Slatts pointed me toward a Top Ten list regarding Dan Rather. I like #3:
3. They think the Black Eye is a good symbol for their network.
September 13, 2004
September 12, 2004
Slice returns
Slice returns this week after a tour in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, my grandson has been practicing beach landings in preparation for Daddy’s return.
Marines prefer the beach to being aboard ship.
Local Stations
Hindrocket compares the fake CBS document scandal to our perception of airplan hijackers pre-9/11. I think it is an apt comparison. We make many assumptions every day, most of the time without due consideration.
The fact that CBS was willing to barter away what remained of its reputation in exchange for an opportunity to help the John Kerry campaign requires us to re-examine our assumptions about the mainstream media, just as the emergence of the suicide bomber required us to re-examine certain assumptions about security. We never thought that a vast, powerful broadcast network would destroy its own reputation for political gain. Now we know that it can happen.
News bias has always existed. It is actually healthy. Competition drives people to perform. People with talent, that it. Kinda makes me wonder about the talent at places like CBS, AP, NBC, and Reuters. FoxNews, eager to be #1, have upset the applecart. And the old league are faltering. They cannot deal with competition. So they resort to inventing stories which have pizzazz.
And playing a role in an election has always suited media. Being the vanguard for a campaign, however, has always been a role filled by newspapers, not television. Especially not major news organizations. Is there a paradigm shift (I always hated that phrase), as Hindrocket suggests?
Jay Rosen, another whose opinion I seek on issues of media, has interesting observations, but does not yet draw any conclusions regarding the outcome of all this as regards credibility. And, as always, the commenters add to the dialog.
Why has CBS News acted more like a politician responding to criticism than a news organization after the truth?
I decided to see if our local CBS affiliate cared to take a stand.
I have been following the story of Dan Rather’s fake documents this week, and am concerned that your credibility will take a hit along with his. Jim Lago and I have discussed the research power of the internet, and how easily the memos were debunked within hours by people familiar with all facets of the documents from typesetting to personal experience with various typewriters. Doesn’t CBS have the same capability?
It is time for Dan Rather to prove his documents are real. They’ve already been shown not to be, but he insists they are. In a court of law, the case would have been thrown out post haste. Perhaps your station, and all other CBS affiliates can put the pressure on to make things right, one way or the other.
I’ll let you know if I get a response.
September 11, 2004
Light?
Mansoor Ijaz, the man whose analysis I trust most on the issue, seems to think the Islamicists are gasping for breath.
Osama bin Laden’s global vision
Comments Off on Light?
Wallace & Rather
If any of you believe Dan Rather and Mike Wallace are professionals, take a quick read of John B. Dwyer’s most recent on American Thinker.
I remember another hit piece by Rather–an anti-gun Moore-style documentary–Guns of Autumn. The man finds news where there is none. I guess that’s what makes him a professional.
VDH
One thing I’ve observed in comments on my site and others is that if you mention history, the leftist knee-jerk reaction is “You’re blaming Clinton! or “Remember how Nixon failed in Vietnam!” It is as if the interceding 25 years didn’t even exist. I guess for many of them, they didn’t. But this war against Islamicists could have been dealt with during those years. There was an overriding concern during much of that time, however: Nuclear War with the Soviet Union. Prior to 1989, any move we made in the world had that shadow hanging over it. North Vietnam could have easily been dispensed with. So, too, North Korea. Many of the smaller conflicts around the world were warfare by proxy.
That changed in 1989, and we didn’t.
Victor Davis Hanson is one of my favorite writers. Not just because of his skill with words, but because he is also a dedicated student of history. This day, there are two articles of his that everyone (including “truth man” and “curveball”) should take the time to read. I don’t expect those two visitors to do so. It might upset their vison of the world. I hope they will read them, and be driven by the desire to read and try to understand rather than try to find fault with the words.
The Fruits of Appeasement is from this spring. “truth man”, if you botherd to read this you might understand the post above.
As long ago as the fourth century B.C., Demosthenes warned how complacency and self-delusion among an affluent and free Athenian people allowed a Macedonian thug like Philip II to end some four centuries of Greek liberty
Honor & Remembrance
In honor of my three sons
and their comrades in the military, police departments, and fire stations who Defend and Protect
And in remembrance of those who lost their lives because we were willing to ignore the challenges laid at our feet by our enemies in the years before 11 September 2001.