[North-NV-Greens] Fwd: Rather's Retirement and "Liberal Bias"

Mon Mar 7 21:13:28 PST 2005

>
>
>                                  FAIR-L
>                     Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting
>                Media analysis, critiques and activism
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>MEDIA ADVISORY:
>Rather's Retirement and "Liberal Bias"
>
>March 2, 2005
>
>On March 9, Dan Rather will step down after 24 years as anchor of the CBS
>Evening News.  Media retrospectives of Rather's career will likely refer
>to the long-running right-wing critique of Rather's supposed "liberalism."
>  But the notion that Rather has used his CBS platform to disseminate
>left-wing propaganda over the last two decades does not hold up to
>scrutiny.
>
>If Rather can be accused of anything, it's the same bias one can see
>throughout the mainstream media: an unwillingness to challenge official
>power and policy.  And it's a bias that Rather has admitted to embracing;
>speaking at a Harvard forum on the media (7/25/04), Rather offered no
>apologies for uncritical reporting on Iraq's supposed weapons of mass
>destruction:
>
>"Look, when a president of the United States, any president, Republican or
>Democrat, says these are the facts, there is heavy prejudice, including my
>own, to give him the benefit of any doubt, and for that I do not
>apologize."
>
>
>Off to War
>
>
>Rather has openly advocated for various U.S. military actions.  In a
>speech at the National Press Club (6/25/99), he had this to say about the
>bombing of Yugoslavia:
>
>"When U.S. pilots in U.S. aircraft turn off the lights [by bombing
>civilian electrical stations], for me, it's 'we.' And about that I have no
>apology."  (Civilian infrastructure, of course, is protected by the Geneva
>Accords, and deliberately attacking it is a war crime.) Elaborating
>further on his approach to war reporting, Rather said, "I'm an American,
>and I'm an American reporter. And yes, when there's combat involving
>Americans, you can criticize me if you must, damn me if you must, but I'm
>always pulling for us to win."
>
>That position was unchanged a few years later (CNN, 4/14/03):
>
>"Look, I'm an American.  I never tried to kid anybody that I'm some
>internationalist or something.  And when my country is at war, I want my
>country to win, whatever the definition of 'win' may be.  Now, I can't and
>don't argue that that is coverage without a prejudice.  About that I am
>prejudiced."
>
>After the September 11 attacks, Rather made an appearance on CBS's Late
>Show with David Letterman (9/17/01) and announced his willingness to do
>more than just root from the sidelines: "George Bush is the president. He
>makes the decisions, and, you know, it's just one American, wherever he
>wants me to line up, just tell me where. And he'll make the call."  Rather
>issued a similar call on the show Entertainment Tonight (10/2/01),
>according to a transcript from the conservative Media Research Center
>(10/3/01): "If he needs me in uniform, tell me when and where-- I'm
>there."
>
>
>Paying Tribute
>
>
>When they make their case against Rather, conservative critics are fond of
>pointing out that he has made flattering statements about Democratic
>politicians like Bill Clinton.  But that would seem to have less to do
>with Rather's partisanship than with his fondness for power.  After Ronald
>Reagan's death (CBS Evening News, 6/5/04), Rather recalled that Reagan
>"was the great communicator, yes. But he was also a master at
>communicating greatness. He understood that, as he once put it, 'History
>is a ribbon always unfurling,' and managed to convey his vision in terms
>both simple and poetic. And so he was able to act as a conduit to connect
>us to who we had been and who we could be."
>
>According to the Media Research Center (6/6/04), Rather appeared choked up
>during a June 5 broadcast dedicated to Reagan, during which he said, "May
>we share his optimism and may his steed hold steady as he completes his
>journey. We will think of him always when the West wind blows."
>
>It wasn't just Reagan; during the 1996 Republican National Convention,
>Rather fawned over Elizabeth Dole's "tremendous" performance (8/14/96),
>even dubbing her "my fair Liddy."
>
>And Rather's alleged fondness for liberalism certainly doesn't run very
>deep: During the 1992 Democratic National Convention (7/13/92), Rather had
>this to say about former presidential candidate and civil rights activist
>Jesse Jackson: "There have always been two Jesse Jacksons.  There's Jesse
>the radical, who preaches rage and black separatism.  That Jesse has
>always angered whites.  And there's Jesse the self-promoter, who preaches
>desegregation and compromise."  Take your pick: Jackson's either a radical
>black separatist or a "self-promoter."
>
>
>By the Numbers
>
>
>If Rather were indeed liberal-- or just more liberal than his network
>competitors-- one would think that the CBS Evening News would include more
>critical perspectives in its newscast, particularly during a Republican
>administration. But FAIR's study of guests and sources appearing during
>coverage of the Iraq war (3/20/03-4/9/03) actually found that Rather's
>broadcast had the highest percentage of official U.S. sources (75 percent)
>and the lowest number (less than one percent) of U.S. anti-war voices
>(Extra!, 5-6/03).
>
>A FAIR study of all the network news broadcasts in 2001 (Extra!, 5-6/02)
>found that CBS Evening News had the most Republicans and the fewest
>Democrats (76 percent vs. 23 percent). The difference between CBS and the
>other networks was slim, but such analysis belies the notion that Rather's
>network-- or any of the others-- have a left bias.
>
>
>"Rathergate"
>
>
>It's a good bet that Rather's retirement will draw significant attention
>to the so-called "Rathergate" controversy-- the 60 Minutes report (9/8/04)
>on George W. Bush's National Guard service that relied on dubious
>documents.  But instead of revealing partisanship in Rather's work, the
>episode falls into a pattern of sloppiness on Rather's part in his
>eagerness for certain stories-- including stories that benefit Republican
>administrations.
>
>One early controversy remains relatively obscure: Rather's fawning
>coverage of the Afghan mujahadeen in the 1980s (Extra!, 11-12/89). A
>series of articles in 1989 in the New York Post alleged that Rather's
>gung-ho reporting from the front lines of the anti-Soviet mujahadeen was
>supplemented by phony re-enactments of rebel assaults.  Some scenes were
>reportedly filmed in Pakistan, and facts were distorted-- on one broadcast
>(8/11/87), for example, Rather claimed to report the "the biggest one-day
>defeat for Soviet forces since World War II," when in reality the battle
>was relatively small and didn't involve Soviet forces.
>
>Rather and CBS relied on two partisan freelancers to assist its coverage
>of Afghanistan: Kurt Lohbeck, who set up news conferences for mujahadeen
>leaders and testified before Congress to request additional aid for the
>Afghan rebels, and Mike Hoover, a cameraman sympathetic to the rebels who
>had been suspected of faking scenes in some of his earlier work--
>allegations that CBS officials were aware of while they were working with
>him.
>
>There are more recent examples of Rather's erroneous reporting.  On
>September 11, 2001, Rather went to great lengths to report on the
>terrorist attacks on United States soil-- including some that never
>happened (Extra!, 11-12/01). "Let me pause and say that a car bomb has
>exploded outside the State Department in Washington," Rather told CBS
>viewers.  He repeated: "Now a car bomb has exploded outside the State
>Department in Washington. No further details available on that." He
>reported this "car bomb explosion" as fact at least three more times
>before finally adding a qualifier.
>
>This gaffe did not prevent Rather from reporting another "scoop" later
>that evening: Citing reports from the local CBS affiliate, Rather claimed
>that "two people have been arrested with explosives under the George
>Washington Bridge...  As this report-- now, whether it was connected with
>the events of the day, we do not know. But an interesting report."
>
>Later, he prefaced the story with "It may not be over yet," and added that
>"Authorities say there were enough explosives in the truck to bring down
>the bridge."  As with the State Department car-bombing, Rather had to
>backtrack on this story as well: "Further checking on that story [reveals]
>that other law enforcement officials in New York said they knew nothing
>about it.... We'll have to put that in a long line of things that's under
>the, 'Well, we're skeptical now.' Maybe it's true and maybe it isn't."
>
>Rather accompanied the backtracking with another self-justification: "I
>repeat for emphasis, we'd rather be last than be wrong, but in reporting
>of this kind, we're bound to make some mistakes."  Surely reporters should
>have a better defense for airing uncorroborated allegations than that.
>
>Right-wing media critics and pundits have been effective in tagging Rather
>with the "liberal" label.  But the context of Rather's entire career
>points to a different conclusion.  More often than not, Rather's reporting
>followed the pattern that Rather himself criticized in an early-'90s
>interview (Boston Herald, 9/18/91):
>
>"We're gutless. We're spineless. There's no joy in saying this, but
>beginning sometime in the 1980s, the American press by and large somehow
>began to operate on the theory that the first order of business was to be
>popular with the person, or organization, or institution that you cover."
>
>Rather's retirement would be more of an occasion for regret if he had
>tried harder to fight that tendency-- in himself and in the news business
>in general.
>
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-- 
Paul Etxeberri

"Forests precede civilizations and deserts follow"   ---Chateaubriand