Gulf War Prank Call To Dan Rather

NETWORKS LABOR FOR NEWS
LOTS OF IMAGES TO CHOOSE FROM;
REPORTERS NOT IN POSITION TO SEE MUCH

Fri, Mar. 21, 2003 Ellen Gray

SO THIS is what the war looks like. Or is it?

SNIP

The second casualty: CBS' Rather, once again subjected to a prank
inspired, if not necessarily condoned, by a certain radio host, who, I'll bet,
could put a stop to this if he'd just refuse to play the results on his air.

SNIP

***********

Miami Herald
Fri, Mar. 21, 2003

TV COVERAGE HIGHS & LOWS

Some highs and lows from the first 24 hours of television's war
coverage:

SNIP

VILEST CRETIN IN THE HISTORY OF BROADCASTING: Howard Stern.
One of his idiot groupies faked his way onto the air in a phone call
with Dan Rather. When is Stern going to tell his people that pranks
during TV crisis coverage aren't funny? And, parenthetically, when is
Rather going to quit putting callers on the air when he doesn't know
who they are? This same thing happened to him during CBS coverage of
the space-shuttle explosion.

-- GLENN GARVIN

 

***********

Chicago Sun-Times
March 21, 2003

Phil Rosenthal

So far, viewers aren't getting the picture

The graphic on Fox News Channel under the "War Alert" banner said it
all on Thursday with the succinctness of a bumper sticker:

"Pentagon: If You Have to Ask, It's Not 'Shock & Awe.' "

For the first full day into Operation Iraqi Freedom--not exactly a
catchy title, but that's what the Pentagon (or the U.S. State
Department) dubbed it--television viewers around the globe were still
awaiting the promised "shock and awe" full-scale assault on Baghdad.

We heard "shock and awe" so often that it began to sound like the
name of some long-lost prairie tribe. But the onslaught designed to
give Saddam Hussein "the willies, to spook him, to scare the wits out
of him," as CBS' Dan Rather put it, was on hold.

Ted Koppel showed viewers the safety suit he wore to ward off the effects
of possible chemical weapons. Other correspondents gave reports while
wearing gas masks.

But this was merely a precaution and not yet a necessity. (The only
victim of anything resembling a gas attack was poor Rather, who got
pranked yet again on CBS with a call from a noxious fan of Viacom
corporate stablemate Howard Stern, a stunt both must work harder to stop.)

 

NEXT