Rather: Government Influencing Newsrooms

Media Matters:

Dan Rather said Thursday that the undue influence of the government and large corporations over newsrooms spurred his decision to file a $70 million lawsuit against CBS and its former parent company.

"Somebody, sometime has got to take a stand and say democracy cannot survive, much less thrive with the level of big corporate and big government interference and intimidation in news," he said on CNN's "Larry King Live."

In the suit, filed a day earlier in state Supreme Court in Manhattan, Rather claimed CBS and Viacom Inc. used him as a "scapegoat" and intentionally botched the aftermath of a discredited story about President Bush's military service to curry favor with the White House. He was removed from his "CBS Evening News" post in March 2005.

Read the whole story: Media Matters

Comments

[realitytrumpsbull]

01:42 AM on 09/24/2007

No, no, say it isn't so...I thought CNN was ALWAYS a 24-hour 'hair club for men' commercial...

[nolalily]

11:36 PM on 09/23/2007

I hope Rather is the beginning of a string of reporters and journalists who have the guts to blow the lid off of the wined/dined/and bribed MSM. How else could this insanity going on in this country continue to reign?

[ajax2]

11:29 PM on 09/23/2007

If you watched Scott Pelley tonight you would think they the WH wrote every question for him. The guy is mindless.

[Ladyrantsalot]

05:00 PM on 09/23/2007

Anything that reminds Americans that Dumbya is an effete Chickenhawk woos is ok by me.

[ms.understood]

03:28 PM on 09/23/2007

no, you don't say? as if we couldn't tell that the government (this one in particular) has a major influence of the news. why doesn't dan rather just take retirement in stride and stop making such an ass of himself? seriously, can he not find anything else to do?

[Dem02020]

12:41 PM on 09/23/2007

CBS itself is a privately-owned and controlled corporation; even if we think no one outside of CBS influenced how they reported the "news", they would still have all the self-interests of any privately-owned corporation, wouldn't they?

It's time for us to wake up to the fact, that the "news" business is a business.

For us to believe that these businesses serve truth when they report the "news", is for us to not consider who owns these businesses, or what private interests they might have; not only do these businesses have their own self-interest, of revenue and profit (because they will die if they do not), but they have the political interests of their ownership, and whatever other financial interests those owners have, outside of the "news" business.


Two things to note here:

1. There was an interesting movie from 1999, "The Insider", made by a lot of talented people (it starred Al Pacino and Russell Crowe); it dealt with this subject, and was more than just "based" on a true story, it must have been factual to a legal standard, because it used all real names of persons; and it told of how "big tobacco" influenced a "60 Minutes" report on tobacco.

2. If Dan rather truly wanted to "take a stand" against the influence of "big corporate ...interference and intimidation in news", and for Democracy (as he's quoted saying in the AP story), then he could do so, by coming clean and writing an expose' on any and all instances in his long career of the thing we're talking about.

But he's not going to do that; he's not going to serve Democracy even as much as the movie "The Insider" did.

He's simply trying to pressure CBS into as large and as quick a settlement as possible.


An interesting part of the AP story was this, it's fifth paragraph.

"Rather didn't mention other instances in which he believed news organizations bowed to corporate and government pressure"


He could do that for us and for Democracy, you know; he's an "insider"

[Average]

10:25 AM on 09/23/2007

Poor old Dan. He LIED, BACKED IT UP WITH MORE LIES, and now he is TELLING MORE LIES. His career is shot because he is a LIAR.

[ronspri]

11:30 AM on 09/23/2007

Average, wow that is a sad thought.

You radical righters make up your own facts. You know WMD al queda connection, meeting in Prague, phony uranium document and try to turn it into truth. Why would anyone believe anything you guys say anymore. You make up your own fantasy world and live in it. The Dan Rather deal is another one. As was said above people that were involved at the time said that is what happened and what they signed. You can't get more factual than that. I think your phony documents thing is just another attempt to fool us. You fell for it. It was hours, just hours before Drudge started it. How did that happen so quickly genius. Don't look at us when you are looking for stupid, look in the mirror.

[mike53]

11:35 AM on 09/23/2007

Agree. Rather and Mapes got what they deserved.

[VictorLudorum]

06:40 AM on 09/23/2007

% my dears..look I graduated in 83 and remember most of my class mates...............on the internet governments ad's are visibly majority !
In newspapers TV everywhere..By mid eighties 'the age of information' had struck.. The governments tore puzzles out from 'innocent media' but the appeals for shareing official advertisements brought this day that governments are sharing the bottom two quarters already!
Is older TV broadcast free of Press and The Printers Devil? ......

[OyVei]

05:25 AM on 09/23/2007

Dang! We done elected a President!!

http://www.canadaka.net/pic-5138.html

[stargazer13]

01:51 AM on 09/23/2007

my money is on Dan Rather

[OyVei]

01:14 AM on 09/23/2007

All propaganda must be so popular and on such an intellectual level, that even the most stupid of those toward whom it is directed will understand it ... Through clever and constant application of propaganda, people can be made to see paradise as hell, and also the other way around, to consider the most wretched sort of life as paradise.
~ Adolf Hitler

[accountability]

11:12 PM on 09/22/2007

Gee, where would Rather get the idea that something hinky was happening here?
2 people on the review *committee.*
This is one of them:

"In 1988, President Ronald Reagan appointed Thornburgh as the United States Attorney General and he was retained in office after President George H.W. Bush was sworn into office in January 1989... Thornburg also authored the controversial Thornburgh Memo, that attempted to define the ethical rules applicable to Department of Justice lawyers..."

"The Thornburgh Memo was a U.S. Department of Justice memorandum prepared by then Attorney General Richard Thornburgh, on June 8, 1989. The memo declared that state ethics rules were not binding upon federal prosecutors. It asserted that any compliance with state ethical rules by federal prosecutors conducting government investigations was strictly voluntary.

While the memo was not legally binding, it represented a dramatic statement of the then executive branch's understanding of its ethical obligations as lawyers."

Fair?
Just because you are paranoid doesn't mean no one is out to get you.

[johnnyjust]

10:56 PM on 09/22/2007

He was caught deliberately trying to influence a Presidential election.

Ah, the media. King of all medium.

[accountability]

11:03 PM on 09/22/2007

oh son, please mind your manners, this is where the big people talk.
If you want to play in here you have to learn to be quiet or say something sensible. A chikld has to learn how to behave in civilized society and any one who wants to present an argument must have facts to back up his claims.
Run along now and play with your friends. If you can find some proof come on back and I'll take a look, ok dear?
That's a good boy.

Buh bye.

[kellygrrrl]

11:06 AM on 09/23/2007

Johnny, go work on your MySpace page, buddy

[NewRiver]

09:15 PM on 09/22/2007

Kenneth, what's the frequency?

[Podewumun]

01:47 PM on 09/23/2007

NewRiver

WHY are YOU asking?
We know you don't have a RECEIVER!

Either that, or it's not turned on.

[Podewumun]

01:57 PM on 09/23/2007

NewRiver

OOPS!!
That should have read...THEY...don't have a receiver.
This silly cumpooter

[anastasiabeaverhousen]

08:07 PM on 09/22/2007

Dan Rather, my old and new hero. One of the last journalists in the business and now he's marginalized and relegated to the HD network? What a pathetic commentary on today's infotainment we call news.

[Podewumun]

09:28 PM on 09/22/2007

You got that right. Could care less about NO MORE CABLE. Took my brain back.

[accountability]

10:59 PM on 09/22/2007

Amen.
Dan was the best, the last of the way it was... so to speak..