(Former CBS News anchor Dan Rather, courtesy of the NY Times website.)The answer to the question is 'yes' apparently. After filing a lawsuit against CBS News, his old long-time employer, last year, Dan Rather is still aggressively pursuing the case, attempting to get CBS News to release as much information as possible while still in discovery.
Though, 5/7 of Rather's charges have been dismissed, two remain. And Rather has fought tirelessly for the rest of his case to be heard. In fact, he's used over 2 million dollars of his personal fortune to pay for the trial. What keeps him going on?
Rather says, "I want to go the distance...Like any good reporter, I want to get as many as facts as possible; I want to get to the bottom of the story.”
Just yesterday, more of the story has come to light. Apparently at odds over some in the media and government's stances, as well as even his own at the point where he apologized for Memogate, a new report released says that there was actually GOP involvement, not liberal bias. Rather has claimed that CBS feared backlash from the Right and that's why they shut the story down so quickly and eventually forced him out of the anchor's seat. He also has said that CBS looked to stack its panel with a far-right voice like Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh or Matt Drudge.
Heck, the old president of CBS News, Andrew Heyward, has even acknowledged (under oath) that the News Department was scared of the right's reaction to what it put out: “CBS News, fairly or unfairly, had a reputation for liberal bias,” and “the harshest scrutiny was obviously going to come from the right.”
So, it looks like Dan Rather's 2 million dollars won't be spent in vain. His trial is forthcoming at the beginning of next year and his somewhat tarnished reputation may still yet be saved. But what do we think about the GOP potentially limiting the discourse on George Bush's service and the network itself being fearful of retribution by the party? It's not good for the us that's for sure.
1 comment:
Fascinating story. But what do you add to it, beyond a concise synopsis of the NYT story? Also, what's the source for this statement: "Just yesterday, more of the story has come to light." Where's the link, pointing to the source that undergirds this assertion? Reading this, I wanted to know what the conservative press and right-wing blogosphere had to say about this new wrinkle in the Rather affair. Links to, and quotes from, thoughtful comments---as opposed to the usual Malkin frothings and similar partisan hackery---would have added nuance and depth. Still, an intriguing subject. What I want to know is: where the memos themselves bogus, or not? Wish you had touched on that smoking-gun issue. Even so, this whole bizarre tale offers compelling evidence of the right-wing media machine at work.
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