Rather files $70 million lawsuit against CBS

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

Rather narrated a September 2004 report saying that Bush had disobeyed orders and shirked some of his duties during his National Guard service and that a commander felt pressured to sugarcoat Bush's record.

In his lawsuit, Rather maintains that the story was true, but that if any aspect of the broadcast wasn't accurate, he was not responsible for the errors.

The story relied on four documents, supposedly written by Bush's commander in the Texas Air National Guard, the late Lt. Col. Jerry Killian. Critics questioned the documents' authenticity and suggested they were forged.

A CBS review determined the story was neither fair nor accurate. CBS fired the story's producer and asked for the resignation of three executives because it could not authenticate documents used in the story, and Rather was forced out of the anchor chair he had occupied for 24 years.

Rather's lawsuit says he was forced to apologize, although "as defendants well knew, even if any aspect of the broadcast had not been accurate, which has never been established, Mr. Rather was not responsible for any such errors."

By making Rather apologize publicly, "CBS intentionally caused the public and the media to attribute CBS' alleged bungling of the episode to Mr. Rather," the lawsuit claimed. As a result, some news media called the event "Rathergate."

He also claimed that after removing him as anchor of the "CBS Evening News," the network gave him fewer and less important assignments and little airtime on "60 Minutes" and "60 Minutes II."

At the time, Rather was making $6 million a year, the lawsuit says.

Rather claimed in the suit that his departure was ultimately caused by Viacom Chairman Redstone, who found it best for the company to curry favor with the Bush administration by damaging Rather. An "enraged" Redstone said the newsman and anyone associated with him had to go, according to the lawsuit.

Richard Thornburgh, the former U.S. attorney general who made up the two-man investigative panel with Louis D. Boccardi, the retired chief executive of The Associated Press, said he was unaware of Rather's lawsuit.

Click here for more.

I've hated Dan Rather for years. He's the epitome of broadcast journalism's pomposity and arrogance, a total stuffed-shirt prick. He's also been a real team player while corporate ownership has steadily pushed news toward entertainment throughout much of his career. Part of me wants to say, "Well, that's what he gets." On the other hand, he really did get shafted on this one.

For starters, the infamous 60 Minutes story that got him fired was true: the CBS review was a total whitewash with a predetermined outcome--having Bush family friend and GOP loyalist Dick Thornburgh anywhere near this thing proves it. More importantly, however, is that the right-wing blog frenzy about one of the memos supporting the story was bogus from the get-go. According to the also fired 60 Minutes segment producer Mary Mapes in her book Truth and Duty, conservative bloggers analyzed a bitmap of a fax of a photocopy of the original supposedly forged document. That is, there was never any evidence at all that the memo was faked, and the story's producers had already authenticated it with some 95% accuracy. Mapes' book shows the actual document side by side with what the bloggers were looking at; they bear very little resemblance to one another.

In short, Rather, as well as Mapes, were both swiftboated, and CBS caved. I think he has a damned good chance of winning this, and that's a good thing. Frankly, all these news networks should be sued in grand Scientology harassment style.

That's what they get.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$