On the heels of an investigation into the "60 Minutes" story attacking President Bush's Vietnam-era National Guard service, CBS found that there was no "news bias" behind the story, and fired four employees for not verifying story facts. Dan Rather will not be fired, or face any circumstances from CBS for the report, (most likely because he has already agreed to step down in March).
Having worked for CBS' radio division, Infinity, I can see they are sticking with the standard CBS corporate policy of keeping the "talent" and firing the underdogs only. A shame really, as Dan Rather and CBS News President, Andrew Heyward were just as guilty for the fiasco in the first place. But hey, this is CBS. My colleague, Mark Feldstein, Journalism Program Director for The George Washington University's School of Media & Public Affairs and a former journalist himself, put the entire practice into perspective during an interview with Slate yesterday.
The CBS story further illustrates the growing decline of the news industry, when ratings drive content, and undermine journalistic integrity. Network news programs are all about infotainment and the political overtones which trickle down via the corporations that own them. Can you really trust what the news is "telling you?" That's right, TELLING you. We rely on the reporter to "tell us the story", not report it as it happens completely free of any bias. Any major news story will appear in a different context when viewed across the networks. Fox News Channel and CNN are poles apart politicaly, and the differences can been seen frequently when they cover the same story. The same can be said of any network. We'd like to think that we are all much smarter than those foreign religious extremists who seem hypnotized by the stories Al Jazerra and the like depict, and that we can more clearly discern the real truth behind any news story. Our news media may not be as bad as George Orwell might view it, but our society may be just as gullible, especially when you consider how many people believe every word this guy has to say.
Paul F.....
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