"Would you, or would you not like fries with that? Special report tonight..."
Posted on 06/16/2006 12:46:29 PM PDT by Roberts
It's over.
After 44 years, Dan Rather will leave CBS by the end of the month, at the latest, industry sources said Friday. His departure could come as early as next week.
Rather, 74, whose contract runs until late November, is working out the final details of his exit agreement, the sources say.
Money is not an issue, they say. Among the sticking points: Whether Rather will have access to his archival CBS material.
CBS issues its standard non-denial denial: "Dan is a 60 Minutes correspondent, and we don't comment on contractual matters." Rather declined to comment.
Anchor of CBS Evening News for a record 24 years until being forced out in March '05 by the Memogate scandal, Rather was fighting to stay at the network in some "meaningful" capacity. It was clear that the network wanted him gone.
Like virtually all CBS executives, network czar Les Moonves, once a Rather supporter, had distanced himself from the newsman. They had not had a real conversation for more than eight months, newsroom sources say.
Many inside CBS feel that Rather triggered his own demise by vigorously defending his flawed 60 Minutes II report in September '04 that questioned President Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard, even after the authenticity of the documents used in the piece could not be proved.
Rather later apologized to viewers, but his fate within CBS had been sealed. The only difference: It would take longer for him to leave. Unlike several of his coworkers in the scandal, Rather escaped the noose.
Rather's last 60 Minutes piece, on the Whole Foods empire, ran June 4.
By some miracle, if Rather were to stay on the roster, it's doubtful he would see much airtime, with new Evening News anchor Katie Couric and CNN's Anderson Cooper signing on as part-time contributors.
After having built his reputation by going anywhere in the world for a hot story - especially hurricanes - Rather was turned down last fall when he asked to cover Hurricane Katrina and for trips to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Instead, Rather paid for his own Middle East trek about two months ago, visiting Doha, Qatar, Dubai and the United Arab Emirates over 10 days "to keep up my sources and contacts," he said in an interview Wednesday.
At CBS, almost every correspondent or executive refused to go on the record about Rather for fear of reprisal. The few who did were restrained, to put it mildly.
"It's a sad story," says outgoing 60 Minutes ace Mike Wallace, 88, a vocal Rather critic in the past.
"He's a good man. He was a wonderful reporter. He remains a wonderful reporter."
Says 60 Minutes' Ed Bradley: "I feel sorry for Dan, because he's not happy.
This isn't what he wanted. I think anybody would like to go out on their own terms. I'm sure he's sorry that didn't happen. I commiserate with him because of that. It's a very, very complicated situation."
Speaking of complicated situations, Bradley just signed a three-year deal after some bumpy negotiations.
"The journey wasn't the easiest, but the destination was wonderful once you got there," says Bradley, a Philly guy and former WDAS jock who joined the newsmagazine in '81. He turns 65 on Thursday.
A former CBS executive, speaking on condition of anonymity, says the network's treatment of Rather is "disgraceful. He's a legend. He gave his life to that company. Even though he made a big mistake, he did 43 years and 11 months' great work."
An executive at another network says CBS should have had a smash send-off planned for Rather well in advance: "This slow twisting in the wind feels wrong."
A current CBS correspondent labels Rather "the most influential TV reporter since Edward R. Murrow," and says he deserves a graceful exit: "If he leaves through the back door, with no real goodbye, it won't sit well with a lot of people."
The tragedy in the piece, according to some at CBS, is that Rather, for whatever reason, refuses to accept a lesser role that would keep him at the network.
60 Minutes creator Don Hewitt and legendary former anchor Walter Cronkite, both nudged out of their positions, still are under contract and maintain offices at CBS News, though their duty is light.
Rather wants to work hard. If he can't do it at CBS, he'll do it somewhere else.
But no matter where he ends up, Rather will forever be known as a CBS newsman, the correspondent says.
"You can let him leave, but CBS News is burned onto his forehead."
Should have been fired.
"Would you, or would you not like fries with that? Special report tonight..."
Ever notice how overly dramatic everyone at CBS news is?
Rather a pity.
I love how industry insiders consider it "disgraceful" that he is not being renewed. The disgrace is that he made up "news" and then defended his fiction, claiming that the substance was true. His behavior was a disgrace to journalism.
Buh bye Dan....
Don't let the door hit you on your sorry ass on the way out.
A fake, but acurate. I personally would let Dan leave out the back door. I would punt his @ss out the front door!
Kenneth, what's the frequency?
I guess getting beat up had something to do with catting around and getting husbands angry.
"Ever notice how overly dramatic everyone at CBS news is?"
At CBS, they call that "style". LOL.
Wherever you spew your BS it will be false even though the premise is true Dan. You have been outed as a Ego driven forget the facts AH!
The retirement party for Dan will be held in the 5th floor broom closet at Black Rock.
The real disgrace was CBS not firing the idiot.
"industry sources"
and, who are these unknown sources? can we be sure that this is not a trick? a publicity stunt?
tomorrow's headline:
Rather Resurrected...."the reports of my demise have be grossly exaggerated...."
ROTFL...
And I'm sure Dan will have authentic documents to prove it!
You can take Dan out of cBS, but you can't take the BS out of Dan.
Rather obvious
No question now that Dan's rapidly reaching the point where he's got his back to the wall, his shirttails on fire and the bill collector's at the door.
On June 2, 1988, CBS aired an hour-long special titled CBS Reports: The Wall Within, which CBS trumpeted as the "rebirth of the TV documentary." It purported to tell the true story of Vietnam through the eyes of six of the men who fought there. And what terrible stories they had to tell.
"I think I was one of the highest trained, underpaid, eighteen-cent-an-hour assassins ever put together by a team of people who knew exactly what they were looking for," said Steve Southards, a Navy SEAL who told Rather he had escaped society to live in the forests of Washington state. Under Rather's gentle coaxing, Southards described slaughtering Vietnamese civilians, making his work appear to be that of the North Vietnamese.
"You're telling me that you went into the village, killed people, burned part of the village, then made it appear that the other side had done this?" Rather asked.
"Yeah," Steve replied. "It was kill VC, and I was good at what I did."
Steve arrived home "in a straitjacket, addicted to alcohol and drugs" knowing that "combat had made him different," Rather intoned. "He asked for help; that's unusual, many vets don't. They hold back until they explode."
Rather then moved on to suicidal veteran named George Grule, who was stationed on the aircraft carrier Ticonderoga off the coast of Vietnam during a secret mission. Grule described the horror of watching a friend walk into the spinning propeller of a plane, which chopped him to pieces and sprayed Grule with his blood. The memory of this trauma left Grule, like Steve, unable to function in normal society.
Neither could Mikal Rice, who broke down as he described a grenade attack at Cam Ranh Bay, which blew in half the body of a buddy, "Sergeant Call." "He died in my arms," Rice tearfully recalled. Rice described how the sound of thunder and cars backfiring would regularly trigger his terrible memories.
Most horrific of all were the memories of Terry Bradley, a "fighting sergeant" who told Rather he had skinned alive 50 Vietnamese men, women, and children in one hour and stacked their bodies in piles. "Could you do this for one hour of your life, you stack up every way a body could be mangled, up into a body, an arm, a tit, an eyeball . . . Imagine us over there for a year and doing it intensely," Bradley said. "That is sick."
"You've got to be angry about it," Rather replied. "I'm suicidal about it," Bradley responded.
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, drug abuse, alcoholism, joblessness, homelessness, suicidal thoughts: These tattered warriors suffered from them all.
The The Wall Within was hailed by critics who — like the Washington Post's Tom Shales — gushed that the documentary was "extraordinarily powerful." There was just one problem: Almost none of it was true.
The truth was uncovered by B.G. Burkett, a Vietnam veteran and author of Stolen Valor: How the Vietnam Generation Was Robbed of its Heroes and its History (with Glenna Whitley). Burkett discovered that only one of the vets had actually served in combat. Steve Southards, who'd claimed to be a 16-year-old Navy SEAL assassin, had actually served as an equipment repairman stationed far from combat. Later transferred to Subic Bay in the Philippines, Steve spent most of his time in the brig for repeatedly going AWOL.
And George Gruel, who claimed he was traumatized by the sight of his friend being chopped to pieces by a propeller? Navy records reveal that a propeller accident did take place on the Ticonderoga when Gruel was aboard — but that he wasn't around when it happened. During Gruel's tour, the ship had been converted to an antisubmarine warfare carrier which operated, not on "secret mission" along the Vietnam coast, but on training missions off the California coastline. Nevertheless, Burkett notes, Gruel receives $1,952 a month from the Veterans Administration for "psychological trauma" related to an event he only heard about.
Mikal Rice — the anguished vet who claimed to have cradled his dying buddy in his arms — actually spent his tour as a guard with an MP company at Cam Ranh Bay. He never saw combat. Neither did Terry Bradley, who was not the "fighting sergeant" he'd claimed to be. Instead, military records reveal he served as an ammo handler in the 25th Infantry Division and spent nearly a year in the stockade for being AWOL. That's good news for the hundreds of Vietnamese civilians Bradley claimed to have slaughtered. But it doesn't say much for Dan Rather's credibility.
As Burkett notes, the records of all of these vets were easily checkable through Freedom of Information Act requests of their military records — something Rather and his producers simply didn't bother to do. They accepted at face value the lurid tales of atrocities committed in Vietnam and the stories of criminal behavior, drug addiction, and despair at home.
Perhaps that's because this is what they wanted to believe. Says Burkett: The Wall Within "precisely fit what Americans have grown to believe about the Vietnam War and its veterans: They routinely committed war crimes. They came home from an immoral war traumatized, vilified, then pitied. Jobless, homeless, addicted, suicidal, they remain afflicted by inner conflicts, stranded on the fringes of society."
Burkett, who did check the records of the vets Rather interviewed, shared his discoveries with CBS. So did Thomas Turnage, then administrator of the Veterans Administration, who was appalled by Rather's use of bogus statistics on the rates of suicide, homelessness, and mental illness among Vietnam veterans — statistics that can also be easily checked. Rather initially refused to comment, and CBS spokeswoman Kim Akhtar said, "The producers stand behind their story. They had enough proof of who they are." For his part, CBS president Howard Stringer defended the network with irrelevancies. "Your criticisms were not shared by a vast majority of our viewers," he sniffed, adding that "CBS News and its affiliates received acclaim from most quarters . . . In sum, this was a broadcast of which we at CBS News and I personally am proud. There are no apologies to make."
Sarah Lee Pilley, who ran a restaurant in Colville, Washington where the CBS crew dined while filming The Wall Within, would not agree. The wife of a retired Marine lieutenant colonel who saw combat in Vietnam, Pilley, said she "got the distinct feeling that CBS had a story they had decided on before they left New York." After interviewing 87 Vietnam veterans, CBS chose the "four or five saddest cases to put on the film," Pilley said. "The factual part of it didn't seem to matter as long as they captured the high drama and emotion that these few individuals offered. We felt all along that CBS committed tremendous exploitation of some very sick individuals."
Why would Dan Rather do such a thing? Partly because the stories of deranged, trip-wire vets is much more dramatic than the true story: That most Vietnam veterans came home to live normal, productive, happy lives. Second, Rather apparently wanted the story of whacked-out Vietnam veterans to be true — just as he now wants the Jerry Killian story to be true.
Or maybe — despite a preponderance of the evidence — he considered the sources of these tales of Vietnam atrocities "unimpeachable." As angry Vietnam veterans began calling CBS to complain about the factual inaccuracies of The Wall Within, Perry Wolff, the executive producer who wrote the documentary, claimed that "No one has attacked us on the facts." Despite the growing evidence that he'd been had, Rather also continued to defend the documentary — which is now part of CBS's video history series on the Vietnam War.
Perhaps Vietnam veterans ought to take a page out of the book of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and air television ads exposing Rather's deceits — something along the lines of: "Dan Rather lied about his Vietnam documentary. I know. I was there. I saw what happened. When the chips were down, you could not count on Dan Rather."
Certainly, we cannot count on him for the truth. During a 1993 speech to the Radio and Television News Directors Association, Rather criticized his colleagues for competing with entertainment shows for "dead bodies, mayhem, and lurid tales." "We should all be ashamed of what we have and have not done, measured against what we could do," Rather said.
The only Dan news
I'd be interested to see
would be if Rather
goes postal and shoots
Katie Couric along with
top CBS brass . . .
now that you mention it.. he could cleanup his act by telling the truth on Fox News... all he has to say he is sorry. I did substandard work with a heavy dose of BIAS, and now I have paid the consequences.
Could the reports be "fake but accurate"?
Don't be surprised if Captain Dan signs on with CNN in some capacity. Good match. LOL
Katie COuric is a klutz.. she's jumping into a sinking boat.
/satire
Could you post a link for that story?
nah... I think he's too stubborn to accept anything less than his former position.. at CBS. He'll probably do opinionated work on some institute for Journalism, write a book, and pay homage to himself.
Buh-bye.
Biggest AH in journalism. Course this just illustrates the increasing irrelevance of lame stream media. Seriously, has anyone here on FR watched SeeBS news recently? Who cares what they do. They are no longer relevant. Their hiring a cheerleader as lead newsreader confirms it.
Disgrace is what journalism is all about for most of them these days, unfortunately. They just usually aren't publicly caught at their deceit.
Says 60 Minutes' Ed Bradley: "I feel sorry for Dan, because he's not happy.
It is reported that this bout of depression is directly related to his inability to sell his snake oil story about our President's NG service.
You're only as good as your last big game and Dandy Dan went ohfer in that one. He is a phony and a liar and that is how he will forever be remembered. Sometimes there is justice.
The point of many blogs and editorials is that Rather's career would never even have taken off if the internet had existed in the 70's. He's been fabricating agenda driven news since his correspondence days in Vietnam.
DAN Rather's 44-year career at CBS News is ending.
Rather, 74, is negotiating his departure from the network he's called home since 1962 - and is expected to leave well before his contract ends in November.
As The Post reported last week, Rather's deal with CBS wasn't expected to be renewed after months of negotiations - and he was reportedly irked that CBS seemed to be giving him the cold-shoulder.
Now he's confirmed he's leaving - sooner than later.
"Finishing details are being worked out for me to leave CBS News after 44 years," Rather told TelevisionWeek yesterday.
--Snip--
Courage, Dan! To think... If it wasn't for those meddling Freepers...
For some reason... I think of that final scene in 'Diehard' where they shake loose 'Hans Gruber'.
Is it true that he was at the JFK assassination?
That was AWESOME!!!!! Dan should have been fired and charged with treason for trying to influence the outcome of a U.S. presidential election. COURAGE!
That was AWESOME!!!!! Dan should have been fired and charged with treason for trying to influence the outcome of a U.S. presidential election. COURAGE!
He made his fame by going after President Nixon and he was destroyed by going after President George W Bush. When President Bush leaves office in January 2009 he will be know as the destroyer of the democrat party and their media.
His hate toward President Bush has destroyed him as it has been destroying the democrat party and their media.
You know I was about to say something along the lines of Poor Dan, butafter your post reminding me what a total SOB he truly is, let him burn in his own self made Hell.
He certainly never cared about our servicemen and their lives.
Adios you pompous, lying ass.
Too soft. Should read: "...even after the documents were proven to be forgeries."
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