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.
I don't know if I should laugh hysterically at his obvious bias that is still blatant. ("It's that awful religious right!" ) or throw up because he is such an arrogant jerk! I think I will just laugh!
Howdy. Heard on the news earlier that we've been asked to receive some possible Rita evacuees.
He's crying because they can't paint a picture and make enough folks believe its reality anymore.
I SWEAR I wrote mine before I saw yours...I SWEAR!! :)
Rather: "You can no longer make up crap like the good ole days...."
Notice how they never mention that the thing that really brought old Danny down .. the internet and forums like this?
I guess the "new journalism order" places emphasis on verifying your sources.
For Dan Rather, the Katrina catasrophy has been TV's finest hour.
Real nice Dan, real nice.
I smell a fa-t. Did someone fa-t? Gudnite dan. Get lost dan.
Courage, Dan.
Thanks for the great gif...or whatever it is...too funny!
And of course, I don't give a flying rat's ass about blather either....what a jerkmeister supreme!!
along with the "dumbed-down, tarted-up" coverage....
?????????????????
I thought he was the inventor of along with the "dumbed-down, tarted-up" coverage.
go figure.
He was the guy who forged documents to hurt Republicans.
Pray for W and Our Iraq Winning Troops
Nice to see Dan aging with grace, strength, & dignity. LOL.
I have to admit, I usually don't get that much enjoyment out of seeing someone make an ass of themselves or have their fortunes degrade, but...with Dan Rather I make an exception.
Can anyone find the Oliver North column where he talks about how much he dislikes Dan Rather? The one where he describes how Dan Rather showed up hours after a suicide bombing in Iraq, got an unrelated bloody nose which dripped on his stupid vest, but used it as a prop, trying to show how dangerous it was?
hehehehe ... poor Danny
I can't believe none of y'all have posted this, so I will...
WHAT'S THE FREQUENCY, KENNETH?
.
DAVID SHAW: RATHER's work 'Shoddy, Slipshod' not LIBERAL..?
http://www.Freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1227809/posts
.
Translation: We can't get away with lying anymore.
**BINGO**
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