by arthur Weinreb, associate Editor,
November 30, 2004
Dan Rather recently announced that he was stepping down from his anchor position at CBS News, effective next March. Rather’s last broadcast will be on March 9--the 24th anniversary of the day that he took over the job from the legendary Walter Cronkite.
although the 73-year-old Rather is planning to continue to work on the 60 Minutes programs, he is not departing from the CBS Evening News without having left his mark on the world of journalism. and for the mainstream media, that mark is black. Dan Rather will become a significant figure in this history of journalism and the news media.
There have been several major events throughout the history of the news media. The advent of radio allowed consumers of news who were hitherto restricted to the printed page, to listen to broadcasts, sometimes live, even in the early days. Then came television. Often called the "idiot box", TV gained a new respectability when John F. Kennedy was assassinated and viewers were able to watch what they knew was history being made, for four straight days. Television then brought the war in Vietnam into everyone’s living room, changing forever how people viewed what was once only some faraway campaign.
The next significant change in the media was the advent of CNN and then other 24 hour cable news outlets, allowing people to turn in at any hour and actually see what was happening in the area or anywhere in the world.
Then the Internet came along. With the advent of the net, anyone with a few bucks and a little computer know-how could report "the news". But the ability of the Internet to deliver news was not taken seriously. Bloggers were viewed as the equivalent of kids who had access to a mimeograph machine and who printed and distributed their own "newspaper". The bloggers and most non-mainstream sites had very little credibility.
Then Dan Rather changed all that. Last September, Rather released a series of letters and memos that were purportedly written by National Guard Commander, Lt. Colonel Jerry Killian. These documents showed that George W. Bush had been aWOL from his National Guard service during 1972 and 73. One of these documents stated, in part, that Bush was to "report to 111th F.I.S. administrative officer for schedule of appointments…"
Some keen-eyed bloggers noted that the "th" following the "111" was raised and promptly put that fact on the Internet. The fact that the "th’s" were raised indicated that the documents could not have been produced on a 1970s typewriter but had to have been made by a computer program such as Microsoft Word.
Rather went to ridiculous lengths in defending his reporting; at one stage arguing that even if the documents were forged, what was contained in them was true. But neither Rather nor CBS could give an explanation of how documents that were made during the 1970s could have contained the raised "th’s".
Rather’s actions gave the Internet and bloggers, those described as sitting around living rooms in their pajamas, credibility as serious sources of news. Never again will the mainstream media have the sole say in what is true and what is not. Never again will forgeries and incorrect information go unchallenged. The monopolies of the major networks and major dailies are now over.
Dan Rather was right to pack it in. after changing the course of journalistic history, he had nothing to look forward to.