CHUD.com Community › Forums › POLITICS & RELIGION › Political Discourse › The Dan Rather v. CBS Smackdown!!!
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

The Dan Rather v. CBS Smackdown!!!

post #1 of 11
11/30/07 at 12:12am
Thread Starter 
Someone recommended I start a thread on the Dan Rather lawsuit against CBS over their treatment of him during and after the whole Bush service documents brouhaha.

To provide some background/context on the latest developments:

Quote:
Does CBS sound a little… nervous to you?

Quote:
Earlier this month (Nov. 20) the New York Observer ran a story highlighting Rather’s travails in redeeming his good name, and proving once and for all that the story that got him fired was indeed true after all.

Quote:
More than two years earlier, in the aftermath of what would become known as Rathergate, CBS had hired Mr. Rigler, a former Navy aviator and F.B.I. agent, in part to get to the bottom of the controversial documents at the heart of the affair….

For reasons that remain unclear, CBS eventually curtailed Mr. Rigler’s investigation. His findings were never made public. Nor, as it turns out, were they made available to Mr. Rather…

According to [Dan Rather’s lawyer Martin] Gold, this past summer when he reached Mr. Rigler, the investigator said he would be happy to talk but first had to run it by CBS. Weeks later, Mr. Gold hadn’t heard back. He called again. Shortly thereafter, according to Mr. Gold, he received a letter from the legal department at CBS telling him to stop harassing their client. A volley of contentious communications ensued and on Sept. 19, Mr. Rather officially gave up on phone calls and letters—he filed a $70 million civil lawsuit against his former bosses at CBS and Viacom, including Les Moonves, Sumner Redstone and Andrew Heyward.

“I tried to talk to Rigler and CBS shut me down,” said Mr. Gold.
Obviously, Mr. Gold was completely unmanned by this crushing defeat:

Quote:
[H]e hesitated to discuss many details of his legal strategy, but conceded one thing: He intended on hearing from Mr. Rigler.

“There’s no question about that,” said Mr. Gold. “We’ll be very interested in taking his testimony and subpoenaing his records.”

“The more they try heaven and earth to prevent me from talking to the guy, the more it becomes highly charged,” he added. “The more I want to talk to him.”
Gee, ya think? As you may remember, Rigler is the guy who concluded that “the Killian Documents were probably authentic, and that the underlying facts in the Broadcast were certainly accurate.”

Marktheshark is hopeful that Rather’s suit could shake a whole bunch o’ fun loose:

Quote:
…Mr. Rather could just turn out to be the Bush regime’s worst nightmare, if this lawsuit is not settled out of court. If Rather’s attorneys can drag [rumored ANG record scrubbers] Karen Hughes and Joe Allbaugh before the court, along with [as of yet] unidentified players [Karl Rove] pulling the strings from the White House, a few revelations may leak out of this trial.

And, somehow, I don’t see Rather settling this case. I believe he’s truly pissed off at these people for effectively truncating his otherwise stellar career at the Tiffany network, and rightly so.
There’s one other avenue that I’d like to see Rather’s attorneys pursue, if feasible: Bush’s W-2 records. An anonymous source points out that “[b]y dividing his total wages by his rate of pay at the time [a known quantity], we would finally know how many hours [Bush] worked in the Guard.” Assuming that those hours weren’t falsified, and that W-2s are subpoenable (a quick search suggests they are), this would be a simple, elegant way to prove whether Dubya actually fulfilled his obligations in the Alabama ANG, and therefore whether that aspect of Rather’s story was accurate. They might also come in handy if Rather wants to pursue the scrubbing rumors - there could be intriguing discrepancies between the W-2s and the ANG records.

Show us Dubya’s Dubya-2s!
Reply
post #2 of 11
11/30/07 at 2:58am
Dan Rather was anchor for CBS News for 24 years and was given the most unceremonious heave ho for a controversy that is still so cloaked behind official roadblocks that the truth of the matter - whatever it may ultimately be - is almost completely out of reach. This lawsuit is important for a lot of reasons but mostly because it will hopefully pry the lid off the players and shed some light on how thoroughly the "fourth estate" has been co opted.
Reply
post #3 of 11
11/30/07 at 12:01pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by yt
Dan Rather was anchor for CBS News for 24 years and was given the most unceremonious heave ho for a controversy that is still so cloaked behind official roadblocks that the truth of the matter - whatever it may ultimately be - is almost completely out of reach. This lawsuit is important for a lot of reasons but mostly because it will hopefully pry the lid off the players and shed some light on how thoroughly the "fourth estate" has been co opted.
I agree wholeheartedly that CBS totally crapped on Rather. Regardless of politial persuasion he deserved so much more. His overall body of work stands for itself. While I personally think he will lose and that his lawsuit really doesn't have much merit, I think this just shows more and more that in the new millenium the network news is a dying joke. With so many more new options and opinions out there, I think this is more of a case of the network heads trying to be very careful (i.e. don't piss off anyone) to hold onto what little audience they still have.
Reply
post #4 of 11
11/30/07 at 12:50pm
Ratings dropped because of that story, people tuned away from Dan Rather that is why he was 'heaved ho'. CBS still hasn't recovered and may never recover since there are so many other options out there. Dan's just hoping to get a settlement out of this, few extra dollars so he can stop working for Cuban.
Reply
post #5 of 11
11/30/07 at 1:22pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Snaieke
Ratings dropped because of that story, people tuned away from Dan Rather that is why he was 'heaved ho'. CBS still hasn't recovered and may never recover since there are so many other options out there. Dan's just hoping to get a settlement out of this, few extra dollars so he can stop working for Cuban.
Do you just ignore facts when you decide to make such ridiculous statements or are you incapable of understanding facts themselves?
Reply
post #6 of 11
11/30/07 at 1:45pm
Ratings are facts. You cannot fudge ratings numbers, otherwise many o' shows would still be on the air. As to the case itself, it will never be settled by a judge\jury. It will be settled out of court, that's just a fact CBS cannot risk negative publicity and a case like this going to trial will bring a lot of publicitiy and Dan Rather knows this.
Reply
post #7 of 11
11/30/07 at 3:44pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by jonvoight's car
Rather deserved better than to be ousted like that after all he had done for CBS. But is there anyone credible who still believes the Killian documents were authentic?
Whether anyone "believes" they're authentic is irrelevant. They have been neither authenticated nor debunked, but the waters were muddied enough for Rather to be vilified and CBS to give him the shaft.

A final verdict on the Killian stuff is one important component of this lawsuit. And besides, the story had a lot more than solely the Killian documents, but once again, Americans were distracted by the shiny objects being shoved into their faces rather than the meat of the issue.

And Snaieke, sorry, but this is laughable:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Snaieke
Ratings are facts. You cannot fudge ratings numbers,
Reply
post #8 of 11
11/30/07 at 4:03pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by harrybeanbag
Snaieke, when you talk about CBS not wanting publicity, you make it sound like the Rathergate thing was something that was handled very discreetly. The fucking neoconservatives screeched to the high heavens so loudly about this issue that their ancestors covered their ears and winced.

That's not to say that most of the public would remember the circumstances or even really cared about the issue short of "Oh gee, no more Dan Rather", but since the collective American public has the memory of a goldfish and most of them probably just regarded Rather as a face on the TV screen - their perception of it doesn't count for much.

Bringing up the idea that CBS would be worried about the publicity is asinine, as they railroaded one of their most highly-esteemed anchors over the issue. You'd think that would be enough publicity.

And again, this occurred when the nation was still in its most jingoistic orgasmic throes, and people genuinely referred to Rather as a traitor for questioning Bush's records. It makes sense that a negative reaction from many talking heads would affect Rather's ratings to a degree.
OK. I'll try to reexplain this, maybe I wasn't very clear. Rather was only a commodity to CBS while he was pulling in the numbers. The bottom line with any corporation (CBS) is money and if Dan-o was still pulling in the ratings, he could have gotten away with the fiasco however because they took a SIGNIFICANT downturn and never recovered they had him 'retire' which was a gracious exit rather then firing him. He then went on to 60 minutes II which is mostly what he will get a settlement on this case about but that's getting ahead of myself.

Now, CBS to fix their ratings problem hired Katie Couric, America's sweetheart! they hoped they could pull back the ratings and offered her a huge sum of money (they almost couldn't get her salary signed off on by the board) It worked, they got huge ratings, however they trickled off to where now CBS is low on ratings and not getting the money to justify her salary, CBS is trying desperatly to bolster her image and get back those ratings (Katie in the middle east! Katie interviewing Hillary!). CBS has been pushing that she just needs time to establish herself to get those ratings back up(from last place), having the Dan Rather thing brought back into the public spotlight will take away from their efforts to get Katie's numbers back up and CBS Evening news could just be a thing of the past because they're not going to get another high named profile person past the board after this fiasco.

So, with all of that, you see why I say this will be settled and why CBS doesn't want the negative publicity? CBS has a huge slew of shows that make a ton more money then their news department and while I believe they're required to have news for being able to broadcast (I think) it doesn't have to be CBS Evening news with <insert huge name here> they could just have the morning thing.

edit --

Note, Katies ratings are lower then that of Dan Rather at this point however her contract if I'm not mistaken is a pay or play type thing... so they're out the money either way. So, they would have been better to keep Rather but hindsight is 20/20.
Reply
post #9 of 11
11/30/07 at 4:15pm
Thread Starter 
You're talking about ratings and other's are talking about the facts of the case. Especially in regards to the Bush documents and CBS' actions during the whole firestorm.
Reply
post #10 of 11
11/30/07 at 6:08pm
It's this crazy O'Reilly generation. All that tool does is talk about ratings.. it's so sad. But Hey, if you want to talk about something completely unrelated and you yell loud enough, it usually ends up working.
Reply
post #11 of 11
12/2/07 at 12:28am
Gonna go watch The Insider.
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
  Back to Forum: Political Discourse
CHUD.com Community › Forums › POLITICS & RELIGION › Political Discourse › The Dan Rather v. CBS Smackdown!!!