The Producer (Memogate background)

The Wall Street Journal /Opinion Journal ^ | October 4, 2004 | John Fund

[Stoat]

SEATTLE--At a joint appearance over the weekend, the network news anchors began to circle the wagons in defense of the beleaguered Dan Rather. "There's a political jihad against Dan Rather and CBS," complained NBC's Tom Brokaw at a New York Public Library event Saturday. "It's a demagoguery unleashed on the Internet."

[goldstategop]

The Pajamhadeen are drawing blood. The poor anchor babies, oh my the Internet insurgency is making them circle the wagons. BWAHAHAHAHA

[blanknoone]

Collusion by the media...Brokaw and Petah know they spew just as much bias, and that sooner or later, their turn is coming too. The red diaper anchor babies are not happy with being held to account.

[txzman]

"It's a demagoguery unleashed on the Internet."

The 'demagoguery' is nothing more than populist backlash against a group of self-styled thought 'leaders' who got caught with their pants around their ears.

Go away Rather, Brokaw and Jennings. Your time has gone.

[KidGlock]

"In the end, what difference does it make what one candidate or the other did or didn't do during the Vietnam War? In some ways, that war is as distant as the Napoleonic campaigns." The man who spoke those words--at a time when John Kerry was under attack by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth--was Dan Rather.

For the record...

[G.Mason]

"It's a demagoguery unleashed on the Internet."

This is fun to watch.

And the walls come tumbling down.

[lula]

It's the hatred and the abuse of power that got him in the position he's in. Thank GOD we on the Internet search out truth, instead of being spoon fed lies thru the tube.
Their times' up, they know it, that's all. Bunch of whiners!

[Elle Bee]

Can anyone remember the name of a movie about an overzelous TV Producer/reporter and a police shooting in a crack house?

It seems to parallel a little too closely

I can't remember the movie's name .... can anyone?

.

[Westlander]

'so called liberal media'--Peter Jennings. He's Canadian. This is the start of the end of the media. None too soon.

[americafirst]

"There's a political jihad against Dan Rather and CBS"

First of all, Brokaw, I resent your choice of words. Secondly, here's what most of us saw: an poorly forged document, a bogus story, and tons of DATA regarding the forgery within 24 hours of the report - with Dan the Man absolutely OBLIVIOUS to any concerns whatsoever for more than a week. His behavior did not and does not pass the smell test. Period. The truth still matters, Brokaw. Idiot.

[Hardastarboard]

"She went into journalism to change society," says former KIRO anchorwoman Susan Hutchison.

What does Rush always tell us?

[Diogenesis]

Brokaw supports fraud, MSM manipulation, lying,
and especially, his NBC specialty ... blaming the joooos.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

The claim that journalism is objective is, in practical effect, a claim that journalists are wise. Philosophy 101 tells you that the claim of wisdom is a refusal to listen to facts an logic; no one durst claim to be wise unless he has a power advantage over those to who he speaks.

Dan Rather has a power advantage over me in the sense that he gets to air his bloviations nationwide, and I don't. Ditto for Jennings and Brokaw. But the initial reticence of ABC and NBC to come to the defense of CBS was based only on the momentary competitive advantage of not kicking a tar baby when it is still hot and sticky. The truth is that there is no actual competition between "objective" journalists on the central issue of what constitutes wisdom. On that issue, go-along-and-get-along is the hard-and-fast rule.

They are all sophists.

[expat_panama]

This is the start of the end of the media...

Not really.

IMO this is the end of the end.  I remember watching the '52 presidential conventions broadcast live on television.  The MSM at the time had no idea what was going on with millions watching, and what's more the 'back room boys' had no idea what it meant when the little red lights on the TV cameras lit up. 

Same thing now.   The old guard believes the HMS Television is unsinkable-- because that's what it wants to believe.

[Bahbah]

""In the end, what difference does it make what one candidate or the other did or didn't do during the Vietnam War? In some ways, that war is as distant as the Napoleonic campaigns." The man who spoke those words--at a time when John Kerry was under attack by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth--was Dan Rather."

Interesting little gem from the end of the article.

[Tom Bombadil]

The old guard believes the HMS Television is unsinkable-- because that's what it wants to believe.

They are now connected to what I call Open-Source Journalists...Anything they report will be tested, analyzed, extended and enhanced. PDF files of documents become the "source code"...

And they still don't fully realize what that means.

[blanknoone]

Great article...good find and definitely worth the read. The excerpts and comments don't do justice to it. It goes into substantial detail about Mary Mapes...not only that she is well known as exceptionally left and activist about it, but that this is far from the first time she has gone to air with fantastic stories that don't hold up. She has a history of running with stories with more than dubious sources to advance her agenda. Her story puts to lie the idea of 'objective' journalism...not that none could theoretically exist, but that it doesn't in reality. She skyrocketted to the top of the business, and is obviously very very far from objective.

[finnigan2]

" Mr. Carlson says that while most of his discussion with her was off the record, she allowed that "there's more to come" about Mr. Bush's military record because "it's an important story."

- The above just about sums up the Mapes mindset and her scary life long jihad. There she is now; in hiding, surrounded by the wreckage of her career and that of the entire CBS news department, still clutching her forged memos and whining that if she could only show us more of them, we'd come to see that she was right all along. She still has learned nothing from this debacle.
Of course, it takes the special kind of blind anti Bush bigotry of a Dan Rather to not recognize her for what she was by promoting a time bomb like Mapes to a level above her incompetence. They reinforced each others political zealotry for "the cause".
They both must go.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

[Mary Mapes'] story puts to lie the idea of 'objective' journalism...not that none could theoretically exist, but that it doesn't in reality.

A journalism which assumes that it is wise is impervious to facts and logic - and thus is not wise. A journalism which assumes that it is objective, assumes that it is wise.

A journalism which is concerned first with appearing to be wise - concerned first of all with PR - avoids flame wars above all else. Thus, the three network anchors circle the wagons against the principle that journalism is fallible and subject to the scrutiny of the people.

So no, objective journalism cannot exist in theory. Certainly not if it proclaims itself to be objective . . .

Why Broadcast Journalism is
Unnecessary and Illegitimate

[alloysteel]

Tom Brokaw is uncommonly perceptive. He may be next, you know....