a lot of people don't know where Euleff Texas is. From Dallas you're in what direction and where?”
His continuation after he was told it was a hoax cannot be deemed idiotic?
geez - what kinda idiot doesn't know Bobby Orr is in Boston??!
The interviewee responded "No"
Greta then asked "you lived down the street from him though right?"
Interviewee: No
Greta asked where do you live in relation to Muhammad?
Interviewee: I live a couple of streets over
Greta then asked him how well he knew Muhammad.
Interviewee responded that he never met him and didn't know him at all.
At that point, and certainly much earlier the interview should have ended. But no, Greta went on for another 10 minutes with this guy.
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