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Bye, bye, Dan

38 comments on Bye, bye, Dan

Bye, bye, Dan

: Dan Rather is stepping down from his pedestal in March. Yes, bloggers deserve some credit….

The dinosaur of news just keeled over. This marks the end not of any golden age but of pompous, stand-apart news. They don’t know it yet, but it does.

(I was blogging this from a TV news greenroom, where I was doing something unrelated. That, by the way, was how this entry and the one below got messed up; my Treo ate them. Anyway, there was much buzz among the TV news folks, but little surprise.)

Howard Kurtz appeared on CNN and said that Rather left now — before the release of the Rathergate report — so he could leave on his own terms. That is to say, the report is not going to be a valentine.

I wish CBS would have the balls to try something new, to break out of the pack, to blow up the obvious, to reinvent what TV news should be. They won’t, of course. But we can try to tell them how they should do it. What would you do with CBS news if you had to fill that chair? Leave comments.

: Here’s RatherBiased.com’s statement.

Frankly, it’s a shame that it has to end this way for Dan. In the end, he became the person he most despised, Richard Nixon. Had Rather and the CBS management been more serious about viewer input and fairness, they would never have had to stonewall about a story they shouldn’t have run.

And Powerlineblog’s here.

What should happen but won’t I

: They should recognize what’s happening in news and hire Jon Stewart or David Letterman or anyone with attitude — not haughty Rather attitude, but the attitude of the audience, the voice and scowl of the people, the honest voice of the comedian who pokes holes in pomposity rather than pumping it up. It should happen but won’t.

: Jay Rosen on Rather’s farewell.

38 responses to “Bye, bye, Dan”

  1. tony Avatar
    tony

    i think you are giving bloggers a wee too much credit, and not giving any credit to your fellow pro journalists.
    unless youre suggesting that the MSM wouldnt have called bs on the 60 Minutes story, in which case this resignation is a two-fold condemnation on traditional press. is that what youre saying?
    similarily, if Bush had lost, would you have given the credit to michael moore and moveon.org?

  2. Hubris Avatar
    Hubris

    tony,
    Jeff did say “some” credit, not “the” credit.
    I don’t think the moore/moveon.org analogy works; bloggers were the primary “firestarters” of Rathergate, while Moore and moveon.org were simply a part of the campaign against Bush. If Bush had lost, would they have gotten credit? Sure. But just the same credit as a hundred other variables that simultaneously favored Kerry/opposed Bush in a parallel fashion.

  3. carsonfire Avatar
    carsonfire

    JJ probably has more credibility than most to say who should take credit. He was mostly an impartial observer during the origin of RatherGate, if I recall. In fact, didn’t he resist the story, at first?
    There’s no question that the research, displays of expertise, and general debunkification provided to the public was greatly speeded up during the election cycle thanks to bloggers. ABC does deserve credit for following the story, when it became a story, but, left to their own devices, I really can’t imagine them not taking a week or two of internal investigation and triple-checking before breaking a story that would pit their credibility directly against their rival. Bloggers gave them cover against accusations of using the situation in a predatory way.
    And if Bush lost, Michael Moore and moveon.org most certainly would have taken credit, whether anyone assigned it to them or not.

  4. Jim Treacher Avatar
    Jim Treacher

    It certainly wouldn’t have fallen apart as fast as it did if not for the blogs. Which may have been the hope.

  5. Sissy Willis Avatar
    Sissy Willis

    Don’t forget who deserves the lion’s share of credit, Mr. Rather himself! :)

  6. tony Avatar
    tony

    “some” credit. i see that clearer now. thanks

  7. MWB Avatar
    MWB

    I doubt the “MSM” would have pursued this without the bloggers breaking it. As carsonfire said, a competing network would have been slow to pull the trigger on an internecine media war. So maybe a slow, thorough look, and then, well darn it, it’s too close to the election. (Or it’s after the election and nobody cares anymore. Like the “investigation” of Rathergate that was supposed to take “weeks not months”).
    Yes, some mainstream outlets covered it, but bloggers forced it into the “newsworthy” category first.
    BTW, I think Jeff at first described the story as “mud”, but too his credit came to see the validity of the pursuit.

  8. Jim Hicks Avatar
    Jim Hicks

    The MSM has just gotten checkmated by the blogosphere and they don’t like it. Well, we haven’t liked they way they’ve been reporting the news for years. And if they don’t start getting it right, we will report the news of the day to each other and cut them completely out.
    Now the fourth estate has a check. And the blogoshere is the balance.
    Be fair or be gone!

  9. Thomas Nephew Avatar
    Thomas Nephew

    right, Jim, we’ll look for your reports out of Falluja or Grozny or Darfur.

  10. Tom O. Avatar
    Tom O.

    Reality check: Dan has been in broadcast news since the early ’60s and evening news anchor since the early ’80s. After 40+ years in the news biz, don’cha think it’s simply the case he’d Rather retire at this point?
    (…sorry, couldn’t resist…)

  11. Penschool Avatar
    Penschool

    Who’ll replace him? Hopefully not yet another boring white, middle-aged white guy.

  12. Hubris Avatar
    Hubris

    tony,
    Thanks for the response.
    Tom O.,
    I dunno about your theory, I’m pretty sure Mike Wallace passed away in 1999 but he’s still broadcasting.

  13. jon n. Avatar
    jon n.

    Well, seeing how the “free market” has been working lately, I suspect CBS will create an all-news cable channel, and replace the nightly news report with a reality show.

  14. paladin Avatar
    paladin

    Over at Romenesko, they are suggesting Jon Stewart take Rather’s place. Stewart couldn’t be any worse.

  15. carsonfire Avatar
    carsonfire

    A reality news show! Brilliant idea!!!
    Anchor Island… bare-chested Dan lunges from the bushes waving forged memos in one hand and a receipt from Kinko’s in the other… Cranky old Walter counters by using a hand-hewn slingshot to fire off a surprise conspiracy theory. Watch out! It’s Chris Matthews in a thong!
    Vote ’em all off.

  16. Michael Avatar
    Michael

    You have to give some credit when credit is due. Rather has done some incredible reporting over the decades. His on the scence converage of JKF’s assassination, being the only network anchor on the scence at Tiananmen Square, and interview with Hussein shortly after the invasion of Kuwait come to mind.

  17. Michael Avatar
    Michael

    Yes, Letterman is at his best when he interviews people like Clinton or Dean. But to just sit there and read news stories, nah. Perhaps Tina Fey from SNL’s Weekend Update?

  18. Easycure Avatar
    Easycure

    I hope the door doesn’t hit Dan in the ass on the way out. Loser.
    Instead of replacing him, they should just dismantle the whole sad CBS “news” division.

  19. Richard Bennett Avatar
    Richard Bennett

    CBS should replace Dan with John Stewart in order to maintain continuity of bias – going with anybody really impartial would expose the whole con.
    Hey, this being Jeff’s blog and all, how about Howard Stern? News with dwarves, hookers and porn stars would be cool.

  20. Dougvb Avatar
    Dougvb

    Dan’s replacement (and staff) should question all authority and not let political parties and corporations play them like a fiddle. Make someone accountable in this administration, and above all make it appealing to watch. Today’s youth does not watch Dan, nor will they care about a cookie cutter replacement.

  21. Tom O. Avatar
    Tom O.

    CBS will err on the side of caution and install someone terribly dull and boring as anchor. The ratings will plummet, which in an ideal world would open the door for someone with attitude to step in. Letterman, Stewart and Stern are already spoken for and I doubt they would make such a radical career change to something so far removed from their spheres of operation but unless I am mistaken, Kilborn is available…

  22. Michael Avatar
    Michael

    Yeah, lets turn CBS News into Sportscenter. Ugh.

  23. Jessica Richman Avatar
    Jessica Richman

    This is an amazing triumph of new media over old media. Blogs are simply *better* than television news at doing the job of news. They are more accurate, faster, more interesting, more available. Simply better.
    Do any of you still watch television? No one I know does, except as an occasional guilty escape.

  24. Michael Avatar
    Michael

    Jessica, you simply can’t make such bold statements. Certainly, a segment of people rely much more on blogs rather than TV for news, but hardly a majority of citizens. Think about all the rural red areas won by Bush. Blogging isn’t taking the country by storm, just certain parts of it. Asking “do any of your watch TV” is like asking “are any of your Catholic” during mass at St. Peters in Rome.
    Also, I’d say blogs are not “more available” than broadcast news. Its much easier to own and operate a TV than a computer with Internet access, etc.
    We really need to start a discussion on the politics (power relations) related to blogging. This isn’t a horizontal, equal medium free from bias, control, or hegemony.

  25. Brett Avatar
    Brett

    My two cents: CBS, if it were really forward thinking, should serve all of its content in segments with no anchor. A buffet of reporting, if you will. Let the reporters intro their own pieces.
    These segments could be individually downloaded into any format (video, streamed, mp3, etc). It should offer RSS feed for the content. This moves it forward into the future, decentralizing the news broadcast. By the segments downloaded, CBS would know what content and which reporters were “hot” and then treat such things appropriately, perhaps compile these popular daily segments as its daily evening broadcast.
    Further, they should invite the very blogers that criticized them to be some of the voices in this decentralized mix. Leftist, centrist, rightist, and whatever – let them all report. Professional journalists, celebrities, average folk, bloggers, whomever – anyone with a voice and an honest approach.
    Such an effort would run rings around Fox and the other networks. CBS news would then be seen as cutting edge and exciting.

  26. matty Avatar
    matty

    i’m so glad rather resigned. now all of the fearless bloggers crusading for truth can start hounding out the administration for leading us into war on false pretenses. i know, it pales in comparisons to rather’s shocking crimes, but what can you do?

  27. Jim S Avatar
    Jim S

    Correct me if I’m wrong, but the argument in favor of the blogosphere over traditional news comes down to the wisdom of the masses. These are the same masses who believe whatever makes them feel good irregardless of any evidence, correct? 72% of Bush’s supporters believe that we found WMDs in Iraq. Approximately the same percentage believe that Saddam had a direct link to Al Quaida and a majority believe that he was linked with 9/11.
    I was just listening to a report on NPR about a study that tried to examine this issue. When people in the study were presented with the fact that a soldier going to trial for his actions at Abu Ghraib wanted to subpeona Administration officials such as Donald Rumsfeld for his trial. He wanted to do this because he claimed to have been told that the Administration had suspended the Geneva Convention. The people in the study were asked whether they thought he should be allowed to do this. They were presented with what was supposed to be evidence concerning this. Some were shown very little evidence. Some were shown what appeared to be overwhelming evidence. It didn’t matter how much evidence they saw. The predictors that gave an 84% ability to predict whether they thought he should be allowed to subpeona the officials was whether they liked Republicans, whether they liked groups like Amnesty International and similar facts of political preference. It came down to what they had already decided because of their own preconceptions, not any attempt to weigh the evidence.

  28. Pat Avatar
    Pat

    Shep Smith is mentioned by the Foxies as the new prototype anchor. He is pretty sassy!

  29. Andy Freeman Avatar
    Andy Freeman

    > 72% of Bush’s supporters believe that we found WMDs in Iraq.
    That wasn’t the question asked, a fact that goes right to Jim S’ credibility.
    And, we have found poison gas in small amounts.
    The actual question was whether Iraq had WMD programs. If you think that “WMD programs” means “active gas making”, Iraq didn’t. If you (reasonably) include programs that would have allowed Iraq to REstart production on short notice and a plan to reduce production obstacles, Iraq did.
    But, you’d have to actually read the survey to find out what they asked. And, you’d have to pay attention to Iraq. Listening to NPR isn’t going to cut it.

  30. Thomas Nephew Avatar
    Thomas Nephew

    @Andrew: Yeah, well, “poison gas in small amounts” *really* doesn’t cut it.
    Neither does “complete absence of discussion or even interest in BW at the Presidential level.” Neither does “no credible indications that Baghdad resumed production of chemical munitions [after 1991].” Neither does “Iraq

  31. h0mi Avatar
    h0mi

    72% of Bush’s supporters believe that we found WMDs in Iraq.

    What percentage of Kerry supporters believed that the “assault weapons ban” expiration meant Machine guns became legal again?

  32. ChrisPer Avatar
    ChrisPer

    It is pretty clear that MSM would NOT call bullshit on anti-Bush stories – look at the way the Swift Boat guys were snapped up in the MSM debunking of a deceptive Democrat political campaign. Note how their claims were laid out and tested against evidence in public by the MSM.
    NOT. Only in blogs.
    Still, the MSM are the engine room of blogging.
    Criticism and comment are only possible when you have people collecting and disseminating the source info. It isn’t replacement – it’s a rebalancing of resources and efforts forced by social change. And its only just started.

  33. Clif Avatar
    Clif

    The person who gets credit for bagging Dan Rather is Karl Rove. Planting documents is a time-honored Rove trick (see the article in October’s Atlantic). Karl had these documents passed on to Rather, waited for Rather to bite, set the hook, and after that no news organization had the stomach to talk about Bush’s National Guard record.

  34. Angus Jung Avatar
    Angus Jung

    DING DING DING DING DING!!! It took long enough. Thanks, Clif!

  35. Andy Freeman Avatar
    Andy Freeman

    Note that Nephew doesn’t actually address my point. Iraq was actively maintaining the ability to produce chemical weapons.
    Interestingly enough, “actively maintaining the ability to produce” describes the current state of the US nuclear weapons program. We’re not making them today, and haven’t made any for some time, but we’re spending money so we’re ready to start production. Heck, we’re even spending money so we have people ready to start designing new ones.
    Does Nephew believe that the US does not have a nuclear weapons program?
    I’m still waiting for Jarvis to tell us if it would be okay for CBS to replace Rather with Jenna Jameson with one boob exposed.

  36. matty Avatar
    matty

    i get the sense that a lot of people would be happy if rather were replaced with judith miller. her reporting based on shady docs and info from shady chalabi hasn’t gotten her fired, and there has been no blog-jihad calling for her head. and her stories were more misleading and influential than rather’s.
    i’m happy to agree that he looks bad. what about her?

  37. Thomas Nephew Avatar
    Thomas Nephew

    @Andy: On review, I suppose I wasn’t actually directly addressing your point, it didn’t seem worth it compared to the big picture, which I’ll resummarize as “nothing, nada, zilch in Iraq.”
    However: any country producing, say, pesticides or household cleansers, is in some sense “actively maintaining the ability to produce chemical weapons.” Unless you had in mind that evidence of an Iraqi chemical *industry* is evidence of foul play, you’ve got nothing: no precursors for chemical weapons were bought, no evidence of trying to or planning to produce them, let alone CW, was found. If you had in mind that WMD stands for “weapons of minute destruction”, I suppose there’s the thin reed of some intelligence service labs that “could” have been a platform for “small-scale” production, although there were “no” indications this was planned.
    As for the US nuclear weapons program: of course there is one, and production isn’t the only sign of one. Research and development are ongoing, hugely funded enterprises with entire cities wholly or largely devoted to them — Los Alamos, Oak Ridge, Livermore. Nothing about the pitiful-to-zero situation discovered in Iraq for either NW, CW, or BW even begins to compare. More to the point, there are actual, you know, nuclear _weapons_ to point to.
    But please, folks, let’s stay focused on the important stuff: Dan Rather. Unlike, say, Judith Miller, he didn’t mislead the country about a piddly thing like WMD in Iraq. No, he thought a document (that he didn’t realize was forged) about Bush’s siesta-as-military-service was worth reporting. I’m trying to get with the program, so I say burn him.

  38. Andy Freeman Avatar
    Andy Freeman

    > which I’ll resummarize as “nothing, nada, zilch in Iraq.”
    And that’s still inaccurate.
    A Round-up factory is not the same as actively maintaining the ability to restart production of Sarin.
    I don’t know if Iraq had the former, but the cited report documents that they had the latter. It distinguishes “has beakers” from “ready to produce chemical weapons”, even if Nephew’s argument equates the two.