POLL: Should Dan Rather have been fired?

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Here is the story (I hope that CNN is unbiased enough )
CBS ousts four over Bush Guard story

Simple yes/no, should Rather have been fired?

Poll Information
This poll contains 1 question(s). 18 user(s) have voted.
You may not view the results of this poll without voting.

Poll Results: Should Dan Rather have been fired? (18 votes.)

Should Dan Rather have been fired? (Choose 1)
* Yes - 39% (7)
* No - 61% (11)

 

Sadly, even though I fully understand and empathize with the zeal with which these people wanted the story to be true, they released a very incriminating document without properly doing the research.

If his whole crew gets thrown out over it, then he should have also.

 

This may come as a shock, but I voted no. My rationale is that for years 60 minutes has been controlled by the producers. The reporters are there for the cameras.

While I do believe that Dan Rather is far from unbiased and I'm sure he got great pleasure out of doing the piece, I do not believe that he knowingly reported things that were false. I do not believe that he knew that the data was false or that the fact checkers were not doing their job.

 

No, everything I have seen of this story have pointed towards a major discrediting campaign where everyone have jumped on the bandwagon. The controversy is that the experts cannot agree on whether the documents are forgeries or not. From what I understand one expert claimed that they were false and the entire thing started rolling. Rather and his crew trusted the experts who said that the documents were not forgeries. He could probably have done a bit more research to authenticate the documents but the claims that they are false are just as unfounded if not more so than the claims that they are not.

 

No one should have been fired before a court sentence declaring people specified by names to be guilty of slander.

 

I agree with Snook.

 

Whoa! Chev, you are not actually stating that an employer has no right to fire an employee unless they are convicted of a crime? I can't go along with you on that one. The issue is that not if the story is true or not, it is the fact that certain individuals did not complete their due diligence, and this has caused a major embarassement for CBS, as well has damaging their credibility and reducing the value of advertising time on their news shows, hurting their profitiablity. That has to be justification to fire those individuals responsible for the story being put on the air before it was fully vetted. To take any other stance places you in a position of looking like you are politically motivated.

The question is, did Rather share enough responsibility, or take enough responsibility for the story, to be held accountable.

 

If he fires the employee for something which is a criminal offence or a tort, there should be a court sentence to decide guilt. The employer doesn't have the right to declare you guilty. It doesn't come down to the firing but to the grounds used.

I don't care. I believe only courts should be able to declare you guilty of a crime or a tort and magistrates in lesser cases, unless there's enough evidence reasonably to predict a guilty verdict - but even in this case the person's name should be cleared if the verdict actually is innocent. Attribute to this whatever political motivation you like.

 

Dan Rather was fired from CBS because of who he was, the "public face" of their news program. He put too much of his own credibility on the line with the Bush story, and once it was so damaged, CBS could no longer have the same public face. CBS is not FOX. If one of their guys had been busted for doing such a story on John Kerry no one would have batted an eye, since they really have no journalistic standards anyway.

[ January 11, 2005, 17:50: Message edited by: Chandos the Red ]

 

Chev,

They didn't fire anyone for a crime. No one has determined if a crime was committed, they fired them for not doing they jobs properly.

If CBS came out and said that they fired these individuals for broadcasting a known lie, then the people who got fired would have a case against CBS for liable/slander, and I would agree with you that they would be foolish to take such an action.

Again I ask, if someone does theri job so poorly that they cost your employer money, do you think they should keep thier job?

Chandos,

I believe that you are basically correct, they just gave him an option of resigning. The question still remains, should CBS of fired him? I think that if he really pushed this story through, then he should not have been allowed to save face, and that CBS should have torched him to save their own reputation. If he was just the voice of the story, and those that were already fired were the ones who failed to do their jobs, then CBS did the appropriate thing and let him resign, since as a journalist, he should have made sure that they did their due diligence, but he did not intentionally commit an act that was detrimental to CBS.

Personally, I think they should have have fired him, if nothing else than his dogmatic stance that there is no possibility that the docs are forged. He could have come out and admitted that there was a chance that they did not fully vet them, issued an apology (qualified as temporary pending completion of the research of the story), and gone back and dug until he had the truth. Then he could have looked great as he gave updates and hopefully provided a final resolution, and even if it turned out the story was wrong, he still looks ok.

Now we will probably never hear anything else about this issue, and Bush gets a "get out of jail free" card due to the incompetence of these people. Of course, the story wouldn't have really mattered if it was published after the election, but I don' t think this is a mitigating circumstance in a case like this.

Would I hold this same stance if the story had been about Kerry? I hope so, but in all honesty, I couldn't swear that I would, as I am as human as the next person.

 

That's the real question, isn't it? And that's the one that has yet to be answered in everything that you read. There are a couple of other factors to consider though:

First of all, I find it nearly impossible to believe that after having what - four months at this point? - to review the documents that no one can conclusively state whether or not these documents are forged. That's the first thing that I find very quizical about the situation. No doubt that CBS has taken up controversial stories in the past, and obviously they have a person or a team together to validate the authenticity of such documents. Now they're telling me with all this time, they still can't decide one way or the other?

Obviously, if the pages in question turn out to be authentic, then there is no reason to fire people, and if they turn out to be false, then they should all have their asses canned. One thing that I will say though is that employers really don't even need a reason to fire someone, although not doing your job properly certainly is one really good reason. When you agree to work somewhere, there usually is a line somewhere on the contract that says something to the effect of, "This agreement can be terminated by either party (meaning you or the employer) at any time with or without cause." That basically means if they don't like what you're doing, they can get rid of you.

The second point is what Darkwolf brings up. How much of Rather's credibility was at stake in doing this piece? His job obviously was not to personally authenticate the documents, but to make sure that a reliable source did so. Supposedly, he did this, but unfortunately his "reliable source" turned out to be none too reliable, as other experts quickly brought the documents into question. The final question is whether or not Rather pushed to have this story aired, and whether or not he knew the uncertainty of the information he was reporting. If he simply was being the voice of CBS, and others had put together the report and assured him of its authenticity, then he broadcast the report it good faith. Yes, there is due diligence that every reporter must face, but if people you work with and trust assured him that all appropriate steps were taken, then there is no reason why CBS should have to publicly flame Rather over this.

 

Chandos - the FOX news programs are just as credible as CBS... Recently, I watched FOX's news program, because I wanted to hear government lies and the updates on the continous finds of WMD's that the libel here of that station has led me to believe is standard for it, and it was barely different at all from CNN or CBS's. Sure, their pundit programs aren't neutral, but they aren't designed to be. The biggest difference I noticed between them was the greater focus of FOX on local news as opposed to international news - IE the tsunami relief, et cetera. This, of course, is probably damning in an SP court. Also, the presence of The Simpsons on a network is quite detrimental to the credibility of it.

However, even if it does lean to the right, it needs to be there... people want news that leans in their direction. Most television media doesn't lean to the right, after all.

 

Well, I agree that the TV news media has a definite biased to the right of the political spectrum. Many of us have seen this shift since the success of FOX. Even CNN (formerly the Clinton News Network) has gone to the right also. That is why I only watch TV news for its "entertainment" value and not serious news. But I do watch C-Span and its related channels for more serious news content though.

 

When Dan Rather goes on Camera with a story, then it is assumed that his people did their research. Heads rolled when this was not the case. CBS was right not to shoot the messenger, only the authors of the errant message.

 

The silly thing is, they still would have had a powerful story, *without* the forged document. *With* the forged document, the story was basically driven off the air, and out of the national discussion. Salon recaps the evidence accumulated by the Associated Press:

 

Rather should have been canned too. He was deeply involved in the story, to the point where he made sure that the story wasn't killed.
And those papers were proven to be fakes.

 

Were they? If they were I would like to see clear confirmation of this.

 

If this is refering to the allegations I cited above, these have nothing to do with the "memogate" documents, and are a matter of public record. The "memogate" documents were presented as the icing on the cake: one of Bush's superior officers complaining about Bush's poor performance in the NG and how higher up's were forcing him to give Bush preferential treatment. That the forgery of these documents was both unethical and politically stupid does not, however, suddenly make Bush's NG career smell like roses.