Ex-CBS News Prez Can't Stand Rather

[TexasLawyer]

More on Dan Rather and the unremitting liberal orientation of the U.S. media...


From right-wing rag "HundredPercenter":

http://newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/1/13/160433.shtml

Thursday, Jan. 13, 2005 4:03 p.m. EST
Ex-CBS News Prez Can't Stand Rather

Former CBS News president Van Gordon Sauter said Thursday that Dan Rather's liberal bias has so permeated the "CBS Evening News" that even he can't stand to watch anymore.

"I stopped watching it some time ago," the ex-network news boss writes in today's Los Angeles Times. "The unremitting liberal orientation finally became too much for me." Sauter, who ran the Tiffany network's news division in the early 1980s, said he still checks in from time to time, but "less and less frequently." Instead, "I increasingly drift to NBC News and Fox and MSNBC," he said.

The former news exec said this week's firings of four CBS employees in response to the Rathergate scandal exposed the real problem for network news: "A large swath of the society doesn't trust the news media," he contended. "And for many, it's even stronger than that: They abhor the media and perceive it as an escalating threat to the society."

If the erosion of public trust isn't stopped, warns Sauter, viewers will look elsewhere for their news product. "Those readers and viewers most comfortable in the center – will try to find something ... in the center," he argues. But that could lead to "a lot of scrupulously impartial . . . news sources, managed by research-driven executives who find it a good marketing approach."

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[democracyindanger]

1. Senile dementia

is a sad thing to witness.

[roguevalley]

2. THe news business must be corrosive to the brain for so many

people to rot like this. Lucky Murrow is dead. This Sauter twerp would not live through the tongue lashing.

RE this:

If the erosion of public trust isn't stopped, warns Sauter, viewers will look elsewhere for their news product. "Those readers and viewers most comfortable in the center – will try to find something ... in the center," he argues. But that could lead to "a lot of scrupulously impartial . . . news sources, managed by research-driven executives who find it a good marketing approach."

He's kidding, right?

[darkism]

3. I can't believe people are pushing this "liberal media" BS

...when it is so obviously the opposite.

[kaho]

4. News "bias"

I agree. Television and the print media have embraced advocacy reporting rather than coldly disseminating historical fact.
By so doing, they've become more interesting - but at the same time they have to expect less trust from their readers/viewers/consumers.
The end result is more choice. We simply go to where our prejudices and biases are reinforced.
Hey. I rather like that. What I don't like is sloppiness and outright lying. CBS - guilty on both those counts.

[TexasLawyer]

5. Sloppy maybe

But don't you think the real guilt lies with whoever forged the Air National Guard documents (if they were in fact phony)? I think in Rather's case it was not purposeful lying but just getting duped.

[Bridget Burke]

8. So, do you consider Fox "Fair & Balanced"

Since you're so mad at CBS.

By the way--the problem with the Bush AWOL story was the questionable provenance of certain papers. The facts that Bush used his Daddy's influence to get into TANG & then skipped out on his obligation have been known for some time.

In the past, news media were NOT expected to "coldly disseminate historical fact." (By the way--how can news be historical?) Generally, it was known, for example, that one of a city's newspapers leaned Democratic & the other was more Republican. So you'd read both if you really wanted to see both sides. Or just one, if you couldn't stand those smug rightist creeps. Nowadays, there's just one newspaper.

[Skittles]

10. WTF ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT

HAVE YOU HEARD THE LIES TOLD ON FOX NEWS EVERY DAMN DAY? Under the guise of "SOME PEOPLE SAY"????????? DAMMIT I am SICK of how easily people are braiwashed - what did CBS LIE ABOUT? THAT BASTARD WAS AWOL AND EVERYONE, EVERYONE KNOWS IT.

[kaho]

17. ...sorry

...I am unaware of Fox News...I don't even bother with TV news here in this little backwater. As I said in my earlier posting, we don't have to put up with manufactured, artificial crap posing as news or so called "advocacy journalism", ie, prejudiced opinion, we can ferret out the truth and think for ourselves; with this vast resource that we're all using right now...

[newyawker99]

12. Hi kaho!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[kaho]

15. Hi!

[NoStinkinBadges]

13. CBS Guilty?

Perhaps but at least they got the facts right. Unfortunately by being sloppy with the questionable documents they turned a negative for the chimp into an asset. Now the GOP base had an issue to rally behind--Evil CBS. No matter now that CBS had the facts correct. It was a close election and very possibly CBS can unwittingly be thanked for helping the idiot get back in the WH.

[murielm99]

6. Newsmax?

Gimmie a break.

[hector459]

7. "liberal bias" = truth people don't want to hear.

I've watched CBS for over 25 years. Rather is sometimes harsh but he seemed to be the only journalist since Cronkite who had the courage to report information others would not go near. On the whole, i would match up Rather's record against anyone at FOX news for the "fair and balanced" record. No one seems to care about RW bias and outright lies and half-truths. The US media will have played a major role in the downfall of American civilization, even more than any group of Islamic terrorists or religious zealots. The obvious bigotry and greed that the elite class exhibits in ruling this country is ushering in a collapse of the great American democracy dream. And it was, afterall, only a "dream."

[indepat]

9. Luckily Sauter can watch solely centrist news on all the other network

and cable news outlets.

[depakid]

11. "viewers will look elsewhere for their news"

Guess what, asshole- many of us have been for years...because of people like you. I hope your children and grandchildren remember you for all that you've done to hurt their country.

[kaho]

16. Take it easy mister...

...why not avoid abuse, and stick to the point?
It was a sloppy display by CBS, we all deserve better - and it became a pivotal point in the campaign.

[Blue_Tires]

14. piss on newsmax

[librechik]

18. Oh, but Walter "proud Liberal " Cronkite is AOK...

I doubt Sauter's contempt for Rather has anything to do with liberalism, but instead envy, elitism, and rightwing prejudice is the likely motivation. He drifts to Fox? Only after drinklng the koolaid, no doubt...