Dan Rather sues CBS for $70 millionFollow

http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/TV/09/19/tv.ratherlawsuit.ap/index.html

I don't know that he'll win, but I bet he sure as hell settles for a lot of money.

75, per the article.

Um... Haven't read the article yet, but doesn't falsifying documents for a news story kinda tend to violate the journalists contract?

Just a first thought.

Yes, but going to air on a national network news or news show broadcast with a story you didn't bother to vet yourself makes you a f'ucking idiot and utterly scapegoat-able.

Meh, Rather may have got sloppy, trusted the crew too much, whatever. I wouldn't call him blameless. At the same time, his lengthy career as a trusted journalist speaks far more than one this one slip up.

Couldn't have been TOO great if he had to get blitzed on the job...

Peter Jennings was where it's at :(

Jennings was my absolute favorite until 9/11. I stayed tuned into him for the majority of the most memorable twenty-four hours of television I hope to ever experience. It not only bonded me with him beyond explanation but it also ruined what we'd had.

I believe it would be prudent for me to pour out a little liquor at this point, for my fallen homie.

Edited, Sep 19th 2007 11:43pm by Barkingturtle

No, its not. Verb tenses are just geek tests for grammarians.

QFMFT

Damn... And I'm only worth a few grand dead....

Except that there's a huge difference between a news journalist and a "pundit", much less an organization like the Swift Boat Veterans.

A pundit is paid to present his opinion. Everyone knows that it's his opinion. If Jesse Jackson appears on a news show, you know he's not reporting the news. He's presenting his viewpoint on or about something.

Same deal with an organization like the Swift Boat Veterans. They are a group of people with a viewpoint. If they appear on your TV set, it's specifically so that they can present their viewpoint. Nothing more. There's an understanding from the start that they are presenting opinion.


When a journalist like Rather appears on the TV and says something, it's assumed that he's presenting unbiased fact (or at least as close as possible to unbiased fact). He's paid specifically to *not* have an opinion on the things he reports on, but to simply report them in as factual and clear a manner as possible. That's what news is supposed to be about. It's not commentary. It's not opinion. It's a presentation of facts to the public, presumably so that the public can make up their own minds about the issue at hand. Now, in the course of this, a journalist may put other people on (like the Swiftboat guys, or the moveon.org guys for example), but he must declare who they are and that the statements they are making are their opinions, not necessarily the result of the journalist's own investigation.

When doing investigative journalism (as Rather was), it's absolutely critical that any facts presented to the public be true. Because the whole point is that the new agency is leveraging the public belief that the journalist is truthful in order to ensure that the public believes that the information provided in said investigation is truthful. There's a reason why someone like Rather presents this information to the public instead of "Joe, the data checker guy". No one knows who Joe is. They don't trust his word.

By not fact checking his story, Rather lost that public trust. Rather also cost CBS a portion of that public trust because the next time they put a face in front of the camera and tell the public "this is fact, not opinion", the public is going to wonder if it's really fact they're getting.

That's why he was fired. We can speculate about Rather's intentions when he went forward with that story. Personally, from what I've heard he was so enthused about an anti-Bush story that he allowed himself to ignore warnings from multiple sources that his information might not be factual. But that's just speculation. Regardless, Rather's actions caused damage to his employers. They were justified to fire him IMO.