CBS Vs. Rather: The Fix Was In

[cal04]

By: Eli
http://firedoglake.com/2008/11/07/cbs-vs-rather-the-fix-was-in/
In case you have any remaining doubts about whether Rathergate was innocent incompetence or deliberate sabotage, consider this list of names that CBS considered for their two-person post-scandal inquiry panel (ultimately chaired by Bush I AG Dick Thornburgh):
http://www.observer.com/2008/media/juicy-bits-surfacing-rather-case-2004-cbs-considered-matt-drudge-rush-limbaugh-ann-coulte


William Buckley
Robert Novak
Kate O'Beirne
Nicholas Von Hoffman
Tucker Carlson
Pat Buchanan
George Will
Lou Dobbs
Matt Drudge
Robert Barkley
Robert Kagan
Fred Barnes
William Kristol
John Podhoretz
David Brooks
William Safire
Bernard Goldberg
Ann Coulter
Andrew Sullivan
Christopher Hitchens
PJ O'Rourke
Christopher Caldwell
Elliot Abrams
Charles Krauthammer
William Bennett
Rush Limbaugh

At the very bottom of the list, someone wrote in one more name. "Roger Ailes."

CBS's explanation? That they needed to protect themselves from charges of liberal bias. Good one.

As I have said before: The news media are not simply trying to boost ratings - they are deliberately defending and advancing the interests of the GOP, because that's where their financial interests lie. The Rather case fascinates me because it's such a great case study of just how far a media corporation will go to help out Republicans. I can't wait to hear more.

[Nite Owl]

1. That pendulum that they keep talking

about will really have swung when the corporate msm needs to protect itself from right wing bias.

[rcrush]

2. I love Dan Rather reports on HDNET

Best reporting on tv with BBC and PBS as far as I'm concerned.

[Overseas]

3. That's what we get by allowing 50 media companies to merge down to 5 conglomerates

all in right wing hands. We need to break up those media monopolies in order to get back some semblance of freedom of the press, rather than a cabal that skews news to the right.

50 media companies in the 80's with diverse ownership and range of opinions.

Now down to five mega corporations in right wing hands. http://www.corporations.org/media/

Those five mega networks toss a few moderate Democrats into their line ups and call themselves balanced and get right wingers to call them liberal and we all pretend things are fine.

So many people think the corporate media skewed right just because of Bush. Sorry friends. This campaign to drive the media to the right has been going on for decades now.

There is lots of detail in Eric Alterman's book "What Liberal Media?" www.whatliberalmedia.com
The most popular right wing technique for pushing things Right is "playing the ref"-- call the media liberal so reporters will bend over backward not to appear liberal.

A more fun book about how the Right runs its massive PR campaigns is autobiographical, Blinded by the Right, by David Brock. It is a juicy tale of life inside the right wing spin machine during the Clinton era.

[leveymg]

9. Here's another approach - antitrust -require the networks to divest their news divisions.

Break up the 4 vertically integrated networks into smaller, competing independent entities. The news divisions should be self-managing, and not controlled by the business decisions of the suits in corporate. That might actually produce a greater variety of viewpoints. A two-for.

[joeunderdog]

10. MEDIA DE-CONSOLODATION must be a goal for Obama

or he won't be able to sell get traction on issues. BushCo addressed media consolidation via the FCC as one of it's first agenda items and it wasn't by accident.

[Enthusiast]

15. Agree with you 100%

This is festering, it must be addressed. Right wing pundits still decry "the liberal media". Even NPR has been corrupted.

[Liberal In Texas]

17. This is more important the trying to get the "Fairness Doctrine" reinstated.

Nobody should be allowed to own more than 2 radio stations and 1 TV station in any one market.

When you get diverse ownership, you'll start to get diverse opinion and actual COMPETITION!

[karynnj]

4. Thornbourg stonewalled on Iran/Contra and BCCI

Something tells me he was not exactly neutral between Kerry and Bush. This list - if someone didn't make it up shows what we were up against. Not getting these out in the open in 1992 was a problem.

[McCamy Taylor]

5. Note that NONE of the other networks would hire him when he was at liberty

even though he had the highest positive ratings and highest recognition of any anchor out there except for Diane Sawyer. That in itself was a crime. MSNBC should have snatched him up. Imagine what a coup that would have been.

[McCamy Taylor]

6. I hope he takes CBS/Viacom to the cleaners in his lawsuit.

And if Viacom still owns more TV holdings than they allowed to according to federal law, I hope that the first act of the new FCC to force them to trim their holdings to get into compliance the way that they were ordered to back in 2000 by Clinton administration

[Kansas Wyatt]

7. Each on the list needs to be watched carefully & yanked from the airwaves, media, & press...

For starting and spreading lies and misinformation about any Democrat then, and they had better back up everything they say with the very same scrutiny.

Let them live by their own set of standards. I'm sick of the propagandists skating free without question, while knifing a respected and fair journalist in the back.

[donheld]

8. k & r

[SpiralHawk]

11. CBS is Faux News Propaganda -pretending to be 'professional' and 'objective'

But its spin is obvious to any American citizen with a critical mind.

[Fumesucker]

12. Another DOH! moment. n/t rec..

[pleah]

13. K&R

[John Q. Citizen]

14. CBS admits they tremble in fear over what someone might say about them?

I hope Rather owns them before this is done.

[Hubert Flottz]

16. I think this is the tip of the iceberg RE: the Fix is in...

I think the GOP has FIXED every rotten thing in America and the world that they have touched.

[TWiley]

18. Jesus H and all his demons

that is one disgusting list. So much for the myth of the "liberal media"