Posted by: Billy Hollis on Friday, November 16, 2007 A few weeks back, Dan Rather filed a suit against CBS, claiming that he was made a "scapegoat" for the debacle that was named after him - Rathergate. McQ justifiably snickered about it at the time. My own comment in that thread was that Rather looks more and more like Richard Nixon as the years go by, which certainly speaks to the tendency of the universe to maximize irony. We were all waiting for the entertainment that the suit was likely to generate. It looks likes it's beginning. CBS has filed their response to Dan Rather's suit. It's full of legalisms, but if you boil it down, it looks to me that they're simply calling him deluded and crazy: CBS executives also released a statement today, noting that they are "mystified" by Rather's "bizarre allegations" but will "vigorously" defend themselves in court if need be.That's bad enough. But then they really twisted the knife and got to what I think is the real point: Furthermore, CBS lawyers argue that Mr. Rather's actions are motivated not by any wrongful actions on the part of the defendants but, instead, by Mr. Rather's desire to stay in the limelight.That's cold. Accurate, I think, but cold. It pierces the facade that journalists are supposed to be dedicated professionals just there to see the news reported and justice done. (The "justice done" part is the legacy of Dan's generation of journalists, in fact.) The fiction is that they don't desire celebrity for its own sake, but just to "do good". The rest of us have long seen through that fiction, of course. Any professional speaker can tell you: being the one everyone else listens to is an intoxicating and addicting experience. I've seen examples on the conference speaking circuit of perfectly nice characters turned into arrogant jacka$$e$. They begin taking themselves too seriously, and regard the opportunity to continue in that role as a right, because they're special. Dan had decades to build that addiction. And then it was all taken away. I think it's fair to characterize his original suit as a symptom of withdrawal. An addict can always give you a reason they deserve the thing they crave. Their reasons usually don't sound rational to the rest of us. CBS isn't being a bit shy in this case about pointing that out. |
|||||||||||||
| TrackBacks | |||||||||||||
| Return to Main Blog Page | |||||||||||||
| Comments For This Post | |||||||||||||
Previous Comments to this Post |
|||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||
| Add Your Comment | |||||||||||||
|
|
| Vicious Capitalism |
Buy Dale's Book!
|
