Posted on 09/19/2005 8:36:17 PM PDT by aculeus
NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - Former CBS News anchor Dan Rather said Monday that there is a climate of fear running through newsrooms stronger than he has ever seen in his more than four-decade career.
Rather famously tangled with President Nixon and his aides during the Watergate years while Rather was a hard-charging White House correspondent.
Addressing the Fordham University School of Law in Manhattan, occasionally forcing back tears, he said that in the intervening years, politicians "of every persuasion" had gotten better at applying pressure on the conglomerates that own the broadcast networks. He called it a "new journalism order."
He said this pressure -- along with the "dumbed-down, tarted-up" coverage, the advent of 24-hour cable competition and the chase for ratings and demographics -- has taken its toll on the news business. "All of this creates a bigger atmosphere of fear in newsrooms," Rather said.
Rather was accompanied by HBO Documentary and Family president Sheila Nevins, both of whom were due to receive lifetime achievement awards at the News and Documentary Emmy Awards on Monday evening.
Nevins said that even in the documentary world, there's a certain kind of intimidation brought to bear these days, particularly from the religious right.
"If you made a movie about (evolutionary biologist Charles) Darwin now, it would be revolutionary," Nevins said. "If we did a documentary on Darwin, I'd get a thousand hate e-mails."
Nevin asked Rather if he felt the same type of repressive forces in the Nixon administration as in the current Bush administration.
"No, I do not," Rather said. That's not to say there weren't forces trying to remove him from the White House beat while reporting on Watergate; but Rather said he felt supported by everyone above him, from Washington bureau chief Bill Small to then-news president Dick Salant and CBS chief William S. Paley.
"There was a connection between the leadership and the led . . . a sense of, 'we're in this together,"' Rather said. It's not that the then-leadership of CBS wasn't interested in shareholder value and profits, Rather said, but they also saw news as a public service. Rather said he knew very little of the intense pressure to remove him in the early 1970s because of his bosses' support.
Nevins took up the cause for Rather, who was emotional several times during the event.
"When a man is close to tears discussing his work and his lip quivers, he deserves bosses who punch back. I feel I would punch back for Dan," Nevins said.
Rather praised the coverage of Hurricane Katrina by the new generation of TV journalists and acknowledged that he would have liked to have reported from the Gulf Coast. "Covering hurricanes is something I know something about," he said.
"It's been one of television news' finest moments," Rather said of the Katrina coverage. He likened it to the coverage of President Kennedy's assassination in 1963.
"They were willing to speak truth to power," Rather said of the coverage.
Rather sidestepped the question of what should happen to the evening news in the expected makeover. "Not my call," he said. And he said he hadn't been asked, either.
"I gave it everything I had, I didn't hold anything back. I did the best newscast we were capable of doing," Rather said.
Nevins, who almost single-handedly has kept the art of the independent documentary on television, said the HBO documentaries show real life and do it with as little damage to the subjects as possible. She said the producers and directors "respect mostly the people on the other side of the camera."
Nevins said she didn't shy away from such R-rated topics as "G-String Divas" and "Taxicab Confessions" but noted that sex and passion have been topics of literature since Chaucer's day. "The most R-rated is a body bag, not a naked body," Nevins said.
Or a Pulitzer Prize for "Best Short Story: Fiction."
You're wrong. He did turn elections. He was deceptive and tried to swing emotion to the more socialist candidate, everytime. Emotion gets out the voter. He lied. He lied on purpose.
He was a socialist that planned to deceive America so that central government would overcome state's rights for the purpose of transferring wealth.
For 50 years a majority of Americans could not see the difference in the confiscation of property and government compassion. Dan contributed to this. In a century in which socialists killed more people than all the wars combined a newsman actually belived that socialism was the best way to spread comppassion, by force if necessary. He was a cheerleader for thieves and killers with a free speech half hour on TV.
MSM has been creating the news for over 30 years, they didn't just begin doing it. The difference now is that outlets like FR exist. They can't get away with it anymore. That's what Rather is upset about.
Not so much fear, as panic that they've been found out and things will never again be the same.
News readers are as dumb as rocks.
"All of this creates a bigger atmosphere of fear in newsrooms," Rather said."
It better put some fear in them. I'm not sure what these people would do for a living if they couldn't be news casters. ( maybe, POLITICS)
Liberals interview each other, and they wonder why the MSM is irrelevant.
He didn't say what he REALLY thinks, which is that the internet has KILLED the news business as it used to be.
The Pajamahadeen and many others like us get the stories out there that the MSM doesn't want us to know.
I'm COMPLETELY CONVINCED that if it were not for the internet, the flooded school bus picture would have NEVER been seen by the masses. The MSM HATES the internet and the power we now have to find out things they don't want us to know!
Everyone does this to one degree or another. To expect anything else is naive and utopian.
Then they should state their worldviews up front instead of continually telling us they have no bias.
True...but this is the essence of politics. You're deceiving yourself if you believe otherwise. There are genuine political and philosophical differences among people. All sides think they're right and justify whatever it is they do to gain power.
He was a socialist that planned to deceive America so that central government would overcome state's rights for the purpose of transferring wealth.
True in essence but way, way over the top. He didn't believe in laissez faire. He believed that wealth transfer was a necessary and good modification of market distribution.
For 50 years a majority of Americans could not see the difference in the confiscation of property and government compassion. Dan contributed to this
True. Now it's a very substantial minority. And of course they don't see it the way you do. They believe that much property is obtained illegally and immorally and, regardless of that, that there are higher values than ownership.
Dan contributed to this. In a century in which socialists killed more people than all the wars combined a newsman actually belived that socialism was the best way to spread comppassion, by force if necessary. He was a cheerleader for thieves and killers with a free speech half hour on TV.
Why would you expect a majority view to not have representatives among journalists? As for thieves and killers and their supporters let he who is innocent cast the first stone.
True...but this is the essence of politics. You're deceiving yourself if you believe otherwise. There are genuine political and philosophical differences among people. All sides think they're right and justify whatever it is they do to gain power.
He was a socialist that planned to deceive America so that central government would overcome state's rights for the purpose of transferring wealth.
True in essence but way, way over the top. He didn't believe in laissez faire. He believed that wealth transfer was a necessary and good modification of market distribution.
For 50 years a majority of Americans could not see the difference in the confiscation of property and government compassion. Dan contributed to this
True. Now it's a very substantial minority. And of course they don't see it the way you do. They believe that much property is obtained illegally and immorally and, regardless of that, that there are higher values than ownership.
Dan contributed to this. In a century in which socialists killed more people than all the wars combined a newsman actually belived that socialism was the best way to spread comppassion, by force if necessary. He was a cheerleader for thieves and killers with a free speech half hour on TV.
Why would you expect a majority view to not have representatives among journalists? As for thieves and killers and their supporters let he who is innocent cast the first stone.
The Old Media is dead. Long live the New Media.
They should. Maybe the Internet will force them to do so. But I doubt it. People of all political persuasions seem to think they have special and unique access to "the truth". And there's the market value of claiming "objectivity". Money. Never underestimate its power.
We would have caught you in your lies then also.
How very true!
LOL that's funny! I'll repeat the tag line of a FRiend of mine. "My give-a-damn is busted"
Great! Your stuff was a hit--more exciting than the game, anyway.
You mean like the "truth" that Broussard's coworker's mother died because the federal response wasn't quick enough?"All of this creates a bigger atmosphere of fear in newsrooms,"
. . . and rightly so. Journalists being afraid to lie would be a good thing.
Not the category-4 hurricane that hit NO - the category 6 one that hit Bush when the TV journalists started spinning halftruths about the "slow" federal response.
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