Jacques Steinberg, The New York Times, September 19, 2007
Dan Rather, whose career at CBS News ground to an inglorious end 15 months ago over his role in an unsubstantiated report questioning President Bush’s Vietnam-era National Guard service, filed a $70 million lawsuit this afternoon against the network, its corporate parent and three of his former superiors.
Mr. Rather, 75, asserts that the network violated his contract by giving him insufficient airtime on “60 Minutes” after forcing him to step down as anchor of the “CBS Evening News” in March 2005. He also contends that the network committed fraud by commissioning a “biased” and incomplete investigation of the flawed Guard broadcast and, in the process, “seriously damaged his reputation.” As plaintiffs, the suit names CBS and its chief executive, Leslie Moonves; Viacom and its executive chairman, Sumner Redstone; and Andrew Heyward, the former president of CBS News.
In the suit, filed this afternoon in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, Mr. Rather charges that CBS and its executives made him “a scapegoat” in an attempt “to pacify the White House,” though the formal complaint presents virtually no direct evidence to that effect. To buttress this claim, Mr. Rather quotes the executive who oversaw his regular segment on CBS Radio, telling Mr. Rather in November 2004 that he was losing that slot, effective immediately, because of “pressure from ‘the right wing.’ ”
He also continues to take vehement issue with the appointment by CBS of Richard Thornburgh, an attorney general in the administration of the elder President Bush, as one of the two outside panelists given the job of reviewing how the disputed broadcast had been prepared.
In a statement CBS said, “These complaints are old news and this lawsuit is without merit.”
“Castrated Broadcasting System”
http://www.ilovepoetry.com/viewpoem.asp?id=77797
Just the tip of a very foul ‘sewageberg’!
Comment by tsumbra — September 20, 2007 @ 8:03 am
CBS said, “These complaints are old news and this lawsuit is without merit.”
Well, at least this is news, which is more than can be said for most of CBS’s content these days. OJ/Britney/Petraus/Katie anyone? Give me Dan Rather and his old news any day.
That’s not to say that Rather is not a self-confessed whore for Bush. But at least he had the decency to confess and I hope this gets to court so we can hear more from Dan about how the MSM works under Bush.
Comment by Joanne from WI — September 20, 2007 @ 3:01 pm