Dan Rather criticizes CBS decision to hire Katie Couric

Truer words can never describe that perfectly, dools. Dan-o could go anywhere and report his ass off. His early days from starting out in Dallas, to covering JFK, then over to Vietnam and his dust-up with Daley's goons in '68, he was damn good.

His tenure at the anchor desk, not so much. It would have been so much easier if someone told Dan before Monday, April 9, 1981 (his first day at the Evening News desk), to "be himself" and not try to match Cronkite, it would have been less headaches for him.

Schieffer, during the interim, damn near saved CBS. Isn't he planning on calling it a career in the near future? That's what I thought I heard several months ago.

Charlie Gibson is the only person I can watch and feel comfortable with. And this is coming from a NBC/Brokaw fanboy. He knows his shit and he's been a lifer at ABC. So much so, ABC will forever be under the "duo anchor" curse (Reasoner and Walters, Reynolds, Robinson, and Jennings [hey, it worked until Frank died], and Woodruff and Vargas [would have been interesting to see how that played out]).

Williams is about as stiff as a dead Phil Leotardo. At least Phil had charisma and character. Katie, as someone mentioned, will always be looked at as the perky, annoying, rugrat on "Today." Meredith Viera, I don't understand at all. She goes from doing "West 57th" to playing psuedo-babysitter at "The View" to now running the morning circus with Matt Lauer. Is that still a good move for her??

 

I sure hope nobody has the mistaken idea that Dan Rather does not have the right to comment negatively on the way this has gone. He most assuredly does.

 

As much as I can't stand him, he does have the right to comment. He's a veteran in the profession. No one can take that away from him.

Now that's courage.

 

But it was Memogate that ruined him at CBS.
Seems a little hypocritical for him to be questioning news judgement.
Also, he needs to realize a lot of people who worked around him at the end at CBS are working with Katie Couric.
A lot of "his" people are doing fluff pieces.

 

How would you explain the difference?

 

Not really.

"Memogate" was, after all the hyperventilating, a simple mistake that didn't change the fact that 99% of CBS' coverage on Bush's TANG service was ACCURATE.

Woodward and Bernstein made lots of mistakes in their Watergate coverage.

Did those mistakes "ruin" the eventual truth that was uncovered?

Sometimes --- most times, in fact --- the body of work, or the body of a career, supersedes a mistake or two that may have been made along the way.

 

That is a valid point to make. If you don't mind me asking this (as a non-journo), if Woodward and Bernstein made mistakes during their Watergate coverage, were they able to catch a few of their missteps and learn from each one in order to get to the ultimate scoop of the century?

I'm asking that because from the accounts of Memogate, the slip-up could have been caught, but it was green-lighted and the story ran. I know heads rolled and Rather eventually took a bullet as well, but is it easy for someone in the positions of Rather, Carl, and Bob to find mistakes that could put them in hot water? ???

Cronkite is angry and bitter. Angry with how America is at right now, and bitter than his "baby" has been regulated to an also-ran behind ABC and NBC.

 

One of reasons that Les Monves did not stand up more for Imus was that he was not happy about Imus constantly making fun of decision made to hire couric to do the news. He also did not like idea that Imus promoted Couric rive -- Brian Williams.

 

The point with Memogate is, at least IMO, CBS thought they had this great bit of info on Bush and so wanted to get a story out there, they didn't check their sources. So that was not a minor or simple mistake. It was a huge mistake, they went with a forged document and thoguht it was real. And they thought they had this great stroy that woudl screw Bush, even though the story was old anyway, they disregarded a basic rule of journalism. And it helped kill any credibility they may have had in the story.

I'm sure W&B made mistakes, but if they did something as big as that, especially in this day and time, would have definitely helped lessen the Watergate story.

 

Also add in that Imus officially worked for CBS, but his show was simulcasted on MSNBC, which put Moonves (correct spelling) in a pickle over the I-Man ripping his little Katie up and down the radio dial.

Moonves waited for the right opportunity to pull the plug. Now, he'll have to put up with Scarborough taking a few shots at CBS, if warranted.

Thanks for the info, Bob. I should clarify myself by saying that had CBS and Rather did due dilligence and made sure the info was legit, they wouldn't have fucked themselves in the rush to nail Junior over the TANG status.

Being born after '74, I'm curious to know what type of mistakes did W&B made while investigating Watergate? Did it come out afterwards?

 

I know in the movie, Ed Bradley ripped them for some stuff, but I never heard of anything major they screwed up on. I'm sure there are big Watergate buffs on here who could shed some light.

And regardless of what you think of him, Rather has te right to question whatever he wants. Now, caring about what he says is another issue.

And I think Kronkite is just a crankly old man. I hate when old people tell me who much better things used to be. Since he was a giant, I doubt he was questioned whenever he screwed up, and I'm sure he did over the years.

 

2 pages I found on where W/B erred in Watergate coverage.

http://www.concernedjournalists.org/node/432

http://whateveralready.blogspot.com/2005_06_19_archive.html