The 3 DU bloggers were busy, so I stole an hour, and filled in on taking notes at a talk by Dan Rather, and a brief Q&A afterward. Dan Rather must be in his mid-seventies, but except for the expected physical aging, he seems to be very much the old Dan Rather--no wonder he got too uncomfortable for CBS! Here are the main points of the part I caught (some of his main points, many of which will be familiar as subjects that Helen Thomas has also spoken out upon forcefully).

Comment above the dotted line are taken from notes from Rather's talk. My own comments are either in brackets or below the dotted line:


One rhetorical question he posed: How did American journalism get to the sorry state in which it currently finds itself? Answer: because if you ask an uncomfortable question, then you get to ask no more . When money interests trump the interests of journalism, money wins, and news stops.

Big conglomerates buy up media as a small part of their global holdings. These are sometimes big corporations that have no interest in news per se, just in so far as it is another business with which to try and make money, i.e. attract advertising. Shareholder value, reviewed sometimes as often as quarterly, becomes the main factor of consideration for the owner. Where does real news fit into this (i.e. it doesn't).

He said (and admitted: possibly naively) that we should hold the government accountable to maintain a free press .

Genuine debates are suppressed or discouraged and turned into entertainment--shouting matches that contain no news.

Policy has become a factor in determining what is news and what is not. American interests are closely tied to there being oil and gas pipelines running through Georgia , and this had as much (or more) to do with our support of Georgia as anything else. This was, of course, not reported a such by the MSM.

Resources and talent are expensive, and detract from the bottom line. But if this is the case, then there will never be another Walter Cronkite, and lots more Hannity-types.

Rather said that he had raised his voice about this general tendency in the past, but had, himself, never imagined it would deteriorate to the extent that it has today,

The mission of the press, he quoted loosely from Finley Peter Dunne, was to afflict the powerful and comfort the afflicted. Delivering good shareholder value is, alas, by far not always compatible with good news practice.

Fear should not be a characteristic of American journalists (skepticism should).

There has been a lot (i.e. too much) consolidation of US media, which leads to a lack of news. He said we should all be alert to media's bowing to outside interests, and let them know when we think they are doing it! He said that they do read feedback. With many voices, Rather said, they will listen. More vigilance is needed to maintain a free press these days than in the past.

He said flat out that the press was rolling over and playing dead ,
and that a spine transplant was needed so that we didn't get sleepwalked into war again. Continuing support for that war depended on the US public back home not being able to see how bad it was (coffins brought home at night, wounded rarely shown, etc.).
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One thing is for sure--under the present circumstances as Dan Rather described them, it will be a long time before there is another Walter Cronkite--or even a Dan Rather.