For those who are foolish enough yet to believe that the Big Media are not biased:
www.mediaresearch.org:
Dan Rather told Don Imus on Thursday morning during his appearance by phone on the Imus in the Morning radio show simulcast on MSNBC:
-- That the CBS Evening News avoided the Chandra Levy case "because the facts were so few" and he didn’t want to fuel a "feeding frenzy" because, Rather intoned in setting a high standard for what is newsworthy, "whatever one may think of the Congressman and his behavior before and after the disappearance of the young woman, the police have said repeatedly that he’s not a suspect in any crime."
-- Asked if he reported the unsubstantiated charges of drug use by candidate George W. Bush, Rather answered with an emphatic "no," though he later promised to go "back to our computer files and if I’ve misstated to you, I’ll come back to you and say I misstated it. But, I don’t think I ran anything on that." In fact, in 1999 the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather ran multiple stories on the allegations.
-- After conceding he did run stories in 1992 on sexual harassment allegations against Senator Bob Packwood, Rather realized the contradiction with his current rationale for ignoring Condit and expressed regret for his previous news judgment: "I think the Packwood thing was another feeding frenzy and unfortunately we took part in it in a way that I wish we hadn’t."
-- Mocked himself as he self-deprecatingly proclaimed "it’s a matter of record I’m boneheaded," conceded "I’m bizarre" and boasted that "I’ve been a dumbass all my life."
-- Asked about former CBS News reporter Bernard Goldberg’s charge that he has a liberal bias, Rather denied it, insisting he’s just "in favor of strong defense, tight money, and clean water."
Some more extensive excerpts from the July 19 Imus in the Morning made possible thanks to the transcribing of MRC analyst Ken Shepherd:
-- Imus: "There was a long period time that the CBS weekend news was reporting it. The CBS Web site was. The New York Times, the Washington Post. Even our friend Jim Lehrer. And my point, I guess there is hardly was this a story confined to the gossip-oriented media. And we did have the spectacle of a sitting Congressman under siege, if nothing else, by the media and almost rendered inoperative in the ability to conduct his business. And in connection with a missing government intern. And it seemed to a lot of people that it did warrant...but it seemed to me that it did warrant at least an acknowledgment that it was a story that people were interested in. And my question for you is why didn’t you think so."
Rather: "Well, because the facts were so few, and they remain so few. And you know, I appreciate you touching on it and taking it seriously but, let’s, you know, I’m willing to discuss it but it’s important to me to keep in mind that, you know and I do have it very much in mind, you know, you’ve got a missing person here. It’s a missing person case. You said well why didn’t you, well, first of all the facts are so few. You know, we’ve got rumors, speculation, gossip, innuendo. And you know, we decided, I decided to try to exercise some restraint. You know, maybe we should have done something with it. I don’t think so. I have no argument with these other journalists who have made other judgments. Some of whom you’ve had on lambasting us while justifying their own fairly heavy play of the story. Naturally, I was disappointed in that. I understand that they have to do that. It’s a competitive business. My only hope is that, you know, those who really unloaded on us about this, and the public will come to understand that it was and still is, my judgment that, for to be extra careful in this kind of atmosphere. This current atmosphere is a classic news feeding frenzy.
"...What went into the thinking was one, there’s no criminal case. No criminal case. A missing person case: it’s important for the family of the missing person. It is for all of those families. There’s something like a hundred thousand missing person cases around the country, but there’s no criminal case here. Not yet anyway. There’s no suspect. No suspect. Whatever one may think of the Congressman and his behavior before and after the disappearance of the young woman, the police have said repeatedly that he’s not a suspect in any crime. I know that, you know, there are people of the opinion that he should be charged with some crime, but my point is that he hasn’t been. Nor do the police indicate they have any plans to charge him with anything. Now beyond that, the police have not even accused him of any crime, which is something the police often do before they finally charge him. They haven’t accused him of any crime. Now, if the Congressman were accused, much less charged, he’d be entitled to presumption of innocence til proven guilty beyond any reasonable doubt in a court of law.
"Now, I think this last point can’t be emphasized too much. Maybe it went too strongly into our thinking. But it applies to every American citizen. Whether they are a homeless person or a Congressman. And I thought there was, and I still think there is a real danger that an innocent person could be convicted in the court of public opinion on the basis of rumor, gossip, and speculation. And I do want to point out that, you know, Richard Jewell, this guy in Atlanta. He was accused by the police. And a lot of people ran hard with that story. We, we exercised some restraint with that. And as a consequence, when other people got sued and settled quietly out of court for a lot of money for tainting Richard Jewell, it was still hard for him to get his reputation back."
-- Rather: "I want the CBS Evening News to be high road hard news. And if we’ve underdone it then, hold us accountable. You know, we’ll take a public caning about it and maybe we deserve it, but I don’t think so....Now for anybody that says, well, you know it’s a Democratic Congressman and so they want to give him a break, I think that’s, I’m not going to complain about it but, when the Bush daughters had their difficulty, we didn’t broadcast a word about it, and a lot of people ran hard with it. The point here is that we want to have a record, we try to build a record of some restraint on these kind of cases. And I felt fine when everybody else was running with the story about the Bush daughters and we didn’t run a line. Some of the people internally and externally were saying, you know, you’ve got your head in the sand. Well, I don’t have my head in the sand. I want us to stand for something and we try to stand for something and it didn’t work and I feel badly because guys like, you know, Jimmy Murphy I work with and other people have been criticized for, I guess you could say, my determination, I guess others say hard-headedness about this thing."
While it’s true the weekday CBS Evening News with Dan Rather didn’t jump on the Bush story, the weekend CBS Evening News covered it on the first Saturday after her escapade became news.
-- Imus: "Did you report the -- which were unsubstantiated and I guess still are -- allegations of drug use by George W. Bush when he was running for the presidency?"
Rather: "No."
Imus: "Did you report on the Bob Packwood situation that although they were accusations of sexual harassment and the Washington Post first revealed the story, I believe on November 22 or 23, 1992?"
Rather: "I think we did something on the Packwood situation in ‘92. Yeah."
Imus: "So what would be the difference between the Packwood situation and the Condit situation."
Rather: "Well, I don’t know that there is a big difference. We learned. I think the Packwood thing was another feeding frenzy and unfortunately, we took part in it in a way that I wish we hadn’t. But I do want to come back to the George Bush thing. You know, I’ll go back to our computer files and if I’ve misstated to you, I’ll come back to you and say I misstated it. But, I don’t think I ran anything on that. I know my feeling at the time was, well if somebody brings me some proof, then we’ll run with it."
REALITY CHECK: The "CBS Evening News with Dan Rather," but without Dan Rather as anchor because of vacation, jumped right on the allegations against Bush. The Wednesday, August 18 edition of the program anchored by Bob Schieffer featured a full report from Bob McNamara, who began: "As the spotlight zeros in on George W. Bush's front-running campaign, over and over now comes the ‘did you ever’ question. Again today, he was asked if he ever did cocaine and refused to answer."
CBS followed up with another story the next night. For more on coverage that week, go to:
mediaresearch.org
Dan Rather can’t have it both ways. He can’t pretend stories on Bush and drugs on the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather don’t count because he was on vacation but then take credit for how the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather this year ignored the Condit story for nine week when on at least ten of those weekdays Rather was not in the anchor chair.
-- Rather: "....Here’s the thing, if they, if they believe he’s obstructed justice, then charge him with that, and when they charge him with that, we’d certainly consider that news. But they haven’t done that. And let me say that I’ve worked the police beat for a long time and I have great respect for the police but, I don’t, if if it’s true that we haven’t handled this situation in our reporting as well as we should, I don’t think the Washington police have been flawless in their handling of the thing. But, where I come out with this Imus, look, we’ve made mistakes in the past. Somebody wrote in the paper the other day that I was quote ‘boneheaded.’ Well, of course, it’s a matter of record I’m boneheaded, said, ‘well, this is bizarre.’ Well of course I’m bizarre, you know, we’ve known that for a long time-"
Imus: "What’s the frequency, Kenneth?"
Rather: "I don’t know, somebody, I don’t know he put it exactly this way but he said, well, you know, it’s a dumbass thing he’s doing. Well, you know, I’ve been a dumbass all my life, why would anybody expect me to be any different about this?"
Why indeed.
-- Imus: "Bernard Goldberg, your former colleague, in the Wall Street Journal the other day said that you possess a liberal bias that you’re even unaware of. What did you think of that? Well, first of all do you? And second of all what do you think of his comment?"
Rather: "Do I what?"
Imus: "Possess a liberal bias."
Rather: "No, I don’t think so but other people have to judge that and you know he’s entitled to his opinion and that’s, you know, I’m in favor of strong defense, tight money, and clean water. I don’t know what that makes me. Whatever that makes me that’s what I am. But people are going to take those shots. When you’re on television every night, people are going to take those shots."
In Rather’s case, well-deserved ones.
For more on Goldberg’s analysis of how Rather and other mainstream media figures are not even aware of how the assumptions they make match liberal thought, go to:
mrc.org
mrc.org |
