Increasingly, its looking like documents reported by Dan Rather and CBS’s 60 Minutes last week regarding President Bush’s National Guard Service are fakes. It’s been a lesson in typography for most of us, but more and more experts seem to be publicly questioning the documents.
This is one case where my messy desk has proven helpful. I found–by total coincidence–a 1983 paper published here at Heritage, in courier font. That led me to recall the philosophy of the Heritage director of research at the time, who refused to use Times Roman because it looked too polished, rather than like a quick-turnaround briefing paper. Who after all coul print something in Times Roman quickly? Maybe the National Guard could in 1972, but I doubt it.
The real interesting thing about all this is CBS’s denial. Dan Rather in particular has come out swinging–saying to CNN: “I know that this story is true.” When asked about a retraction, the answer was: “Not even discussed, nor should it be.”
Pretty strong stuff.
Its no surprise that CBS would defend its story and its reporting. But Rather went far beyond that–expressing a kind of outrage that he even would be questioned. Look at the way he described his critics on the CBS Evening News Friday, referring to them dismissively as “[s]ome on the Internet and elsewhere, including many who are partisan political operatives…” This sounds like a man who expects to be trusted implicitly–and does not like to be doubted.
In other words, he wants to be Walter Cronkite.
Cronkite held an almost mystic position in the American media world –a kindly man almost universally trusted. The man who symbolically held the nation’s hand after the Kennedy assasination, and who was almost as much a part of the Apollo program as Neil Armstrong himself.
Not that he necessarily deserved this god-like status. But in the 1960s there wasn’t much room for dissent. TV news was limited to NBC, ABC, and Cronkite’s CBS. There were newspapers and magazines, of course, but relatively few troublemakers who could contest the network mandarins. Thus, what Cronkite said was Established Truth.
Poor Dan Rather expected to ascend to this status when he took over from Cronkite. But he never quite got it. Part of the problem is that Dan just isn’t Walter. Rather than reassuring, Rather comes off as, well, rather eccentric.
But more importantly, the news world changed dramatically about the same time Rather claimed the Anchorship. First cable news appeared–and Rather had to share the spotlight with not two, but dozens of other anchors. Of all types and sizes, ranging from Aaron Brown to Bill O’Reilly to Paula Zahn Tony Snow. Then came talk radio. Then the Internet. Not only respectable websites, but sites by troublemakers like Matt Drudge who love to poke holes in stories, or report those that had been missed by others. Now comes the blogs–armies of amateur commentators who, like Lilliputians swarm over every detail in the news, second-guessing the establishment media Gullivers, and giving their own spins.
Like a distraught heir to the Bourbon monarchy viewing the French Revolution, Rather is doubtless shocked by this media revolution–having not only failed to gain the respect and admiration he feels he deserved, but losing it to–to–the Internet! People that don’t even have an FCC license, for gosh sakes.
Rather’ response to this week’s controversy then makes sense. He is trying to reclaim the ancient, Cronkitian privileges of anchorship: The story is right because he said it is right. Now go away.
Unfortunately for CBS, it is unlikely that the critics will go away. The question is whether Rather, and perhaps CBS itself, will.
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.
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