 | Hit the road Dan |
“If you aren't against Rather, that means you're for him, which has become like supporting Saddam Hussein in some people's minds,” says Tom Dorsey of the Louisville Courier Journal.
“Dan, let me be the one guy rude enough to tell you that you won’t be missed,” Jim Geraghty on National Review.
“A lot of people within CBS News - and outside CBS News - are angry about how the Bush story developed and was handled," said Sandy Socolow, former executive producer of the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather.(1)
"Quite frankly, although Dan did a fine job, I would like to have seen Bob Schieffer (Rather’s replacement) there a long time ago," said Walter Cronkite, the man who Rather replaced back in 1981.
No matter how you slice it, Dan Rather sucks.
It will be a joyous day so write it down on your calendar, March 9th, 2005, the day the douche bag of evening news took a hike to 60 Minutes to do what he wanted to do all along according to some accounts, be a journalist first, anchor second. Now correct me if I am wrong, isn’t that the place where we saw the scandal that rocked news as we know it? Why doesn’t he just go away? Is he on crack?
I guess it’s true when they say, once you find yourself entrenched in a career, it gets in your blood. Well, Rather I say you need a transfusion. You broke the number one rule of journalism, you did not check your facts. You’ve been in the business for so long, and you can’t do that. What’s wrong with you? Oh I’m sorry. You are a fucking liberal. My bad.
It’s people like Dan Rather who give credence to many of the conservative talking heads complaints about the liberal news media. They bitch and moan about how coverage is slanted towards the left, and this does give that some validity. However, who’s to say it’s only swinging that way? Do you see the news covering the gross details about how many human lives have been taken in Iraq? I am talking about both Soldiers and Iraqis. How dare the right talk about news being manipulated when many of them work at that GW factory known as Fox News Channel.
With the exception of O’Reilly, most of the people at Fox support the Republicans. Yes O’Reilly leans more towards that way, but this man apologized on network TV about how he rallied for the cause of the mystery WMDs. I felt he gave a heartfelt apology, not like that piece of crap Rather did when the jig was up on the documents regarding GW. What’s more, there have been times where the “Factor” has criticized the President. I wasn’t a big fan of his when I first started watching him, but he has grown on me.
The problem with many people on the left is that they will use anything to destroy the President. Rather is a great example. You’re a journalist dude, not a critic. A journalist reports, a critic criticizes. Know the difference, punk. When you have facts that you can support, then you fire the smoking gun. Until then, research, research, research. Many people do this. Aim first, fire second.
Rather has quite a history. When Nixon was in office, Rather went to ask a question and was applauded, Nixon asked if he was running for something, and Danny boy responded with “no are you?” He jumped the gun on the 2000 election being the first network to declare Al Gore the winner of the presidency. And then the man is a whack job as well. He walked of the set of the Evening News in 1987 because the U.S. Open delayed the start of the news stating only Republicans watch Tennis. A year before that, he was mugged saying that the attacker asked him “What’s the Frequency Kenneth?” (By the way, the R.E.M. song from the 1994 album Monster is inspired by this incident.) Yep, Dan Rather for all intensive purposes has his issues, but you do have do respect the fact he did things his way. I didn’t like him on the news, and thought he was arrogant, but I respect that he believed in something. I think that he went about things the wrong way though. He needed to use his head. Don’t become a journalist if you feel strongly about issues, become a talk show host.
So now we look at the evening news for the big 3. Tom Brokaw being replaced by Brian Williams at NBC, Rather replaced by Schieffer; that only leaves Peter Jennings at ABC. For the record, Jennings is the one my family watched growing up, and that’s whom I watch now. I don’t know why. Personally, I think network news is all the same. A happy go lucky old fuck sitting behind a teleprompter, reading to you like you were a 5 year old boy ready to go to sleep, splice in some sound bites, throw in your commercials, and hey, you have a newscast. Woo hoo. Dan Rather’s exit from the 5:30pm slot (that’s Chicago time kiddies) is not going to change the news one bit. If anything, it will improve CBS’s chance at becoming a credible source again.
We live in a day an age where others suppress people’s opinions; where reporters who go into war zones with a shitty web cam are considered brave but not stupid. Where we don’t know both sides of the story, we only get the one that matters. The one that makes us feel better and safer as a nation. They say no news is good news, and in this time, that saying may have never had more validity in its life than right now. We should be more concerned about which way this planet is spinning because some arrogant, know it all fucks hold all the keys to very lethal objects that can kill us all, we should be more concerned about how the American economy is being brought down to its knees faster than Jenna Jameson in some porn movie, we should be concerned about the fact the way children are being raised is not healthy. Parents should be making decisions of that subject based on life experiences, not what TV or government says. Instead of worrying about these important items, we worry about when Charlie Sheen and Denise Richards porn video is coming out (since they are divorced now), who has Paris Hilton’s phone number now because let’s face it, I am sure the world has it. And as Richard Roeper of the Sun Times put it, “worrying about Mischa Barton sneezing.” That show sucks and maybe she does too. I don’t know. This is America and how we do things. We are the walking dead, and we don’t have all the facts regarding anything important in this country. God Bless America? I think exorcism needs to be put in front of the blessing if you ask me.
Thanks for reading my shit,
MJ
1. Rather’s career put in harsh light. By David Zurawik. Baltimore Sun. March 9, 2005 back
