Juicy Bits Surfacing in Rather Case: In 2004, CBS Considered Matt Drudge, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter

[seemslikeadream]

Juicy Bits Surfacing in Rather Case: In 2004, CBS Considered Matt Drudge, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter Independent Panel


http://www.observer.com/2008/media/juicy-bits-surfacing-rather-case-2004-cbs-considered-matt-drudge-rush-limbaugh-ann-coulte

This week, Dan Rather's legal team submitted a memorandum to the judge overseeing Mr. Rather's $70 million civil lawsuit against his former employers, which for the first time made public some of the thousands of documents that CBS has already turned over in the ongoing discovery process.

The Media Mob is still making its way through the thick stack of emails, internal memos, and transcripts included in this stash. But we were kind of amazed by one document.

First the quick back story:

In the fall of 2004, in the aftermath of Dan Rather and Co.'s flawed report on President Bush's military surface, (and the subsequent controversy known as "Memogate") CBS executives announced that they were forming an independent review panel, charged with investigating the manner in which the controversial report had been researched and broadcast.

On, September 22, CBS announced that the independent panel would be comprised of two individuals: Former U.S. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh, and Louis Boccardi, the former head of The Associated Press.

In the past, Mr. Rather has criticized CBS's choice of panel members, alleging that Mr. Thornburgh's association with the Bush family (President George H. W. Bush appointed Mr. Thornburgh to his position as U.S. Attorney General) undermined the panel’s objectivity.

"Discovery to date reveals far more," Mr. Rather’s legal team wrote this week. "Only conservative lawyers were considered for the Panel; their names were vetted by Viacom’s Washington lobbyists (as well as with unnamed 'GOP folks')."

In a response to the judge dated November 3, here’s how CBS lawyers countered:

s is clear from the deposition testimony, because of the perception that CBS News and Dan Rather had a liberal bias, CBS purposefully chose a Republican lawyer, not for any nefarious purpose, but to open itself up to its harshest conservative critics and to ensure that the Panel’s findings would be found credible.

[blm]

1. CBS knew exactly what they were doing - they were protecting Bush at all cost.

Just like the rest of the corporate media.

[Warpy]

5. I think they really believed Delay's horseshit

about a permanent conservative majority in government and wanted to preserve access at all costs.

Add to that the fact that most of their boards are conservatives who forgot where the middle really is, and you end up with an appallingly right wing board labeled "centrist."

[seemslikeadream]

6. blm

:hi:

[aquart]

2. "Considered Matt Drudge, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter" for WHAT?

[seemslikeadream]

4. Independent Panel along with these guys

Then things get a little bit more conservative. Under the category "others" are the names of potential candidates such as… Matt Drudge, Ann Coulter, and Rush Limbaugh.

Herein, CBS’s full list of "others":

William Buckley
Robert Novak
Kate O’Beirne
Nicholas Von Hoffman
Tucker Carlson
Pat Buchanan
George Will
Lou Dobbs
Matt Drudge
Robert Barkley
Robert Kagan
Fred Barnes
William Kristol
John Podhoretz
David Brooks
William Safire
Bernard Goldberg
Ann Coulter
Andrew Sullivan
Christopher Hitchens
PJ O’Rourke
Christopher Caldwell
Elliot Abrams
Charles Krauthammer
William Bennett
Rush Limbaugh
At the very bottom of the list, someone wrote in one more name. "Roger Ailes."

[bullimiami]

3. the report wasnt flawed it just wasnt backed with bulletproof data.

[Cleita]

7. Preserving their journalistic integrity should have been their goal, not

preserving access to any conservative government. As we well know from the past twenty years, we manage to get access in spite of them. It's time for broadcast news to do their job in informing the public and Congress needs to pass laws to insure that this happens. I think Obama can insist that reporters of all political bias have access and that news outlets of all political biases be required to print or air the whole truth or lose their licenses.