by Deb Cupples | As President Bush focuses on his legacy (or doesn't), Dan Rather's lawsuit against CBS is getting media attention again. The allegations serve as a reminder of some of the Bush Administration's "negatives" -- and the media's negatives, for that matter.
The Observer UK reports:
"Eight weeks before the 2004 presidential poll, Rather broadcast a story based on newly discovered documents which appeared to show that Bush, whose service in the Texas Air National Guard ensured that he did not have to fight in Vietnam, had barely turned up even for basic duty. After an outcry from the White House and conservative bloggers who claimed that the report had been based on falsified documents, CBS retracted the story, saying that the documents' authenticity could not be verified. Rather, who had been with CBS for decades and was one of the most familiar faces in American journalism, was fired by the network the day after the 2004 election.
"He claims breach of contract against CBS. He has already spent $2m on his case, which is likely to go to court early next year. Rather contends not only that his report was true - 'What the documents stated has never been denied, by the president or anyone around him,' he says - but that CBS succumbed to political pressure from conservatives to get the report discredited and to have him fired.
"He also claims that a panel set up by CBS to investigate the story was packed with conservatives in an effort to placate the White House. Part of the reason for that, he suggests, was that Viacom, a sister company of CBS, knew that it would have important broadcasting regulatory issues to deal with during Bush's second term.
"Among those CBS considered for the panel to investigate Rather's report were far-right broadcasters Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter." (Observer)
Rush Limbaugh? Anne Coulter? Salem witch trial? That CBS officials even considered putting Limbaugh or Coulter on the panel tells you something about the sort of journalism that CBS was practicing.
Technically, Mr. Rather wasn't fired: he announced his retirement to coincide with his twenty-fourth anniversary as a news anchor. Some people think he was forced to retire. I'm not privy to the facts.
When the controversy erupted in 2004, I remember thinking how strange it was that Mr. Rather was getting such flack over CBS's report on Bush.
Even before Mr. Rather's "retirement," a September 2004 Boston Globe article recapped the gaps in George Bush's military-service records. If memory serves me, The Globe broke the story back in 1999 or 2000.
The Globe was not the only source to publish about the story before Mr. Rather's "retirement": all sorts of articles had been published about gaps in George Bush's military-service record (see Sourcewatch for a sizable list of titles and links).
In other words, it was common knowledge that George Bush's military-service record had gaps.
Yes, the CBS news report was technically flawed: Mr. Rather's producer had been fed a falsified document and failed to confirm the document's authenticity. In 2004, the Washington Post reported:
"Rather reported on what purported to be memos from Bush's late squadron commander that were supplied by Bill Burkett, a retired Texas National Guard official and fierce critic of the president.
"Rather later said Burkett had 'lied' to the network about the ultimate source of the memos, which remains unclear. CBS rushed the story on the air within days, ignoring the advice of its own outside experts, who said they could not authenticate the documents. The commander's 86-year-old former secretary later told Rather that the memos were faked but that she had typed similar ones questioning Bush's Guard service."
In other words, there really was evidence of gaps in Mr. Bush's military-service records -- only the specific documents that CBS had relied on were falsified.
In 2002, Buzz Flash published a letter from Mr. Burkett (Bush's former Air Guard commander), which addresses Mr. Bush's highly questionable military-service records.
Mr. Rather's lawsuit doesn't stop at allegations regarding Mr. Bush's service records:
"Rather's lawsuit makes other serious allegations about CBS succumbing to political pressure in an attempt to suppress important news stories. In particular, he says that his bosses at CBS tried to stop him reporting evidence of torture at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. According to Rather's lawsuit, 'for weeks they refused to grant permission to air the story' and 'continued to raise the goalposts, insisting on additional substantiation.' Rather also claims that General Richard Meyers, then head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the top military official in the US, called him at home and asked him not to broadcast the story, saying that it would 'endanger national security.'
"Rather says that CBS only agreed to allow him to broadcast the story when it found out that Seymour Hersh would be writing about it in the New Yorker magazine. Even then, Rather claims, CBS tried to bury it. 'CBS imposed the unusual restrictions that the story would be aired only once, that it would not be preceded by on-air promotion, and that it would not be referenced on the CBS Evening News,' he says. (Observer)
Media outlets' suppressing stories? Succumbing to political pressure? That's not a new or a hard-to-believe story.
In November 2008, the New York Times reported on NBC's use of pro-war (and pro-Bush) commentators who had personal-financial interests in promoting war but that NBC nonetheless labeled as independent military analysts. In other words, millions of viewers were duped into believing that they were getting commentary from objective sources. This story broke in 2003, but many major media outlets simply ignored the story until it came up again in April 2008.
In April 2007, Bill Moyers did a show about multiple journalists and media outlets that had failed to question the Bush Administration's (apparently false) justifications for invading Iraq -- or had failed to report facts and questions to the public. You can see the show here and the transcript here.
Groups like FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) have spent years documenting media bias and censorship. You can browse FAIR's reports by issue at this page.
Media Matters documents media sloppiness (or false reporting) on a weekly basis. In November, for example, Eric Boehlert explained how multiple media outlets were mis-stating statistics on autoworkers' salaries at a time when the U.S. auto industry was seeking government bailout funds.
It'll be interesting to see what sort of information comes out if Mr. Rather's lawsuit goes to trial.
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