Dan Rather :- Truth a victim of patriotism

Great Debates
1

In a interview (you can find the video on the site aswell) last night on the BBC news show Newsnight Dan Rather said the media in the US had stopped asking hard questions of the Administration.

I don’t see a huge amount of US news on Irish TV but would every now look at “Meet the Press”, The McLaughlin Group(God help me) and CBS/NBC and Rivera Live (ARRRRRGGGGGHHHH).

Has the American media lightened up on the Administration or has Rather got a axe to gring for some reason?

Will Rather “retire” now after this? Is it being reported in the States?

2

CBS/NBC nightly news BTW.

3

I also watched this, and was pretty astonished by the candour of his opinions. He compared (I paraphrase) ‘necklacing’ (burning rubber tyres round the neck in Apartheid South Africa) to current US hanging the accusation of ‘lack of patriotism’ around the neck.

Meanwhile, he was juxtaposing the lack of accountability of the US Armed Forces and Government with ‘Militainment’ :eek: on VH1. I can see why he was pissed.

4

Major US TV news outlets are part of corporate conglomerates. These outfits have a cozy relationship is the political “ins.” Even in the absence of a the current international terrism they rarely ask the tough questions. After all, the status quo is where they operate well, so why should they question it?

And, of course, questioning Gw and his cohorts closely in the present circumstances might alienate many viewers and the advertisers wouldn’t like that.

5

For a comparison of how the press treat Blair you can view a long interview with him on the newsnight site. Jeremy Paxman is a very strong interviewer and does ask the hard questions.

How are the newspapers in regard to this situation?

6

I logged on to post an item exactly like this- beaten by half an hour.

My post was going to point out the difference in attitude between Dick Cheney- any criticism is unaccepatble in ‘a time of war’ and Rather’s more reasonable take on the situation.

I have become convinced over the past nine months that the US view of the world has been so totally colored by the ‘terrorist threat’ and the ‘war’ that it has been more than willing to throw out many basic rights without even realizing that it is so doing. Furthermore, many in the US seem blind to the effect that this attitude (along with others) has on international opinion of the US.

So, I ask, who is right:

Cheney:

don’t you dare question this administration

Rather:

‘It’s unpatriotic not to stand up, look them in the eye, and ask the questions they don’t want to hear…’

7

This accusation is bogus, for many reasons. Let me count the ways:[ol][]If the media aren’t doing their jobs right, then the problem is their own cowardice. In particular, it’s Dan Rather’s fault, if he’s letting his viewers down.[]Rather didn’t identify the questions they’re allegedly afraid to ask.[]Look at the questions they are asking. “Did you know about the 9/11 highjackings and fail to warn the country?” “Did you screw up the battle plans and let UBL escape?” “Did you kill thousands of civilians in Afghanistan?” These are pretty tough questions. []Rather didn’t identify the momentous threat, which is holding the power of ABC, NBC and CBS in line. They’re afraid the administration will criticize them? Big deal! There are many media outlets, some very tilted away from Republicans, like CNN. I have every reason to believe that CNN would be happy to criticize the pubbies (just as FNC is happy to criticize the dems.)[/ol]BTW comparing mere verbal criticism to m=necklacing is way over the top. It ought to come under some sub-section of Godwin’s Law.

8

Perhaps the news people are protecting themselves from this sort of response:

http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=294787

Robert Fisk is a respected journalist who reports events with an understanding of the Arab/Afghan/Moslem etc. view of the conflicts to a western audience.

Appropriate quotes:

'Typical was the letter which arrived after I wrote my eyewitness account of the 1996 slaughter by Israeli gunners of 108 refugees sheltering in the UN base in the Lebanese town of Qana.

“I do not like or admire anti-Semites,” it began. “Hitler was one of the most famous in recent history”. Yet compared to the avalanche of vicious, threatening letters and openly violent statements that we journalists receive today, this was comparatively mild. For the internet seems to have turned those who do not like to hear the truth about the Middle East into a community of haters, sending venomous letters not only to myself but to any reporter who dares to criticise Israel – or American policy in the Middle East.’

‘And last week, the Hollywood actor John Malkovich did just that, telling the Cambridge Union that he would like to shoot me.’

‘“Your mother was Eichmann’s daughter,” was one of the most recent of these. My mother Peggy, who died after a long battle with Parkinson’s three and a half years ago, was in fact an RAF radio repair operator on Spitfires at the height of the Battle of Britain in 1940.’

‘The attacks on America were caused by “hate itself, of precisely the obsessive and dehumanising kind that Fisk and Bin Laden have been spreading,” said a letter from a Professor Judea Pearl of UCLA. I was, he claimed, “drooling venom” and a professional “hate peddler”. Another missive, signed Ellen Popper, announced that I was “in cahoots with the archterrorist” Bin Laden. Mark Guon labelled me “a total nut-case”. I was “psychotic,” according to Lillie and Barry Weiss. Brandon Heller of San Diego informed me that “you are actually supporting evil itself”.’

‘It got worse. On an Irish radio show, a Harvard professor – infuriated by my asking about the motives for the atrocities of 11 September – condemned me as a “liar” and a “dangerous man” and announced that “anti-Americanism” – whatever that is – was the same as anti-Semitism. Not only was it wicked to suggest that someone might have had reasons, however deranged, to commit the mass slaughter. It was even more appalling to suggest what these reasons might be. To criticise the United States was to be a Jew-hater, a racist, a Nazi.’

‘Almost anyone who criticises US or Israeli policy in the Middle East is now in this free-fire zone. My own colleague in Jerusalem, Phil Reeves, is one of them. So are two of the BBCs’ reporters in Israel, along with Suzanne Goldenberg of The Guardian. And take Jennifer Loewenstein, a human rights worker in Gaza – who is herself Jewish and who wrote a condemnation of those who claim that Palestinians are deliberately sacrificing their children. She swiftly received the following e-mail: “BITCH. I can smell you from afar. You are a bitch and you have Arab blood in you. Your mother is a fucking Arab. At least, for God’s sake, change your fucking name. Ben Aviram.”’

He finishes by saying:

‘As journalists, our lives are now forfeit to the internet haters. If we want a quiet life, we will just have to toe the line, stop criticising Israel or America. Or just stop writing altogether.’

Perhaps similar considerations apply to journalist in the States who must be aware of the above reactions.

Didn’t a disputed smile start a hate campaign against Peter Jennings a few months ago?

9

Amazing, isn’t it? I read criticisms of President Bush in the newspapers every day. Sometimes the criticisms are valid, sometimes not, sometimes rational, sometimes not, sometimes lucid, sometimes vulgar… but I can’t think of a single Bush critic in the press who’s toned down his criticisms of the President or the administration, since 9/11.

What I DID observe is that, for a few months after 9/11, Bush got a reprieve from attacks in popular culture. Monologues by Jay Leno, David Letterman and Conan O’Brien were much tamer and gentler. Even “Doonesburry” eased up for a while. But now? Even pop culture is back to normal, pretty much.

News coverage of the “war on terrorism” has been far from fawning. I’ve seen numerous stories questioning the need for various anti-terrorism measure, and questioning the effectiveness of existing measures. There has been no shortage of stories criticizing Tommy Franks for his tactics in Afghanistan. And we’re now seeing and hearing a host of media attacks on the Bush administration for not acting on warnings they may have had last summer regarding possible terrorist actions.

NO journalist has been imprisoned or threatened by the government for anything he’s said/written about GWB in the days since 9/11. Now, is it possible, even likely, that some journalists or columnists who’ve made these attacks or criticisms have gotten more hate mail than expected? Sure. But that comes with the territory. If your feelings are easily hurt, you shouldn’t be a journalist (or the President of the U.S., for that matter).

In short, Dan Rather is full of beans. Again.

10

Pjen, funny you should post that latest load of crap from Fisk. Turns out that the Prof. Judea Pearl to whom he refers is the father of Daniel Pearl. You might have heard of him. Apparently Fisk has not, or if he has, didn’t feel that that fact was important enough to disclose.

Fisk might also do well to remember that the only time he has actually suffered physical violence recently was when he was beaten up by a group of Afghan refugees in Pakistan. And, of coursed, he managed to blame America and the West for it, stating, “And I’ll say it again. If I were an Afghan refugee in Kila Abdullah, I would have done just what they did. I would have attacked Robert Fisk. Or any other Westerner I could find.”

Robert Fisk is an idiot. His writing is so full of complete and utter reactionary bullshit that, in the world of weblogs, disassembling and destroying some pundit’s argument has come to be referred to as “Fisking” it.

11

It sounds like Rather wants to criticise Bush without Bush being able to criticise him back.

Rather’s probably trying to make up for his embarassing gaffe on Letterman when it sounded like he was offering to line up behind Bush like a good little soldier. First a sycophant, now a poor, oppressed journalist being pushed around by the mean old president. The guy is pathetic.

12

Note:

http://www.progressive.org/rothfisk9807.htm

'Robert Fisk
BY MATTHEW ROTHSCHILD

Robert Fisk is Britain’s most highly decorated foreign correspondent. He has received the British International Journalist of the Year award seven times, most recently in 1995 and 1996. His specialty is the Middle East, where he has spent the last twenty-three years. Currently the Beirut correspondent for the London Independent, Fisk has covered the Iranian revolution, the Iran-Iraq war, the Persian Gulf war, and the conflict in Algeria. He is the author of Pity the Nation: Lebanon at War (Atheneum, 1990), and his reporting from Lebanon has brought him international attention. He was the one who broke the story about the Israeli shelling of the U.N. compound in Qana, Lebanon, in 1996.

Fisk visited Madison, Wisconsin, in April to give two lectures on the Israeli-Palestinian crisis. He brought with him film footage of the Qana shelling, as well as footage of an Israeli bombing of a Lebanese ambulance carrying fourteen people. He showed a film he made about Palestinians who had lost their homes when Israel became a state. He also showed interviews with Jews who lost family members in Nazi concentration camps, and he went to Auschwitz to show where the Holocaust took place. In one of his lectures, he made a special point of taking on those who deny the truth of the Holocaust.’

Some Idiot!

Just because you disagree with someone doesn’t mean that they are an idiot.

In fact, your response is actually reinforcing the point that he is making- anyone who strays too far from the acceptable US range of views on ‘the war on terror’ risks such character assassination.

13

I’m in the unusual position of heartily agreeing with both december and pldennison.

Dan Rather’s statements sound like more of his weird mea culpas on behalf of the entire American news media - without any real factual basis. There’s been plenty of questioning of the American response to terror, with coverage with hits and misses in Afghanistan being a prime example.

And Fisk is indeed an idiot if he’s so bent out of shape about the idea of getting letters criticizing a story of his, that he concludes that he’s in a “free-fire zone”. If he’s taking John Malkovich’s “threat” seriously, he is a prime nimrod.

One cannot conclude that the American press is muzzled merely because one is upset that it doesn’t reach the heights of tabloid sensation-mongering and hysteria of some Western and Arab outlets. You must actually supply evidence.

Got facts?

14

Just a question because I don’'t really know one way or another: How can you prove that the media is being muzzled?

Where would you get a cite for a story that isn’t being told?
Now, I don’t believe that Dan Rather was muzzled by anybody other than himself. If he was, I’d like to see the “really hard questions” he wanted to ask, but didn’t.

All this does not mean that there isn’t a stifiling air around dissent in this country nowadays, especially when it comes to the “war on terrorism”. If it was discovered that the memo about possible Al-Qaida highjackers was known to some newspeople very early on and was not reported on, I’ll not be surprised. But that’s just speculation. How do you find proof of such a thing even if it was true?

15

This really comes back to what we have discussed before- the US press and media tend to be more predictable and less willing to report news that is outside the mainstream.

The British press and media have a much broader coverage available from outrageously pro-arab (Fisk) to outrageously pro-Israel (most of the right-wing press- Telegraph, Mail etc.).

Continental European press and media does have a somewhat pro-arab bias for historical, cultural and trade reasons- much the same as the US protects Israel for historical, cultural and trade reasons.

So, from a British perspective, Rather’s comments seem almost droll and pointless- from reading the British Press and comparing it with the US press it is obvious that the US line is more limited and more careful of not offending majority opinion.

I remember the same effect in the early/mid-sixties when the British press was overwhelmingly critical of US actions in Viet-nam, but the US press had comparatively little criticism. It was dangerous then to state that Viet-nam was a mess and would continue to be- most un-American ;).

The European press tends to report more