BY DAN
KENNEDY
Notes and observations on
the press, politics, culture, technology, and more. To sign up for
e-mail delivery, click
here. To send
an e-mail to Dan Kennedy, click
here.
For bio, published work, and links to other blogs, visit
www.dankennedy.net.
For information on Dan Kennedy's book, Little People: Learning to
See the World Through My Daughter's Eyes (Rodale, October 2003),
click
here.
Thursday, September 23, 2004
WHY THE KILLIAN STORY
MATTERS. It's not that I'm rooting for Dan Rather. But I do think
he deserves better than to be investigated
by Dick Thornburgh, a
former attorney general and Republican partisan with whom CBS has
clashed in the past, as the New York Times reports. And why,
Howard Kurtz's inside sources ask, is CBS News chief Andrew
Heyward involved in setting
up the investigation? Shouldn't he be one of the people being
investigated?
An interesting side note to the
matter of the fake Killian memos is why CBS News is falling apart
over this when Fox, and to a lesser extent MSNBC, pay absolutely no
price for pimping the false claims of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.
(I'm not going to repeat the case against the Swiftees except to note
that their claims are contradicted by the official record, by the men
with whom Kerry directly served, and, in several instances, by what
the Swiftees themselves have said in the past. If you want more, go
to the Daily
Howler, which is in the
midst of a lengthy, utterly convincing takedown of their book,
Unfit for Command. And by the way, kudos
to Fox's Bill O'Reilly.)
A good part of the answer, I think,
is that the credibility of CBS matters and Fox's doesn't. Simple as
that. Sorry, Roger, but Fox is little more than Republican-flavored infotainment, and it
surprises absolutely no one when Sean Hannity - or, for that matter,
a more respectable figure, like Brit Hume - keeps repeating stories
that have already been proved false.
CBS News doesn't deserve to have
the serious reputation it had in the days of Edward R. Murrow and
Walter Cronkite. Maybe what happened with the Killian story is all
too emblematic of the low standards that the former Tiffany network
now embraces.
But obviously its reputation
does matter. There's still an expectation of truth-telling on
the part of CBS, and the fact that Dan Rather, Mary Mapes, and
company now appear to be on the ropes is all the evidence you need to
understand that.
BRUDNOY AND MEDIA LOG. I'll
be appearing tonight at 8 on The
David Brudnoy Show, on
WBZ Radio (AM 1030), to talk about my
book, Little People:
Learning to See the World Through My Daughter's Eyes. I imagine
we'll chew over the media and political scene, too.
NEW IN THIS WEEK'S
PHOENIX. WBUR
Radio (90.9 FM) has long
been one of the most respected public stations in the country. But
recent downsizing moves, including a sudden announcement that it
intends to sell its Rhode Island affiliates, raise serious
questions about what's going on at the
station. It's time for
license-holder Boston University to start demanding some
answers.
posted at 10:42 AM |
3 comments
|
link
3 Comments:
Your points are well taken, and head and shoulders above most discussion of the issue. The core reality is more depressing than "CBS's reputation matters". It is that Fox and like-minded cable and net denizens have been able to take a relatively minor issue (the memos if legit would only advance the story very marginally, especially considering that the contents, fake or real, have mostly been verified) and to a large extent hijack the public agenda. This happens with frightening regularity. Here, in my view, they may actually be overreaching for once by pushing Bush's lost year to the fore in a manner that should have happened five years ago.
Congratualtions Dan for at least stating plainly that the Killian memos are fakes.
The swiftees are undeniably right in two areas. Kerry's Fulbright testimony on war crimes was completely fabricated and Kerry did visit with the North Vietnamese in Paris while he was still in the service. He came back parroting the North Vietnamese position and as O'Neil has said "that didn't take much political courage since 70% of Massachusetts was against the war". The new ad is factual and it likely to be well received in battle ground states.
Phil
Dan,
Are you bothered that Rather-gate has bumped Sandy Berger filling his pants (with documents) off the front (or any other) page? Just wondering..
Post a Comment
MEDIA LOG ARCHIVES
Dan Kennedy is senior writer and media critic for the Boston Phoenix.
