Mullings An American Cyber Column By Rich Galen

US & Int'l Papers

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Rather Blather

Friday September 21, 2007

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On the Road in
San Diego, California

Seventy Million Dollars. SEVENTY million dollars. Seventy MILLION dollars. Seventy million DOLLARS.

That's how much Dan Rather is suing his former network, CBS, for as the result of his - according to him - being made "the scapegoat" for the phony scoop about a document which allegedly proved that George W. Bush received preferential treatment while a pilot in the National Guard.

The report was rushed to air on the mid-week "60 Minutes" program in September, 2004, because, many people believed, Dan Rather wanted to be able to air the story which cost President Bush the election.

Problem was, the smoking gun document was so obviously a fake that, according to the Associated Press, "CBS fired the story's producer and asked for the resignations of three executives because it could not authenticate documents used in the story."

Oh. That pesky authentication stuff. This is television news, hoss, not the New York Times.

CBS removed Rather from the Evening News anchor chair in March 2005 "which he had occupied for 24 years" which was about 20 years too long, if you ask me.

SIDEBAR

Interestingly, as of 11:17 pm Eastern Time last night there was no mention of any of this on the CBSNEWS.COM website. The top story was: "Landis Guilty Of Doping, Loses Tour Title."
Let's see: $70 million lawsuit against CBS by Dan Rather. Tour de France doping story. Which one should we go with, Andy?
[Andrew Heyward is the president of CBS News. He has announced he is leaving that post in early November]

END SIDEBAR

Rather was not just the anchorman at CBS, he held the title of "Managing Editor" which meant he had considerable sway over, and say in, what got on the air, what didn't get on the air, and how stories were presented.

If Dan Rather had applied the journalistic standards of his (not the current) era, and had not allowed his feelings about President Bush to get in the way of his judgment, he would never have allowed that story to go on the air the way it did.

The best thing to have come out of the Rather scandal was his being replaced as anchor by Mullfave Bob Scheiffer. Scheiffer sat in the chair and more than held his own until the job was given to Katie Couric who has successfully managed CBS into a distant third place in the nightly news ratings sweepstakes.

Dan Rather: The gift that keeps on giving.

NEW TOPIC

You know my rule about reading non-fiction books: I have to be in it or it has to have a lot of pictures which (a) keeps my non-fiction reading down to about zero except for (b) coffee table books.

I am adding a new exception: Books written by people I actually know, like, and respect.

Such a book is "Until Proven Innocent" by Stuart Taylor (whom I know, like, and respect) and K.C. Johnson (whom I don't know so I have no opinion about the latter two attributes).

It is the tale of the Duke rape case.

The New York Times reviewer, Jeffery Rosen, wrote:

"From the Scottsboro Boys to Clarence Gideon, some of the most memorable legal narratives have been tales of the wrongly accused. Now "Until Proven Innocent," a new book about the false allegations of rape against three Duke lacrosse players, can join these galvanizing cautionary tales."

Taylor and Johnson remind us of the rush to judgment by the press, the university administration and, most of all, the faculty

"88 of whom signed an inflammatory letter encouraging a rush to judgment by the student protesters who were plastering the campus with wanted posters of the lacrosse team and waving a banner declaring 'Castrate.'"

In the end it was not the Duke Lacrosse players, but insanely out-of-control prosecutor who went to jail, but this is a book everyone should read because in a world of network and cable news pundits, and the Internet Blogatorium no one is safe from being falsely accused.

Not even the President of the United States by CBS News.

On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: Links to the Rather blather, and to the Stuart Taylor book. Also a very funny Mullfoto and a Catchy Caption of the Day.

Also, if you haven't yet, you should check out the Mullblog!. There is interesting stuff there and, you can respond for the whole world to see.

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