Depending on who ya talk to, legendary (and alleged) fake news pusher Dan Rather cannot believe that Americans simply do not trust the mainstream media these days… really, Dan?
The former anchor appeared on NBC’s Today and was speaking with host Savannah Guthrie when questioned about our growing mistrust of the media.
“There’s a recent poll that said nearly half of people think the media make up stories. The media itself is under fire,” Guthrie said. “What do you think the media needs to do better to enhance its own credibility?”
“We need to do a better job, we need to do our job,” Rather responded. “Our job is to bear witness, to be honest brokers of information, to be as accurate and fair as we possibly can.”
“I think most of the public understands that we’re under attack by very powerful people, including the president, for their own partisan, political, and ideological reasons,” Rather continued.
But let’s face facts… fake news essentially forced him to resign, right? The Media Research Center provides a summary of the scandal that ended with Rather’s resignation:
“On September 8, 2004, Dan Rather cited “exclusive information, including documents” to justify major CBS Evening News and 60 Minutes stories alleging that George W. Bush shirked his duties when he was in the Texas Air National Guard in the 1960s and 1970s. Within a few hours of those documents being posted on CBS News’ Web site, however, typography experts voiced skepticism that the documents had actually originated with their alleged author and Bush’s former commanding officer, the late Lt. Colonel Jerry Killian.”
“As the evidence mounted, Rather stubbornly clung to the idea that his story was bulletproof, and he derided critics as partisans and Internet rumormongers. When he “apologized” on September 20, Rather would not concede that the documents were forgeries, only that he and CBS could “no longer vouch for their authenticity.””
“On November 23, 2004, CBS announced that Rather would soon be leaving his job as anchor of the CBS Evening News. An investigative report released on January 10, 2005 faulted CBS’s rush to put the flawed story on the air and their “stubborn” defense in the days that followed, but oddly decided that they could not blame partisan bias.”
