Whatever mistakes Dan Rather made, he was not only right about G. W. Bush's not meeting his obligations as a National Guardsman, but Dan Rather really doesn't deserve to be put int the same categories as Jayson Blair and Janet Cooke.

He was right, but ...

By adamg on Sun, 10/14/2007 - 12:39pm.

... He was done in by the shoddy use of faked documents.

Back in my cub-reporter days, we once somehow got Jack Anderson in our smallish paper to talk to us about investigative reporting. He told a story about how, during Three Mile Island, his column misreported the number of cooling towers at the plant. Like Rather's documents, the number didn't matter in the greater scheme of things, but it made people question the veracity of everything else he wrote. Same thing happens all the time on the local level when reporters get the names of streets wrong.

However, no one denied that 3 Mile Island melted down

By Says_Bomb on Fri, 10/19/2007 - 2:17pm.

However, no one denied that 3 Mile Island melted down based on that one error.

The coverage of the 3 Mile Island story was not overshadowed by coverage of that reporter's error.

No one, I'm guessing, tried to make the reporter out to be biased against nuclear power plants with that error as exhibit A.

Just sayin' your analogy doesn't hold up when you look at the details.

And the documents were not determined to be fakes....

By Says_Bomb on Fri, 10/19/2007 - 2:20pm.

Doubts were raised and they couldn't be authenticated. Not the same thing. Read that link in my first comment for more background.

Tell that to Jayson Blair, Janet Cooke and Dan Rather

Comments

Bad trilogy... Dan Rather was right!

Couldn't agree with you more, says_bomb

He was right, but ...

However, no one denied that 3 Mile Island melted down

And the documents were not determined to be fakes....

Support Universal Hub