Exposed: 'Dan Rather and the Birth of Fake News'

New documentary recalls CBS story debunked by bloggers

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Long before “fake news” became an issue on Capitol Hill, a news story that threatened to derail George W. Bush’s re-election was debunked by bloggers, launching a new era of citizen journalism challenging the establishment-media gatekeepers.

The September 2004 report that led to Dan Rather’s resignation as the anchor of CBS News is spotlighted in a new documentary, “Black Eye: Dan Rather and the Birth of Fake News.”......The network fired producer Mary Mapes, and a little more than two months later Rather resigned. CBS commissioned an independent panel that found serious defects in the reporting and production of the Sept. 8, 2004, segment on “60 Minutes Wednesday.”.........Read more  

My Take - In May I published this article, We Need to Get This: The Media Lies....Constantly!! In the article I posted this interview with Mary Mapes saying:

"Ross asked Mapes , "if she believed the story was true. She stated “The story? Absolutely.” the interviewer found it incredible that she found “this story to be up to your standards”. (Editor's Note: This is an important point) Mapes stated "I’m perfectly willing to believe those documents are forgeries if there’s proof that I haven’t seen."' 

"Does this take you aback? It should. Ross asked “"But isn’t it the other way around? Don’t you have to prove they’re authentic?" Mapes responded by saying that “they haven’t been proven false.”  

Ross asked what most of us would consider obvious, “ Have they proved to be authentic though? Isn’t that really what journalists do?” Now the quote of the year…….Mapes said; "No, I don’t think that’s the standard."' " 

In short…..the narrative is far more important than the facts. Just like they say in Hollywood; “If it didn’t happen that way, then it should have.” But we know that Hollywood is a fiction factory; that’s their job! We expect the news to be non-fiction. After all; isn't truth supposed to be "their" job?"

Nothing has changed, and in point of fact it's far worse, but Rather and his peers laid the groundwork for the catastrophe the media has become.