His rise to fame was in the days when a few broadcast TV channels and the local newspaper was The News to almost everyone. By 2004, he was an established and powerful elder statesman-type at CBS. To make a long story short, his people were given a set of documents that seemed to substantiate what would have been a scandal regarding George W. Bush’s time in the Air National Guard. Rather went with the story. Almost immediately, a lot of people—especially bloggers—noticed that the documents not only looked like fakes, but really amateurish, silly fakes.
At this point, Rather could have cut his losses. He could have gone on the air and said, “Folks, I’m really sorry. We were lied to, and we retract the whole story. My staff and I would never deliberately try to deceive you, our viewers, but we just didn’t check this story out properly ahead of time. Ultimately, I’m the boss, so it’s my responsibility. I deeply regret the error, and I personally promise that this will never happen again.” This would have been extremely embarrassing, but Rather had a lot of stature, and if he handled it well, he might even have gained some respect.
The fall of Dan Rather.
His rise to fame was in the days when a few broadcast TV channels and the local newspaper was The News to almost everyone. By 2004, he was an established and powerful elder statesman-type at CBS. To make a long story short, his people were given a set of documents that seemed to substantiate what would have been a scandal regarding George W. Bush’s time in the Air National Guard. Rather went with the story. Almost immediately, a lot of people—especially bloggers—noticed that the documents not only looked like fakes, but really amateurish, silly fakes.
At this point, Rather could have cut his losses. He could have gone on the air and said, “Folks, I’m really sorry. We were lied to, and we retract the whole story. My staff and I would never deliberately try to deceive you, our viewers, but we just didn’t check this story out properly ahead of time. Ultimately, I’m the boss, so it’s my responsibility. I deeply regret the error, and I personally promise that this will never happen again.” This would have been extremely embarrassing, but Rather had a lot of stature, and if he handled it well, he might even have gained some respect.
But no, he decided to double down.