Rather lawsuit is about the relationship between journalism and government, and how, why it changed

[DeepModem Mom]

WP: Some Bad News to Break
By Eugene Robinson
Monday, September 24, 2007


Dan Rather on election night in 2000. (By David Russell/CBS)

....Rather says he offered to hire a private investigator to do more reporting on the story. CBS hired its own investigator, the lawsuit says, but ignored the investigator's findings that the documents "were most likely authentic, and that the underlying story was certainly accurate."

Why did CBS back off? Rather contends it was because Sumner Redstone, chairman of Viacom, wanted to avoid being at loggerheads with the Bush administration. Stories critical of the administration, such as Abu Ghraib -- which Rather broke on "60 Minutes II" -- got unusual attention from nervous higher-ups, Rather's suit says.

Anyone could use an extra $70 million, but Dan Rather needs it less than most of us; his base salary at CBS was $6 million a year. What he's really doing with his headline-grabbing lawsuit, aside from calling out some former bosses and colleagues who he believes betrayed him, is making a point about the relationship between journalism and government -- and how and why that relationship has changed.

The point is that when the next set of Pentagon Papers comes down the pike, how will our corporatized news media react? If such documents happened to be delivered into the hands of CBS News, would Redstone do what the Sulzbergers of the New York Times and the Grahams of The Post did back in the early 1970s? Would he put everything he owns at risk in the service of the public's right to know?

That hope is "as thin as November ice," Rather would say. Or maybe "as thin as turnip soup." Take your pick.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/23/AR2007092300715.html?nav=most_emailed