| Re: Yuk
It Up, All Right, Jewish Exponent, March 10, 2005, p. 7,
The March 10 "Media Clippings" concerning the retirement
of Dan Rather, ignores his long and brilliant career in journalism.
Instead, it dwells on the scandal surrounding the report on President
Bush's military service.
I wonder what makes this news worthy? Is there some Jewish
or local angle that I do not perceive? Perhaps Robert Leiter feels
that this issue was not adequate covered during the media saturation
last September. While this was not a stellar moment for Dan Rather,
CBS or journalism as a whole, it pays to have some perspective. The
controversy concerned the authenticity of a printed document from an
anonymous source. It was well understood that all credible witnesses
agreed that the contents of the document were consistent with the
thinking of Bush's commanding officer and the events at that
time.
The truthfulness of the contents of the document blinded CBS to the
flaws of the typography of the document itself. It is hard to see
how this document could have improved the Democratic prospects even
had it been accepted which leads many people to suspect that Karl Rove
was behind the document in the first place.
I sympathize with the Exponent's desire to point out media bias.
However, if we wish to speak of media bias, there are more serious and
more timely examples. For example,
(1) Journalist Armstrong William who was paid over $250,000 to
peddle "No Child Left Behind".
(2) Journalists Maggie Gallagher and Mike McManus who got
$21,500 and $10,000 respectively to advance Bush's ideas on
marriage.
(3) White House operative Jeff Guckert who infiltrated the Press
Corps under the identity Jeff Gannon.
(4) Considering the Jewish Exponent's charge to discuss issues
of interest to the Jewish community, perhaps we should have seen a discussion
of how a balanced piece from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency could be edited
to remove all the pro-Democratic content while adding additional
pro-Republican content without including any indication that the
resulting piece no longer reflected the view of the supposed author.
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