Posted on 09/21/2004 7:45:57 PM PDT by kristinn
Honor Roll for today's nonpartisan protest: From Accuracy in Media, Don Irvine, Cliff Kincaid, Deb Lambert and a few staffers; FReepers there were staytrue, BillF, sauropod, hellinahandcart, bmwcyle, tellw, Nina0113, TBP and kristinn.
Sometimes you step out on the sidewalk to make your point and nothing happens. Othertimes, like today, your message gets carried from coast to coast.
We slowly gathered in front of CBS News' D.C. bureau starting at 11 a.m. We were at full strength around the scheduled start time of 11:30. There were several news cameras waiting for us to get started. The D.C. police was out in force to protect CBS from the pajamahadeen. Not that they were needed, but I guess the city had to make sure nothing happened to a major TV network on their watch. The officer in charge was familiar with the D.C. Chapter. She just made sure we kept the sidewalk open and didn't hassle people as they walked by--standard stuff.
We formed our freepline right outside the main entrance of the bureau on the curb side of the sidewalk--Staytrue in a silk robe, sauropod and I in pajamas and bathrobes, the rest in street clothes.
Our friends from AIM showed up around 11:30. They were all wearing white t-shirts with the CBS logo captioned "Rather Biased."
Cliff Kincaid and I stood together in front of the cameras to make our statements (text at end of report.) CBS sent a crew out the front door to film us. They blended in with the others. It was an impressive bank of cameras. Boom mikes hovered around us while some reporters holding tape recorders crouched low. Still photographers moved around the scene capturing the moment.
When we were done, Cliff took questions while I was pulled away for an interview with WJLA-TV. The other reporters there spent some time filming the freep in action and interviewing us and passersby. I didn't see anyone from CBS being interviewed.
When someone working for CBS would enter or exit the front door, we'd yell out "Courage!" and "Forge on!" to let them know that we were sympathetic to the troubles RatherGate was causing them.
The CBS employees took it good stride. Noone flipped us off or cussed at us. One young woman yelled out, "Dan's the man!" A man nicely told us we should be "300 miles north" (at Black Rock.)
Another man came out of CBS and spent some time reading our signs with a smile on his face. He took one of our cards.
A man in a suit who looked like a CBS reporter (but I'm not 100% sure so I won't name him) gave a smile as he checked out our signs on his way in the bureau.
The reaction from passersby was pretty good. Alot of friendlies, including Grover Norquist, offered their approval as they walked by on their lunch break.
What negative comments we got mostly were criticizing Fox News. We told them if Fox ever does what CBS has done with this story we'd hold them accountable.
One man yelled at us from across the street as he went to lunch. He kept yelling as he walked down the block but we couldn't make out what he was saying. On his way back from lunch he yelled at us again. He crossed the street so he could yell at us up close and personal. He ranted about why we weren't protesting against the Iraq war and Fox News and something about the homeless. Eventually he went on his way.
Hellinahandcart and staytrue made some great signs, Rather than descibe them, I'll link to the photos posted by AIM.
Here's a photo taken by staytrue:
Some of our chants today were, "Hey hey, ho, ho. Rather, Mapes and Heyward got to go!" "What did Rather know and when did he know it?" "Can Dan!" and "What did Kerry know and when did he know it?"
I'm sure press interest was piqued with the admission last night by Kerry advisor Joe Lockhart that he had called Bill Burkett before the broadcast at the behest of Mary Mapes. But the coverage so far has been pretty good. CBS Radio News aired a report on the protest on their national hourly news breaks, as did local ABC radio affiliate WMAL-AM630. Fox News ran a story on The Big Show and Special Report with Brit Hume. Local ABC-TV affiliate WJLA-7 ran their report on the freep as their top story on the 6 o'clock news and highlighted AIM's request for a federal investigation and the firing of Heyward, Rather and Mapes. NBC-TV affiliate WRC-4 ran their story at 6:35 in their hour-long newscast. Not bad for some folks in pajamas sitting around their computers.
STATEMENT OF AIM EDITOR CLIFF KINCAID
Dan Rather Must Go
When the New York Times was finally caught running Jayson Blair stories based on fabrications, Blair was gone, and so were two Times editors. In the CBS "Rathergate" scandal, by contrast, no one has been fired.
It appears that CBS wants to "forge ahead" with the disgraced and discredited anchorman, who relied on forged documents and once said that Bill Clinton was an honest liar. (Rather said, "I think you can be an honest person and lie about any number of things.")
We want to say this personally and directly to Dan Rather: We're sorry, but you have to go. And your producer Mary Mapes and CBS News President Andrew Heyward have to go, too. We say to Dan Rather: put on your pajamas, become a blogger, and take Journalism 101.
Thank heavens we have the bloggers in pajamas at the FreeRepublic.com who did the research that exposed the CBS documents as fakes. They are the true journalists. Dan Rather and Mary Mapes are political partisans masquerading as journalists.
I was on a show last night with former CBS newsman Daniel Schorr, who said CBS and Dan Rather were the victims here. No, Mr. Schorr. President Bush was the victim here. And the American people were victimized by a partisan liberal "news" operation working with the Kerry campaign to bring down the president.
CBS has been caught in the middle of a criminal conspiracy, with links to the Kerry campaign, to use forged documents to bring down an American president. This is a brazen attempt to deceive the American people and subvert a U.S. presidential election.
Current federal law prohibits the use of false, altered or forged public records and documents to defraud the U.S.
Penalties include up to ten years in prison. Dan Rather is known for his Texas sayings. Well, the book Texas Sayings, by Anne Dingus, (and her follow-up More Colorful Texas Sayings Than You Can Shake a Stick At) has one saying that applies to Rather - "he's as greasy as fried lard."
Rather must also be aware of the saying, "Don't dig up more snakes than you can kill."
Rather is neck-deep in snakes. But I'm sure the bloggers will welcome him to their pajama party.
STATEMENT ON RATHERGATE BY KRISTINN TAYLOR:
Two years ago, CBS News anchor Dan Rather criticized the American people while he was overseas, saying there was an atmosphere of intimidation against the media at home akin to the horrific necklacing that occurred in South Africa during the anti-apartheid movement. Specifically, he said, "It's an obscene comparison, but there was a time in South Africa when people would put flaming tires around people's necks if they dissented. In some ways, the fear is that you will be necklaced here. You will have a flaming tire of lack of patriotism put around your neck."
Dan Rather, Andrew Heyward and Mary Mapes, in coordination with the Kerry campaign, tried to necklace a president of the United States by trying to knock him out of contention in the election with the flaming tire of forged documents.
'Pajama-clad' posters on FreeRepublic.com were the first to raise questions as to the legitimacy of the Texas Air National Guard documents used by CBS on the September 8th broadcast of 60 Minutes II. Even while the story was being aired, the authenticity of the documents was being doubted by FReepers. Later that night, after the documents were posted to CBS News' website, a FReeper known as Buckhead analyzed them and declared them to be forgeries.
As doubts about the articles spread to the blogosphere and then to the old media, CBS News responded in Nixonian fashion: Stonewalling, attacking the messengers, and questioning the credibility of people like Gen. Staudt who tried to clear their good name.
In a mirror image of Mr. Rather's insolent treatment of President Nixon at a press conference when Mr. Nixon asked Mr. Rather if he were running for something and Mr. Rather replied, "No, Mr. President. Are you?," Mr. Rather recently responded to a Fox News reporter asking him if he felt duped by asking the reporter if he felt duped working for Fox News.
Now CBS News is employing the Watergate-era 'modified limited hangout.' However, like Watergate, the effort to control the scandal is spinning out of control with confirmation that CBS News colluded with the Kerry campaign before the story aired.
There is a cancer on the Tiffany Network. In order to regain a modicum of trust and respectability, CBS needs to follow the example of The New York Times which fired Howell Raines, Gerald Boyd and Jayson Blair when faced with revelations of similarly fraudulent reporting and clean house.
Les Moonves needs to immediately fire CBS News President Andrew Heyward, who approved the fraudulent story, Dan Rather, who reported the fraudulent story and Mary Mapes, the producer of the fraudulent story. Apologies should be made to President Bush, the Killian family and Gen. Staudt, all of whom were unjustly smeared by CBS.
I'd like to thank Accuracy in Media for their valiant thirty-five year effort to hold the media accountable for their biased and fraudulent reporting. (End.)
Just outstanding! Kudos to all. Warms my heart.
GREAT PICS; GREAT FREEP
This is sort of off-topic but there is a tie-in.
Recently a small college in NC had Jayson Blair as a guest speaker for their school of journalism and it caused a stir. A Charlotte radio talk show did an interview with the head of the department, asking why they would invite this fraud to speak to the students.
.... The prof offered up various lame excuses ... Jayson's story could warn the students of the pitfalls awaiting them so they could avoid them, etc. At the end of the show, the head of the department was still defending the invitation to Blair and also touting the school's program.
I nearly ran my car off the road when he said the following: Our goal is to teach our students to be "fair, factual, and non-objective ... er, I mean objective."
Yes, he really said that!!!
Sounds like Winston Salem State College teaches the Dan Rather version of journalism.
You guys have all the fun ;(
Let's just say I felt like Rain Man walking around downtown DC in 'em. (10 minutes to Wapner).
Way to go. Congrats to you and the DC Chapter, keep up the good work.
It really gives me faith in America to see you guys
at work. You got your message across...got good
press without the typical anarchist screaming
hysteria we see when the liberals come out.
You give the RIGHT a good name.
Thanks
God Bless each of you for taking the time to do this...for being such a great voice for those of us out here in fly over country.
P.S. Those of you in PJ's look so 'cute' I just wanna invite you all over for some really good coffee and really evil donuts!
Miss ya big boy.
From the reaction of the See BS employees, it would be safe to say they aren’t exactly great fans of Rather or the news department. Maybe embarrassed to by them?
Sorry I couldn't be there. Several points:
I wonder if we're thnking too small here. What happened to Arthur Andersen after the Enron debacle? Understand, CBS/Viacom will not go out of business (yet), but CBS News might. CBS might wind up having to outsource its news operation (maybe to Fox News?).
Although CBS is trying to make this man Burkett the scapegoat, I think that somebody high in the Democratic party, like Terry McAuliffe, must have been the real prime mover. I can't believe that CBS News did this on their own hook, if only because they would have made a better job of it (somebody there must remember how to use a typewriter). Equally, I can't believe that CBS would stick its corporate neck out on Burkett's say-so. But if the Party assured CBS that the memos were real - well, as Sam Spade said of his murdered partner in "The Maltese Falcoln", they're just dumb enough for that.
Third, this points out what should be obvious, but apparently isn't - that what comes from unnamed sources should be viewed with the greatest skepticism. Periodically, books are published identifying this or that person as Deep Throat. Personally, I have long been convinced that Deep Throat didn't exist; or, to put it another way, that Bob Woodward was Deep Throat.
I think Cbs is a little near sighted myself. Perhaps they need glasses... errr or something like this..
*sigh* You gals/guys have all the fun!
Love the PJs!
I turned on msnbc right before 10pm for Scarborough and they had a panel discussion...one of their cyberconsultants said that this story isn't dying and right before he came on he checked his 'blogs' and said there was a pajama protest outside of cbs. He almost chuckled as did the woman host. I lost it! Wish I lived closer!
Great job again!
BUMP!!!
LOL I Love it!!!!
You guys rule there in DC. Great job!!!
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