Last night Dan Rather was on Larry King (excuse me for watching) and is accusing CBS of scapegoating him in the Bush "forged documents" story. But, he said if this lawsuit can do anything it will be to restore the news business to what it should be - insuring democracy - instead of corporations making decisions for the news. He spoke about how they sat on the Abu Ghraib story because of the corporate lawyers "upstairs" wanted to be cautious. And the Bush story he wanted to continue investigating but an "outside panel" co-chaired by Dick Thornburgh, former Republican Attorney General for Reagan said the story was badly flawed and shut the investigation down.
Rather still believes the story to be true and the documents to be authentic. He also says a former FBI agent who began investigating the story for CBS found "helpful and supportive" information for Rather, but shut the story down anyway.
Our democracy is in trouble when corporations are making decisions based on their bottom line or their connections to stories rather on what is best for our democracy. I applaud Rather for this attempt. Check out the clip above from the Insider when CBS shuts down a huge story on Big Tobacco because of the mother corporation. This is a true story and Lowell Bergman quit CBS over it. If you have not seen this movie it is a dandy. The clip gets good around the first minute.
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