The plain gall of major Corporate TV

[moniss]

on display in all it's glory. Remember how Dan Rather was/still is treated because he ran with a story where it appears a source may not have been giving original documents about W being absent from his Air Guard duty? The howls of condemnation were deafening about how it was like the crime of the century for a person on network news to run a story making an apparently improperly vetted accusation against a President. Charlatan!!! He must be dealt with and removed from our nightly screens!!! That was 2004/2005.

So he left the nightly screen within about 6 months of the broadcast. That was March of 2005. The following year his contract with CBS, where he had been the evening news anchor for 24 years, was not renewed with management saying there "was no future role at CBS for Rather". That was 2006. Rather has since gone on to do some work in cable/appearances etc. but certainly nothing like the impact of being seen every night on the screen for major corporate TV viewing.

But within 3 years of the supposed unforgivable crime of making an accusation against a President without perhaps perfect sourcing the corporate TV honchos found no problem with having several nightly "hosts" make entire careers making false, unsupported allegations about where Obama was born, his grades, his religion etc. The corporate honchos and their billionaire supporters/favorite politicians supported this to the high heavens with glee at the ratings bonanza it brought. No sense or retrospect on their part about how "wrong" they were to run those false accusations incessantly.

Certainly we can find even earlier examples of Big TV with a two-faced approach to what they allow. Because remember in the '90's how they kept resurrecting the tragic death of Vince Foster to somehow claim the Clintons had some hand in the matter? There is more to be sure but I cite that one because when it was W and Rather they all claimed about how we should care about the "pain" caused by allegations. Apparently they didn't care about "pain" when it was the widow and children of Vince Foster. Notice how they also didn't care about "pain" from allegations with the family of Seth Rich?

So now we move to the 4 years of Biden. Now the false allegations, questionable sourcing etc. are manufactured out of whole cloth with major planning, financing and coordination by our sworn enemy working in conjunction with elected officials and those Big TV names give life to it all night after night and somehow see no problem with doing so. The Dominion lawsuit against Fox is the only reason they removed Tucker Carlson. But they left Hannity etc. in place even though they were complicit.

Now this evening "60 Minutes" ran a piece about the problem of disinformation on social media. Fairly fluffy in reality but I was most aggrieved at them having Jim Jordan on to give his "spin" about why the government, for example warning about Covid disinformation, is bad and asking social media to take down lies is tantamount to ripping his tongue from his mouth.

So there it is on CBS, no less for the irony, that they gave a platform to a man whose entire time in elected office is taken up with making false allegations, working with others to fabricate allegations and then running to be on camera everywhere he can to further the false allegations. So when CBS told Rather there was "no future role" for him perhaps they knew they wanted to move on into what they are now and "Foxify" a certain amount. Their report this evening gave a brief bit about how the social media companies do this or that with researchers to identify "disinformation" but having one of the main proponents of disinformation provided a platform to speak at all is ridiculous. If we applied doing that as being appropriate to a subject then I guess CBS is telling us that in 1939 they would have thought it a good idea to do a radio interview with Goebbels about truth in broadcasting and the evils of propaganda.

Of course CBS and Big TV construct their rationales and denials for their two faced conduct, as demonstrated by the Rather versus now comparison, and to some it's OK but to many of us yellow journalism is not something to embrace. At the controls of it and in those who take part you will always find they have a mirror in each hand. There is no relationship to the truth or integrity in either reflection.