Dan Rather: 'The Public is Not Well-Served by Political Coverage as it is Today'

[Newsjock]

Source: Poynter Online

Longtime CBS News broadcaster Dan Rather came to The Poynter Institute this week to talk about what it was like to cover some of the world's biggest stories throughout the past half-century.

... "The public is not well-served by political coverage as it is today," said Rather, who did not exclude himself from this criticism. "In many important ways, very big business is in bed with big government and whoever's in power in Washington, whether it be Republicans or Democrats ... and this seriously affects news coverage."

Too often, he said, political coverage is governed by the large corporate entities that own news organizations and that don't always have the public's best interest in mind.

... Rather has acknowledged that he never realized the power of bloggers until after he reported the infamous story about the Jerry B. Killian documents that criticized Bush's service in the Army National Guard. At the time, conservative bloggers questioned whether the documents were falsified and began a debate about it online. No one has yet to prove the authenticity of the documents.

... "It was true then, it's true now, and evidence of that is neither the president nor anyone close around him, so far as I know, (and I think I would know if they had), has ever denied the narrative of the story," Rather said. "I don't seek to go over this ground all over again, but I do think it's important to point out that the story was true, and for those who didn't like the story, for their partisan, political, or ideological reasons, that's the reason they had to attack it so fiercely and, as it turned out, so effectively, I'm sorry to say."

Read more: http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=101&aid=189935

[tularetom]

1. Before anybody gets all gushy over Dan Rather

I suggest they go back and read this transcript of the Letterman show from September 17, 2001, where he practically gives the bush baby an on air BJ.

http://www.nyjtimes.com/cover/terror/DaveandDan.htm

I watched that show and I damn near puked. Objective journalism my ass.

But oh gee, he "didn't exclude himself from this criticism". Guess that makes it O-tay, Dan.

[SpiralHawk]

2. "The story was, and is, true. Smirk." -xCommander AWOL (R)

[ixion]

3. The public is not well-served by ANY of the current institutions set up to do so

in my opinion.

[icnorth]

4. Mr. Rather, your word choice is inappropriate,

what we get is not political coverage; it is propaganda sponsored by the MIC. Lip service to the public good occasionally pops into the discussion after these interests have been satisfied.

[zipplewrath]

5. They are easy to manipulate

The media is incredibly easy to manipulate, to the degree that there is a whole profession set up to do just that. Your "media consultant" and "publicist" are basically people whose job it is to manipulate the media. They can be very good at what they do. Alternately, journalists are ill equipped to deal with these professions and tend not to be good at detecting the work of these manipulators. Bloggers sit between these two, both being manipulated, and being part of the manipulation. The problem isn't the bloggers, and to some extent it isn't the manipulators. The problem is that the media hasn't put any effort into addressing the effects of these manipulators on their own profession. Many of the manipulators are employed by the media. Take your average Sunday news show, and it is a collection of professional manipulators, and one or two journalists functioning as entertainers, using the manipulators for "content".

Until the media gets their hands around a new definition of "objective" that acknowledges that the vast majority of information with which they come in contact has been specifically packaged to manipulate the media, they will continue to be little more than clerks for the professional manipulator industry.

[Winterblues]

6. This is nothing new in America

William Randolph Hearst was a Major Player in Media Manipulation and Propaganda. You can go all the way back to Thomas Paine and Ben Franklin. Both slanted their political publications. Fortunate for us they slanted in a Liberal direction or we would still be under the Conservative Authoritative Rule of a Monarchy..

[Mr. Sparkle]

7. Dan should have replaced Bill Moyers on PBS, just after he left.

He is a great reporter and really knows his stuff.

[Senator]

8. K&+R