Dan Rather is suing CBS. I must admit, I didn't see this one coming. I thought if he'd lash out in defense of his reputation, it would have been sooner. This one bubbled up unexpectedly.
At issue is a story CBS did on President Bush's service (or lack thereof) in the National Guard during Vietnam. Documents upon which the story was partially based were later deemed unverifiable, at best. An external investigation ensued, and Rather later retired ("in disgrace" would be too strong a term but certainly not with the acclaim one would have expected before the Bush story).
Is the suit worth it? Was his reputation damaged and if so, can he rebuild it by a suit like this? Does he damage his cause more by bringing the issues up again? What obligations do the news media have to verify information provided by a source?
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Dan Rather Offended
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1 comment:
Dan Rather is right to say he was a scapegoat. He had some blame, but so did those he is suing. To bring the suit at this point seems odd, and I can only speculate at the reasons. I don't think it hurts him in any way to have waited this long. Anything a source gives you needs to be verified. I don't remember if this was a Deep Throat-type background source, but given how easy it was for the memo to be shown to be a fake, it would seem Rather and all the CBS staff needn't have looked too hard or too long to verify its authenticity.
I think it will be interesting to see how this lawsuit plays out.
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