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You Can't Teach An Old Dog Dan Rather may be the most misunderstood journalist in the business today. After all, he's now a pariah, considered by many to be untrustworthy because of his use (unintentionally?) of phony documents in a CBS news story. He's guilty of having let his ideals lead him astray for a number of years. Not just his political ideals, his journalistic ideals too. Rather lives for reporting. He has indeed gotten carried away with his glamour job as CBS' top anchor (now arrogantly referred to as "The Face of CBS News"), but he never lost his love of just simply reporting the news from the street. I take him at his word that he would be happy again on the street, where he started. One problem is in a view taken by journalists as a whole. It's so basic to journalism that it's a disaster that journalism professors and teachers emphasize it so much: the importance of adversarial reporting. There is the notion, especially among journalism professors, that the role of the reporter is to uplift the poor and being down the mighty. Most reporters take this to be their mission in professional life. Of course, there are many other noble ways to practice journalism, but this is the most appealing to those who want to change the world, and it's hard to find a journalist these days who doesn't want to change the world. Dan Rather fits in well with these people. He hasn't lost his youthful idealistic view that news, especially powerful television news, is by measure a way to effect change in the world. Indeed, Rather had a hand in changing American opinion against the Vietnam war with his blistering reporting from the military lines. Anyone who has reached his 70s and hasn't lost his idealism is to be admired. That's Dan Rather. But his style and indeed his political ideals have gone out of date. I don't fault Rather with continuing to ply his left-wing craft. I fault CBS for sticking with him as "The Face of CBS News" for more than a decade after his philosophical and stylistic time had passed. Dan Rather will always be Dan Rather, just as Katie Couric and Aaron Brown and Matt Lauer and Peter Jennings and Ann Currie will always be themselves. But for the top broadcast networks to keep these left-idealistic TV journalists in place despite a rising tide of American conservatism, keeping out people like John Stossel, Linda Vester, Tim Russert -- people who should be anchoring TV nightly news -- is not just irresponsible, it's bad business. Yes, Dan Rather did wrong in his handling of the 60 Minutes warmed-over "expose" of President Bush's Air National Guard days. Slanting the news, even to bring down the mighty, is unacceptable. But it was by no means the first time Rather gave a left-wing spin to "news." We all knew that. And he's leaving in March. That he kept his high-profile job at one of the top broadcast news outlets in America for 25 years despite severely declining ratings and a suspicion by many that he's untrustworthy -- that's a huge problem. And it was not Dan's fault, in a way. Dan is Dan and the Big Brass at CBS knew it. But they like Dan and his political kind, even as they scratch their heads and wonder why broadcast TV nightly news is in such decline that it may be seeing its final days while Fox News ratings soar. Try something journalistically new? Why? I'm sure the network brass are wondering...The old ways are good enough. Right? Now where do we find another Dan Rather...? -- Mike Shiloh |
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Contents © copyright 2004 Michael Shiloh, unless noted. All rights reserved. |