‘Journalist’ Dan Rather Says Press Should Report What Trump ‘Believes,’ Not What He Says

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When one is looking for good journalism, one turns, of course, to Dan Rather.

Rather, 87, was once the anchor of the evening CBS News broadcast, taking over the post in 1981 from Walter Cronkite. But in 2005, in an attempt to derail George W. Bush’s presidency and his re-election bid — and searching for a Watergate-sized blockbuster — Rather aired a completely false story about Bush’s time in the Texas Air National Guard. He was fired and left journalism in disgrace.

But he never really went away and still gets calls to talk journalism at prestigious places.

Rather appeared this week on CNN with host Don Lemon and said the media should stop quoting President Trump and instead climb inside his head to report what he thinks.

Lemon asked Rather “What does he [Trump] really believe?” Newsbusters reported.

This moment in history remind me a great deal of when I was covering the Civil Rights Movement and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the early 1960s. It was clearly definitively right and wrong. That was the truth of the situation. Then and now it’s the job of journalists not to try to hide or obscure but to speak the truth, and that’s where we are now. People say, well, I’m not sure President Trump is racist, but racist is as racist does.

Rather added that the media needs to watch “not so much what he says,” because “any time he tries to speak about hope or compassion, it’s about as authentic as a Times Square Rolex.”

Lemon, for his part, said it was difficult for him to call Trump racist (which he has done hundreds of times). “It did not come lightly or easily for me to say, ‘The President of the United States is a racist,’” Lemon said. But he said “journalists work with facts and with evidence. And all one has to do is look at the evidence.”

“Well exactly. It’s speaking truth!” Rather said.

Later, Rather took to Twitter to say: “To my fellow members of the press, I suggest we refrain from quoting the presiden’ts [sic] words from prepared speeches into headlines and tweets without context. He sometimes says the right thing. The real questions are what he does and what he really believes.”

In August 2018, the King of Fake News called out  Trump for complaining about fake news.

“Whenever I see President Trump rail against ‘Fake News’ or call us the ‘enemy of the people’ I think ‘you can’t handle the truth.’ You may not like it, but the press is protected by the Constitution (you know that document you swore to preserve, protect, and defend?),” Rather wrote on Twitter.

The great James Woods hammered Rather with a succinct tweet.

“Do you see any irony in the fact you were fired for promoting a forged document to alter a presidential election? Your sad story will be a cautionary tale taught in journalism schools forever. You are the #GodfatherOfFakeNews,” Woods wrote.

 

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Joseph Curl

You can email Joseph Curl here, and read more of Joseph Curl's articles here.

 

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