(It’s a “conversation”—not an argument…)

Don’t blogs suck? Here we are on p. 2. No one to see your brilliant comments…

I have no idea what got you so worked up.

This was a rather blistering post, but I think it speaks for how a lot of journalists and others in the media are feeling. Mr. Rather is unwilling to admit there was a mistake, and even contends his apology was forced. He is blowing his own journalistic horn at the same time claiming distance from the fact checkers and others who played a part in the 60 Minutes error.

I agree with you that suing for $1 would have the same point of principle without making Mr. Rather appear even more greedy and egotistical. He is clearly at the end of his career and this latest stunt only further sours his reputation.

However, I was wondering if you think there is any credence to Rather’s complaints about corporate media ownership. In his “Larry King Live” interview, he warned that large media conglomerates and their political connections are a threat to the future of journalism. While his theories of CBS abandoning the “truth” to appease the White House are unsubstantiated, it doesn’t mean similar things could not happen in the future. Do you think there is such a risk, or can alternative media act as a check on this power, much in the way bloggers touched off Rathergate three years ago?

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/007760.php

Your first need is for a copy of Mr. Q.D. Expert’s curriculum vitae. No matter how short it is, it has to be made up of words, and every word is a universe in its own right. And every universe is filled with many, many questions, all of which you can ask.

Early in the game Team Rather called upon CBS' inhouse signature forgery expert to offer up opinion on memos without signatures. Proportional fonts and a superscripted th arguably presented most obvious evidence of forgery so a Team Rather fan found a rather obscure relatively expensive IBM typewriter of that era capable of producing a proportional spaced font with a superscripted th.

IBM manufactured that particular typewriter mostly for publishing companies to type up awards. It remains highly improbable that a Texas Air National Guard base using hand-me-down equipment would ever acquire such an expensive typewriter with such a rare handcrafted print ball. But it helped Team Rather's obfuscation effort.

Although Team Rather punted the font/superscript issue good enough for fellow travelers many more open issues remained with its typewriter ploy. Memos that used default Word margins years before Microsoft invented Word for instance.

Thanks to all for a fun trip down memory lane!

That’s been forgotten because, frankly, they were wrong. But the reason we know they’re wrong is at least in part because of the reporting done by the Dallas Morning News, ABC News and the Washington Post.

I guess since Imus netted a few million from his lawsuit, that Rather decided to jump on the bandwagon. Jeff has every right to be annoyed. This does nothing but lower the credibility of the media in general.

Jeff, why do you respond to only the *low-hanging-fruit* comments?

I beg to differ. It defined MSM vs blogs, and it still does to this day. The “memo” was a forgery. It was made up. It never existed. The story was broadcast because Rather, his producers and the CBS brass WANTED it to be true regardless of facts or evidence.

The MSM got caught by the bloggers and exposed and they’ll get caught again. But not for much longer. The MSM as we have known it for the past 75 years will cease to exist within the next few years.

Jeff Jarvis is pretty much on track with his predictions for the MSM. He is one of my must reads every day, even though I’m as proudly conservative as he is liberal.

I agree with you that Dan Rather should have sued for the principle rather than the big bucks. I think he would have gotten back a modicum of the integrity he squandered with the way he handled rathergate.

having said that, i agree that the disclosure should have been up at the top. after reading the analysis, i spent more time thinking about the disclosure and why it was at the bottom than your post itself.

Dan Rather is not an oaf - he’s a newsman turned anchor, a reader of news - you may think him oafish for his Texas lingo and fake folksy charm, but it’s really no worse than Brokaw’s northern Plains folkiness either.

The guy was a newsreader - highly-paid - whose team was suckered. CBS, well it was just a corporate player making what it thought was a business decision. The whole thing said nothing about “MSM” journalism vs. blog journalism. That was a total canard.

Why are you so into name-calling. I can’t believe you’re a prof at CUNY.

As for lawsuits, I can’t easily name five as you command. But it seems like that kind of thing happens a lot between big media players.

That’s a ridiculous statement: ‘Seems like lawsuits are fairly common among media bigwigs.” Name five.

If this isn’t a story, why did the NY Times cover it?

(This is usually where Jeff Jarvis quickly makes several new posts to his blog to push this one down and off the first page as fast as possible…)