ANDREW SULLIVAN ON RATHERGATE:
Any journalist who starts mistaking himself for an oracle needs to be reminded who he is from time to time.
CBS News has failed on all these counts. It did shoddy reporting and then self-interestedly dug in against an avalanche of evidence against it. Rather can blather all he wants about the political motivation of some in the blogosphere–but what matters is not bias but accuracy. His attitude, moreover, has bordered on the contemptuous; and the blogosphere has chewed him up and spat him out. He has acted as if journalism is a privilege rather than a process; as if his long career makes his critics illegitimate; as if his good motives can make up for bad material. The original mistake was not a firable offense. But the digging in surely is. It seems to me that when a news anchor presents false information and then tries to cover up and deny his errors, he has ceased to be a journalist. I’d like to say that Dan Rather needs to resign from his profession. But, judging from the last few days, he already has.
Ouch. He mentions pajamas, too.
Meanwhile Hugh Hewitt wants Congressional hearings on RatherGate:
Congress has held hearings on Howard Stern and “wardrobe malfunctions” at the Superbowl. It has held hearings on the networks’ disastrous performance on election night 2000. Now a network is party to a fraud committed with the obvious intent of influencing an election. Where are the hearings? This is very serious stuff, and the rise of technology capable of influencing elections is a worry on many minds. (See John Fund’s new book Stealing Elections.) It doesn’t do much good for Congress to arrive to conduct an autopsy. It should act before the fraud spreads.
It’s certainly a bigger deal than Howard Stern’s language, or Janet Jackson’s breast.
UPDATE: Jim Pinkerton writes that this is a turning point in media history.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Tom Maguire thinks that hearings are a terrible idea. I agree — at least so long as it looks like the major media are covering this story on their own.