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Ke Dawei

Week 10 Dan Rather's ingnominious disgrace, NBC criticizes CBS, Jordan at CNN lies:

Rather to Step Down in March After 24 Years as CBS Anchor

By JACQUES STEINBERG                                        Published: November 23, 2004

Two months after acknowledging that he could not authenticate documents central to a broadcast report that raised fresh questions about President Bush's National Guard service, Dan Rather announced today that he would step down as anchor and managing editor of the "CBS Evening News" on March 9, on what will be his 24th anniversary behind the anchor desk.

"I have been lucky and blessed over these years to have what is, to me, the best job in the world and to have it at CBS News," Mr. Rather said in a statement issued by the network. "Along the way I've had the honor of working with some of the most talented, dedicated professionals in the world."

Mr. Rather will continue to work full time at CBS News, as a correspondent for the Sunday and Wednesday editions of "60 Minutes."

Mr. Rather's decision represents an abrupt, somewhat ignominious end to the nearly quarter of a century that he spent in one of the most visible jobs in journalism. In announcing his decision now to quit the anchor desk, Mr. Rather, 73, is seeking to act ahead of an independent panel investigating the journalistic breakdowns that led CBS News to broadcast and then vigorously defend the Guard segment, which it later acknowledged to be based on documents whose genuineness and origins it could not substantiate.

But Mr. Rather is also choosing to depart at a moment of generational transition atop the network news divisions, as their flagship programs continue to lose viewers. On Dec. 1, Tom Brokaw, 66, will deliver his last broadcast as anchor of the "NBC Nightly News," the highest rated of the three evening newscasts. He will be succeeded the next night by Brian Williams, 45. Among the emotions that had long kept Mr. Rather from announcing his own retirement was his hope that in the wake of Mr. Brokaw's departure, he might pick up enough of Mr. Brokaw's nearly 10 million viewers to lift his program out of third place, where it has lagged behind "World News Tonight" on ABC for nearly a decade.

At least until recently, Mr. Rather had told colleagues that he hoped to remain behind the CBS anchor desk until March 2006, when he would mark the 25th anniversary of the day he succeeded Walter Cronkite. But even before the broadcast of the discredited Guard report, executives of the network, had begun to discuss an earlier end date with Mr. Rather's representatives. Among the scenarios being discussed was one in which he would depart the anchor chair next May, but continue to report for CBS News, most likely on "60 Minutes."

But for Mr. Rather, all that calculus was apparently erased by the strain and scrutiny of the investigation.

The inquiry's two panelists, Louis D. Boccardi, the former chief executive of The Associated Press, and Dick Thornburgh, a former United States attorney general, have interviewed dozens of people - from the highest echelons of CBS News to its rank and file, as well as outside it - and are expected to submit their report to senior network executives early next month. Among the central questions they are examining is why Mr. Rather, who anchored the segment, and Mary Mapes, the producer who shepherded it, were so convinced of the authenticity of four memorandums that were claimed to have been drawn from the personal files of Mr. Bush's Vietnam-era squadron commander.

In the documents, which were dated in the early 1970's, Mr. Bush's commander, Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian, now deceased, appeared to describe the pressure he was under to "sugar coat" the record of Mr. Bush, then a young lieutenant, who was said to have disobeyed a direct order to take a physical. Surfacing less than two months before the presidential election, the documents were presented by CBS as filling gaps in Mr. Bush's official record, including questions about why he had failed to take his pilot physical.

Immediately after the report was first broadcast, on the evening news on Sept. 8 and later that night on the Wednesday edition of "60 Minutes," intense criticism arose from the purveyors of Web logs and other commentators who say that the documents - all apparently copies, none on official letterhead stationery and two without signatures - appeared to have been typed on a modern computer, not a typewriter in typical use in the early 1970's. For nearly two weeks, Mr. Rather - sometimes speaking from behind the anchor desk - asserted that the wide questioning of the records was coming, in large measure, from Republican partisans.

But on Sept. 20, Mr. Rather and his bosses reversed course. Speaking again from the anchor desk, Mr. Rather told his viewers that a former Texas National Guard officer had misled him and his producers about how the officer had obtained the documents and that relying on them to buttress the report had been a "mistake in judgment."

"I want to say personally and directly I'm sorry," Mr. Rather said, before adding, "This was an error made in good faith."

Mr. Rather's apology represented an unlikely low point in a year in which, despite the clock's ticking down on his career, he had notched some of the more memorable achievements of his more than four decades at CBS News. Just a few months before the Guard report, he joined forces with Ms. Mapes, one of the most respected producers at the network, for a segment on the Wednesday edition of "60 Minutes," then known as "60 Minutes II," which reported in detail on the abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad.

In a statement from CBS News today, senior CBS executives made no mention of the controversy over the documents and instead hailed Mr. Rather's longevity at the anchor desk and the record he has compiled throughout his entire career.

"Dan's 24 years at the CBS 'Evening News' is the longest run of any evening news anchor in history and is a singular achievement in broadcast journalism," the chairman of CBS, Les Moonves, said. "He has been an eyewitness to the most important events for more than 40 years and played a crucial role in keeping the American public informed about those events and their larger significance.

The president of CBS News, Andrew Heyward, who began working with Mr. Rather as a producer two decades ago, said that Mr. Rather "has symbolized the CBS 'Evening News' for nearly a quarter century," and noted that Mr. Rather would "continue to apply his talents to everything he does at CBS News."

NBC Execs Slam CBS for Handling of Bush Report

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - NBC's top executive sharply criticized CBS News and anchorman Dan Rather on Friday for broadcasting a botched report questioning President Bush's military record -- and said such a mistake could never happen at his network.

In a public rebuke of a rival network's news judgment that was rare for its bluntness, NBC Universal Television Group President Jeff Zucker said NBC News had learned its lesson from a discredited report on automobile safety aired by "Dateline NBC" in the early 1990s.

Asked about the recent CBS News gaffe at NBC's annual winter presentation to TV critics, Zucker said, "Nothing like that could have gotten through at any level (at NBC) because of the safeguards that we instituted more than a decade ago."

Zucker added he was particularly surprised by the findings of an independent panel commissioned to investigate the CBS News report that Rather played a limited role in reporting the now discredited "60 Minutes" story he presented on Bush's military service.

"The degree to which responsibility was abdicated on a piece about the president of the United States six weeks before the election is something that would have never been done by (NBC anchors) Tom Brokaw or Brian Williams," Zucker said.

"And the lack of involvement (by Rather) on a piece of that magnitude was shocking."

A spokeswoman for CBS News said the network had no comment on Zucker's remarks.

Zucker said the safeguards he referred to were established after "Dateline NBC" admitted staging a fiery test crash of a General Motors pickup truck for a report about side impact collisions. NBC apologized and settled a suit brought by GM.

In separate remarks later, NBC News President Neal Shapiro said there was no excuse for rushing a story onto the airwaves without being certain of the facts.

"The role of the senior producers and executive producers is to challenge the premise of every story," he said. "You run into issues like this because people get so invested in their stories ... they have blinders on."  He added: "The answer is not to be first and hope you're right. The answer is to be right."

Rather and CBS News found themselves at the center of a firestorm over the Sept. 8 broadcast of a "60 Minutes Wednesday" story suggesting Bush received preferential treatment during his service in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War.

That report, which CBS retracted 12 days after its broadcast, was based in part on documents the network has since acknowledged could not be authenticated.

CBS News fired the producer of the segment and three other employees earlier this month after an independent panel concluded that "myopic zeal" led the network to disregard basic principles of journalism in rushing the piece onto the air.

Blogger Who Challenged CNN Exec Jordan's Comments in Switzerland Talks with Bill           

Tuesday, February 15, 2005

BILL O'REILLY, HOST: Now for the top story tonight, an eyewitness to Jordan's comments. Joining us now from Miami is Rony Abovitz , who was at the Jordan event in Switzerland and challenged the CNN executive almost immediately. Mr. Abovitz is the co-founder of the Mayco Surgical Corporation.

    Let me set this up for the folks: Mr Abovitz is over in Davos (Switzerland) getting an award. His job is writing Internet articles on whatever you want. You show up at the Eason Jordan event, and you hear Jordan say what?

RONY ABOVITZ, ATTENDED WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM: Well, the discussion was talking broadly first about journalists being killed around the world. And he had described that he had recently been in Iraq and was, you know, even thinking about pulling CNN reporters out of Iraq, because it was getting so dangerous.

   And then he went on to say that basically, it wasn't just Iraqi rebels or terrorists who were killing reporters; it was U.S. troops, and they were targeting both American and foreign journalists.

And when I heard this, I was in great shock. I thought this was going to be the biggest story, much bigger than Abu Ghraib (search). I was amazed. And he went on, and he seemed quite convinced and passionate about this.

O'REILLY: But did he actually say -- did he actually say that American troops killed journalists?

ABOVITZ: He was saying the U.S. troops had targeted both American and foreign journalists, and that at least 12 had been killed -- Under that...

O'REILLY: Really?

ABOVITZ: Under that. And that more had been killed overall not targeted by American troops. He talked about -- I don't know if it was 30 or 40 that had been killed overall.

O'REILLY: Yes, I know. I know. But the important thing is here we have an international audience -- here we have an international audience just looking for this kind of stuff, and this...

ABOVITZ: Not just international. I mean, you're talking about Arab journalists, people that want to hear this kind of thing.

And one part of my brain was thinking he's telling the absolute truth, this is shocking. This is horrible. This is really bad for the United States. And the second part of my brain was thinking, my God, is this just feeding this audience what they want to hear?

O'REILLY: So you asked him a question.

ABOVITZ: My challenge to him was tell...

O'REILLY: What did you ask him?

ABOVITZ: I basically asked him, you know, you just made a horrendous charge against the United States, its military, and its troops, and what's the truth? You know, do you have objective data, evidence, anything to back up what you just said in front of an audience, which and I said it there. -- This is not a very friendly audience right here. This is a lot of people who have a bone to pick with America. And is what you said true?

Because I mean, I was hoping that he'd have a response, which was, "Yes, I'm the head of CNN. I've got all this data. I've got these -- this team that is going to put this giant report out."

But what we got was sort of waffling and backing down and evasiveness. And -- I just left that discussion confused about what was really going on.

O'REILLY: Did he -- did he -- All right. But he didn't say, "No, I don't have any backup for it, and maybe I misspoke"? Or he didn't apologize or anything like that?

ABOVITZ: He started to say first he did believe it, then he didn't believe it. Then someone else told him and he didn't think it was true. But then other people in the audience started talking about this, as if, like, you know, keep going with what you originally said. Then he started going back and forth... And you really didn't know what to think anymore. It really looked like he got caught...

O'REILLY: All right. So he didn't correct himself on the record by saying, you know, that comment wasn't accurate. He didn't correct himself right away?

ABOVITZ: I don't think it was correct. And I think people there didn't think it was corrected.

O'REILLY: All right.

ABOVITZ: And there's a tape of the whole thing.

O'REILLY: Now you had Barney Frank, the liberal congressman from Massachusetts, who was on the panel, too, correct?

ABOVITZ: Yes. He's sitting right there, watching this.

O'REILLY: And what did Frank say to Jordan?

ABOVITZ: Well, I believe David Gergen, who was the moderator, brought Frank in and said, look, you're representing the United States government here. What do you have to say?

And Frank just looked aghast, like, "Oh, my God, I can't believe what the guy said." And he said that his briefings from the Pentagon basically were that it was all collateral damage, and he had never heard about this.

But let's give Frank credit. He did offer to investigate. He said, you know, "Eason, if you can give me any real data, I'll go lead a congressional investigation into this."

O'REILLY: What did Dodd, senator from -- Democratic senator from Connecticut, what did he say? He said something to you, Dodd, right?

ABOVITZ: He came over to me after the session, and he shook my hand. And he said, "Thanks for standing up and for basically, you know, defending the United States in this case, because the guy made outrageous claims. And you know, you're the only one who took him on right there. And you took him on hard."

O'REILLY: All right. So both Frank and Dodd were skeptical of Jordan. That's good to hear.  Now you put your article, then, out on the Net, and all hell broke loose, right?

ABOVITZ: Yeah, I came home, and that night I posted it. I was just invited to write whatever I felt like. I was an attendee. I'm not a journalist. I'm not right or left wing. I just wrote what I saw, what I thought.

And the thing just blew up all over the Web. And it's been just incredible the power of the blog here...

O'REILLY: You bet.

ABOVITZ: ... on how it's really shaped the media.

O'REILLY: Well, listen, sometimes it takes guys like you, Mr. Abovitz, to, you know, pin down. You can't be saying, running around, if you're the president of CNN or any other news organization, that American troops are killing journalists. Because you know that's going to be used for propaganda against us. We already have enough problems from throughout the rest of the world.

So nice job. We appreciate it. And thank you for appearing tonight.