Fellow anchors give Rather a vote of confidence
NEW YORK – Beleaguered CBS News anchor Dan Rather might be under attack from bloggers, political conservatives and some of his fellow journalists, but on Saturday he got an outpouring of support from a public audience that brought tears to his eyes.
Two of his prominent peers also jumped to his defense, with NBC News’ Tom Brokaw decrying the “kind of political jihad” against Rather and CBS News as “highly outrageous.” It was a poignant moment at a time when some people have speculated Rather, 72, could lose the job he has had for more than two decades as anchor of “CBS Evening News” because of mistakes made in a Sept. 8 report on “60 Minutes.”
Rather, and his NBC and ABC counterparts, had agreed to participate in a panel discussion about campaign coverage, for which The New Yorker magazine served as host, long before CBS News became embroiled in the scandal over unverified photocopied documents it used to substantiate the “60 Minutes” broadcast. The report, anchored by Rather, alleged President Bush received favorable treatment and shirked responsibilities while in the Texas Air National Guard in the 1970s.
Immediately, bloggers pointed out technical problems with the documents – concerns, as it turns out, that were shared by some of the experts CBS had consulted before airing the report – and other sources came forward to call the documents fake, even as Republicans and Democrats tried to mine the controversy for political advantage. In particular, some conservatives have used the report as evidence of their long-held belief that Rather has a liberal bias.
CBS News and Rather apologized, and the network launched an independent investigation into the matter, asking employees not to discuss it until the report is concluded. Rather hasn’t yet gone before the investigators.
Saturday, at one of Rather’s first major public appearances since the scandal broke, the topic was clearly on the minds of the audience of about 500 at the New York Public Library. Audience member Chris Bock, 47, a purveyor of chickens to restaurants in Boston, attended because, he said, “Dan is the hottest thing going. He is the medium and the message.” When moderator Ken Auletta brought up the issue shortly into the discussion, Rather said he couldn’t comment. So ABC News’ Peter Jennings jumped in.
Whatever the outcome of the investigation, Jennings said, “You don’t ever judge a man by one event in his career.” The room broke out in such sustained applause that Jennings quipped, “So now we know that this is a Blue room,” referring to the Red/Blue Republican/Democrat divide that many commentators have used to characterize this highly polarized political cycle.
Brokaw, too, had words of support for Rather, noting “The rest of us owe it to CBS News to let the investigation play out.” He called CBS’ error “a big mistake,” but criticized the “attempt to demonize CBS News” by some conservatives, who he said, were “assigning to (the report) a (political) motivation that I don’t think can be supported by the facts.”