-Caveat Lector-
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/09/20/national/
a204432D56.DTL
Rather: Government Influencing Newsrooms
By SAMANTHA GROSS, Associated Press Writer
Thursday, September 20, 2007
(09-20) 21:39 PDT New York (AP) --
Dan Rather said Thursday that the undue influence of the government
and large corporations over newsrooms spurred his decision to file a
$70 million lawsuit against CBS and its former parent company.
"Somebody, sometime has got to take a stand and say democracy cannot
survive, much less thrive with the level of big corporate and big
government interference and intimidation in news," he said on CNN's
"Larry King Live."
In the suit, filed a day earlier in state Supreme Court in Manhattan,
Rather claimed CBS and Viacom Inc. used him as a "scapegoat" and
intentionally botched the aftermath of a discredited story about
President Bush's military service to curry favor with the White
House. He was removed from his "CBS Evening News" post in March 2005.
"They sacrificed support for independent journalism for corporate
financial gain, and in so doing, I think they undermined a lot at CBS
News," he told King.
Rather didn't mention other instances in which he believed news
organizations bowed to corporate and government pressure.
CBS spokesman Dana McClintock did not return an after-hours call
seeking comment Thursday. He has called Rather's complaints "old
news" and said the lawsuit was "without merit." A spokesman for
Viacom declined to comment.
Journalism ethics scholar Bob Steele said Rather would have a
difficult time proving that the White House or other political
operatives exerted undue influence on CBS.
"It would be naive for us to believe that there was no influence from
powerful institutions and individuals on journalism," said Steele, a
scholar at the Poynter Institute, a journalism foundation in St.
Petersburg, Fla.
Still, he said: "For the most part, the journalists who run news
organizations and who report the news fight hard to protect the
independence of the journalism, and most of the time succeed."
Rather narrated the September 2004 report that said Bush disobeyed
orders and shirked some of his duties during his National Guard
service. It also said a commander felt pressured to sugarcoat Bush's
record.
The story relied on four documents, supposedly written by Bush's
commander in the Texas Air National Guard, the late Lt. Col. Jerry
Killian. Critics questioned the documents' authenticity and suggested
they were forged.
A panel selected by the network to investigate the story determined
that it was neither fair nor accurate. CBS fired the story's producer
and asked for the resignations of three executives because it could
not authenticate documents used in the story. Rather was forced out
of the anchor chair he had occupied for 24 years.
On CNN, Rather dismissed the panel's review, claiming it was not
impartial.
"This was in many ways a fraud. It was a setup," he told King.
Louis D. Boccardi, the retired chief executive of The Associated
Press who made up the two-man investigative panel with Richard
Thornburgh, the former U.S. attorney general, defended the panel's
work Thursday night.
"Our report was independent, and it speaks for itself," he said,
echoing comments made by Thornburgh on Wednesday. Both declined to
comment further.
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