(Oops – I wrote this post earlier, but somehow never posted it. Old news now, I guess – Oh well!)
So Dan Rather is gone, and I missed his final goodbye, dammit. I don’t care what y’all thought in the blogosphere — I liked Dan. Yes, he had his flaws, but jeez — what an amazing journalistic career.
I was in high school when he had that famous interview with then-VP George H. W. Bush — when my father heard that CBS was getting deluged with phone complaints, he called them up and said “good job.” Asking hard questions — hey, it’s what a journalist should do.
Also, the word from the inside is that Dan was “super-nice”, gracious and accommodating. At least one other network anchor has the reputation of being a pompous asshole; you gotta think that in that position, it would be easy to get a swollen head. Note his classy refusal to answer back at any of his internal critics. I thought the standing O at the end said a lot about what Rather’s subordinates thought of him, which is always very telling. (Also, check out Chelle’s insider account of his last day in the anchor desk).
You mention that you were glad that Dan Rather asked GHW Bush tough questions. Should he have applied the same principles and asked Saddam Hussein Tough questions? Or… should he have done what he did by asking the softball questions that he knew would pass the censors and get him some massive viewership. It seems to me that if he had principles as a journalist, he would have refused to do the Saddam interview the instant that he heard it would be censored post interview… Now, that would be integrity. Mr. Rather didn’t have it.
You mention that you were glad that Dan Rather asked GHW Bush tough questions. Should he have applied the same principles and asked Saddam Hussein Tough questions? Or… should he have done what he did by asking the softball questions that he knew would pass the censors and get him some massive viewership. It seems to me that if he had principles as a journalist, he would have refused to do the Saddam interview the instant that he heard it would be censored post interview… Now, that would be integrity. Mr. Rather didn’t have it.
Check out conservativeleague.blogspot.com to see more views.
It’s been awhile since the Saddam Hussein interview, but I don’t remember Rather lobbing softballs at Saddam. I guess it’s hard to say what would be a “tough” question when you’re dealing with someone with such a different value system.
I’m sure that giving the Iraqis the ability to censor parts of the interview gave folks at CBS heartburn. But they retained the ability not to broadcast the interview at all if the censors had demanded changes.