An article in The Guardian gives a scary view at the depths that the US media will sink in order to kiss up to the Bush administration.
The article is about the $70M lawsuit that Dan Rather is bringing against CBS for breach of contract. Rather was fired the day after the 2004 election because of a story he ran about Bush’s military record in the National Guard. Rather suggests that they fired him because CBS’s parent company wanted to curry favor for regulatory issues that were due to come up during Bush’s second term.
Perhaps the most stunning revelation is that the panel that CBS set up to investigate the story was packed with conservatives. Among the people that CBS considered for the panel were far-right broadcasters Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter.
Rather further contends that CBS tried to suppress other stories that were damaging to the government, including reporting on evidence of torture at Abu Ghraib.
The final irony is that you have to read a UK newspaper in order to learn about this. Maybe we will get to hear about it when the case goes to court early in 2009.
