Dan Rather Coverage of Columbia Disaster

February 1, 2003

[NYer]

Don't know if this was already posted but, in case you missed it ....

Dan Rather took over the coverage of the disaster around 11am. In the early stages of his coverage, someone from Texas called in to confirm debris in his front yard.

Dan thanked the caller.

The caller responded: "Thank you, Mr Rather, for taking my call."

Rather: "Call me Dan".

Caller: "Okay Dan".

Rather: "Caller, please describe the debris."

Caller: "Dan, a large crowd has gathered to view this."

Rather: "What is it?"

Caller: "I believe it's an astronaut's tooth".

Rather: "A what?"

Caller: "You're an idiot!"

Rather, with a stunned expression on his face: "Okay, I'm an idiot".

The call was immediately silenced. Rather then apologized to the viewers, saying that sometimes crank calls make it through.

[NYer]

Couldn't have happened to a better newscaster. LOL

[Crossbow Eel]

Rather was losing it. He got all choked up and could hardly talk.

[Slyfox]

It was probably some brainiac from DU trying to see if he could get on TV.

[xzins]

I don't like Dan.

Considering the families, though....that little lag time between talking of a body part, to the punch line was probably out of line.

The caller was the jerk, imho...not because of his feelings about Rather, but in terms of his taking shots in the midst of this kind of tragedy.

Flame away.

X

[ShadowDancer]

I despise Rather but there was no humor in that. Every station had coverage. The moron this time was the caller.

[Allegra]

The caller was the jerk, imho...not because of his feelings about Rather, but in terms of his taking shots in the midst of this kind of tragedy.

You won't see me flaming you...I agree 100%. I don't like Dan, but this kind of childish "humor" is so inappropriate right now.

[IncPen]

Check this out...

[Catspaw]

No, it was one of Howard Stern's fans, if you can call them that. They did the same thing (I can't remember who they called that time) after the Egyptian guy murdered people at the El Al counter at LAX.

[thegreatbeast]

I hope the sh*thea* said Baba Booey.

[laconic]

This clown was pulling a Howard Stern-inspired trick, claiming to be an eyewitness, initially giving a false name and location. He actually said he saw a large metal object in his back yard that was "BabaBooie's tooth" (BabaBooie is one of the elegant "staff" of the Howard Stern radio show). Rather did not catch what the jerk said and continued to ask him questions, to which the bozo shouted to Rather, "You're an idiot". Rather was not at fault in the slightest; the caller was a liar and an unfunny buffoon calling in on a tragic morning when the fate of the astronauts was still not certain and who represented that he was an eyewitness. You don't lie or make light on national TV of such an event; it was classless, tasteless and not in the slightest bit funny, and it made the caller, not Rather look bad.

[Ditter]

We were watching MSNBC this morning when Alex Witt (?) took a call. I expected it to be a call from someone at NASA but the caller said something about Howard Stern being on the doomed flight. I missed the first thing the caller said, did anyone else hear this? The call was cut off with no comment from Alex.

[JennysCool]

Agree 100 percent. We may have disagreements with Rather, but that caller was beneath contempt.

[Rodney King]

bump

[dixierose]

Due to the unfortunate fact that my DirectTV system in temporarily down, I was stuck watching CBS this morning. I do not like Dan, but I will admit that there were several times when he really looked like it was taking everything he had to hold it together. I don't see how ANY reporters can report stories such as this without breaking down.

That being said, I missed this particular caller. But I agree that it was in very poor taste. The caller was an idiot.

[Bobby777]

but this kind of childish "humor" is so inappropriate right now.

agreed ... that caller gets my vote for insensitive jerk of the year ... and it's still early in 2003 ...

[Timesink]

This isn't even the first time! From http://www.ratherbiased.com/jumping_gun.htm:

“Baba Booey’s Teeth”

"Lieutenant Gaynor:" Watch Dan Rather as he gets fooled by a Howard Stern fan during a live broadcast. Choose either Windows Media (56KB/s, 500KB) or RealVideo (56KB/s, 693KB)

In July of 1999, the private airplane of John Kennedy, son of the former president, was reported to be missing in the vicinity of the Massachusetts island of Martha's Vineyard. There was speculation that the craft had crashed, but there was no evidence it had. During the search for the plane, CBS decided to pre-empt normal programming to provide live coverage. A Howard Stern fan decided he'd see how far Rather would let him get posing as a Coast Guard official with potentially hot news:

RATHER: We now have Lieutenant Ed Gaynor of the United States Coast Guard that they've found some debris. Lieutenant, what can you tell us about this debris?

ED GAYNOR, U.S. Coast Guard–Cape Cod (As identified on screen): Some debris has been spotted, and it is consistent with debris from a Saratoga. Whether it's John F. Kennedy's Saratoga, we don't know. We also found Baba Booey's teeth were laying along the bay, too, and Howard Stern and Baba Booey were all there. [Gary "Baba Booey" Dell'Abate is the producer of Stern's radio show.]

RATHER: Excuse me, when you said you have determined this debris is from a Piper Saratoga--

[Pause, no response from caller]

Well, I'm not sure that we heard correctly there. Lieutenant Gaynor of the Coast Guard telling us--and this is breaking information. I remind you again this is live television. We take in raw information, and we do the best we can to be rock solid in stating fact. But now earlier there was a report of debris spotted. Then there was a report from the FAA.

Bob Orr said, 'Well, the FAA, in effect, steered us away from making any conclusions that the debris might or might not have anything to do with John Kennedy's plane.

But now, this just in: The Coast Guard lieutenant says they have found debris; that the debris, I believe that he said—we've lost him for the moment now—was consistent with a Piper Saratoga, but that they couldn't determine whether it was John F. Kennedy Jr.'s Piper Saratoga aircraft. But this puts the late information in a whole new context, a whole new perspective.

[In Rather's earpiece, he's told it's a prank]

I want to emphasize to you that this is raw information. Sometimes people call in and say things that aren't true. Sometimes, you know, cranks, that sort of thing happens. So let's be very, very careful here with this information. One thought comes to mind: Was this actually the Coast Guard lieutenant that we thought we were talking to? He jumped off that phone very--very pronto.

Let's go to Bob Orr in Washington.

ORR: Dan, I--I've never understood why, when--if you're in a crisis-type story and when people are hungry for good, reliable information, I've never understood why pranksters think it's funny to come on and--and just pass out erroneous information.

I can tell you categorically, Dan, that last report was completely unfounded. I doubt that it was anybody from the Coast Guard. We have been told on the record by the Coast Guard and by a senior source in the Department of Transportation just a couple of minutes ago, in fact, that no debris has been found consistent with the Kennedy plane.
--Dan Rather and Bob Orr in a "Special Report," July 17, 1999.

[ChadGore]

Dan Rather: "Okay, I'm an idiot"

[Timesink]

BABA BOOEY

GARY'S GIANT TEETH

GARY PUPPET