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Dan Rather: Beware of 'New Media'
Former CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather on Tuesday delivered a pointed message to an audience of young people at the University of Maine. "News is something people need to know which someone, somewhere, doesn’t want them to know,” Rather said. "All the rest is advertising.” Speaking at the Maine Center for the Arts on the University of Maine campus, Rather called for a return to what he termed "independent journalism,” warning his listeners to cast a wary eye of the plethora of "new media" outlets that he said feign objectivity while working to advance their own - or another's - agenda, according to the Bangor Daily News. Many of these students had never heard of Rather, according to the newspaper, because few of them watch evening news shows or read daily newspapers. A large portion of the audience receives its information from various Web sites and "non-traditional” news media.
Story Continues Below Rather - who was driven from his anchor seat largely because bloggers and other "new media” outlets, such as NewsMax.com, exposed his use of forged documents last year to falsely attack President Bush of shirking National Guard duty - says that such media sources should be viewed critically.
"You need to ask yourself: Is more better, and is all that calls itself news really news?" said Rather, who turned 74 this week. Rather praised the youthful audience as "more sophisticated because you have much more information coming in.” However, the former news anchor tempered the compliment immediately afterward. "Your intelligence is not yet matched by the information that you need,” he said.
Rather - you may recall - was disgraced for his involvement in a "60 Minutes II” story, which aired Sept. 8, 2004 – just two months before the 2004 presidential election. The story featured Rather's breathless report that President George W. Bush had skirted National Guard service during the Vietnam War. As reported by NewsMax, the report turned out to be based on forged documents provided by former National Guard commander Bill Burkett. The story was vehemently defended by Rather and his CBS News producer, Mary Mapes, who had obtained the documents from Burkett. CBS News posted the documents on its Web site, which made them available to popular blog sites, such as FreeRepublic.com, PowerLineblog.com and Little Green Footballs. The documents were reviewed by self-proclaimed document experts who verified that the documents were fraudulent. Rather did not apologize when this scandal became public, but rather, he tried to blame Burkett for misleading CBS News as to the authenticity of the documents. Burkett later implicated John Kerry's presidential campaign staff, telling the Fort Worth Star Telegram that top Kerry aide Joe Lockhart pressed him to turn over damaging evidence on Bush. He did so, giving the documents to Mapes, knowing that they would be used by CBS News. Mapes was fired by CBS over the Rathergate fiasco, as were two other associate producers. Rather was not: He left his news anchor position in March – with the network claiming his departure was arranged before the Bush story aired. Earlier this week, longtime ’60 Minutes’ correspondent Mike Wallace told Katie Couric during a taped segment for NBC’s 'Today Show' that he thought Rather should have resigned his position with CBS News to show support for the staff members who were fired. Rather and Wallace reportedly had an altercation in a CBS men's room soon afterward when Wallace told Rather of his comments. Wallace acknowledges that a "conversation" between the men took place, but he did not consider it an "altercation," according to several reports. Rather was unavailable for comment. Which makes the story newsworthy because - if what Rather told the university students is true - "News is something people need to know which someone, somewhere, doesn’t want them to know."
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