So, Dan Rather is talking about Rathergate and partisanship and the media. San Francisco Chronicle TV critic Tim Goodman liveblogged Rather’s latest, um, account at the annual Television Critics Press tour which is going on right now in Los Angeles. An excerpt of Rather’s remarks ran today on the first page of the Chronicle’s Entertainment Section.

(Side note: Goodman has dubbed the annual TV Press Tour “The Death March With Cocktails,” and his accounts are consistently enjoyable, if one cares about insider reports from the TV industry and rich-and-famous foolery and that sort of thing. You can follow The Death March With Cocktails here.)

And, for easy reference and background, here is an index of the entire pre-election Rathergate memo scandal.)
Below is the full transcript of Rather’s remarks. Rather had just been asked if he felt that he carried any “baggage” from his career in network journalism.

“Yes, I have baggage. I have the baggage of being a graduate of the journalism school out of the University of South Vietnam. I have baggage from the Civil Rights movement in Birmingham. I have baggage from Watergate and covering, as the White House and lead correspondent for CBS News, on the only President in history who resigned. I have baggage from Afghanistan when the Soviets invaded it. I have baggage from two interviews with Saddam Hussein. You bet your life I’ve got a lot of baggage. And make no mistake, I’m proud of it. Yes, I’m biased. I have a very strong bias toward independent journalism, italicized, underlined, put in bold caps. Some – I’m not here to argue all – some of the problems I have and have had with this question of, quote, bias, is misunderstanding what my bias is. I’m committed to independent journalism and, yes, fiercely independent when necessary. And a lot of the times it’s necessary. Not all, but some of what you describe as, quote, baggage, comes from people who have the following view, which they’re entitled to have. This, God bless it, is America, and you can have it. But their view is, to not just Dan Rather, but to a lot of people in journalism, “Listen, Mr. or Ms., you report the news the way I want it reported, or I’m going to make you pay a price. I’m going to hang a sign around your neck that says you were a bomb-throwing Bolshevik or something. And I’m going to mount a sizable and very effective smear campaign on you.”

Now, this doesn’t only happen to me. If you’ve seen “Good Night, and Good Luck,” you know what I’m talking about. And I should – I should be lucky enough to live to the day that I can walk in the same room with Ed Murrow, but I can’t, and nobody before or since him could. But there’s the model for things. If you’re determined to be independent, you’re going to take the heat. If you are determined to be fiercely independent when necessary and say, “No, sir” – or ma’am – “I’m not going to report the news the way you want it reported. I’m not going to be bullied or intimidated. I’m not going back up, back down, or back away to meet your partisan, political, or ideologic agenda. I’m going to play to my bias for independent news” – now, when you face the furnace, you have to take the heat, and some of the time, you’re going to get burned. And I’ve got plenty of scars. I’ve made my mistakes, and some of my wounds are self-inflicted.

But the one thing, if you check the record – and I invite you to check the record – you will not find me cowing to pressure. Now, sometimes that can lead to making mistakes. Sometimes – and I’ve had people tell me, “Dan, this is not healthy for your career.” Well, my answer to that is to hell with the career. I didn’t get into journalism as a careerist. I’m not going to go out of journalism as a careerist. So yes, I’m biased about doing independent journalism. And you bet I’m prejudiced. I’m prejudiced toward reporters – and America is filled with reporters – who want to do the right thing. Increasingly it’s difficult to do the right thing because of what I described before. You stand up and ask the tough question. You ask the toughest question you know how of the highest power you can find, and I guarantee you the second your backside hits the seat, there are going to be people coming after you. But you know, that goes with the territory. I wouldn’t have it any other way. That news, real news, news at its best, is a wake-up call, not a lullaby. And I’m not in the lullaby business.”

July 13th, 2006 | MSM, Partisan Hacking | No comments

Well, Al Gore’s PowerPoint Slideshow/Movie is opening today, and it got a glowing review in the San Francisco Chronicle.

The following is more “food for thought” on the subjects addressed by Gore’s film:

Instapundit — “SO I GUESS KYOTO WORKED, THEN: “Consider the simple fact, drawn from the official temperature records of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, that for the years 1998-2005 global average temperature did not increase.” (from the Telegraph, UK)

“UPDATE: Canada is abandoning Kyoto. Just when it was starting to work!”

On the “Inconvenient” Movie itself:

From _Slate_:

“…This raises the troubling fault of An Inconvenient Truth: its carelessness about moral argument. Gore says accumulation of greenhouse gases “is a moral issue, it is deeply unethical.” Wouldn’t deprivation also be unethical? Some fossil fuel use is maddening waste; most has raised living standards. The era of fossil energy must now give way to an era of clean energy. But the last century’s headlong consumption of oil, coal, and gas has raised living standards throughout the world; driven malnourishment to an all-time low, according to the latest U.N. estimates; doubled global life expectancy; pushed most rates of disease into decline; and made possible Gore’s airline seat and MacBook, which he doesn’t seem to find unethical. The former vice president clicks up a viewgraph showing the human population has grown more during his lifetime than in all previous history combined. He looks at the viewgraph with aversion, as if embarrassed by humanity’s proliferation. Population growth is a fantastic achievement—though one that engenders problems we must fix, including inequality and greenhouse gases. Gore wants to have it that the greener-than-thou crowd is saintly, while the producers of cars, power, food, fiber, roads, and roofs are appalling. That is, he posits a simplified good versus a simplified evil. Just like a movie!”

“The Moral Flaws of Al Gore’s _An Inconvenient Truth_”

Brief “Inconvenient” responses (video):

(60 second spot questioning the science behind Gore’s film):

“Glaciers”

“Captain Planet”

“If you don’t fly commercial, don’t talk to me about greenhouse gases or conservation.” (Instapundit, again)
A comprehensive and humorous look at “Inconvenient” that (among other things) questions the moral congruence of Gore promoting “Inconvenient” by flying all over the country in his private Gulfstream jet (which on a single one-way LA-DC trip burns as much fuel as a Hummer does in a year). Also looks at some of the recent Hollywood Celeb “Environmental Ads” featuring Cameron Diaz, Gwyneth Paltrow and others…

Video Here.

More writings:

A second look at Climate Change data in the WSJ.

Finally, here is Michael Crichton who posits that Environmentalism is our modern, western fundamentalist religion.

June 2nd, 2006 | capitalism, Economics, Environmental Issues, Partisan Hacking, Satire and Humor, Technology | No comments