Longtime '60 Minutes' Boss: I Asked Dan Rather If He'd Whack Kerry Like Bush

Photo of Tim Graham.
By Tim Graham (Bio | Archive)
September 23, 2007 - 21:56 ET

In a Friday afternoon Newsweek web exclusive, reporter Johnnie Roberts talked to CBS insiders about Dan Rather’s lawsuit against his long-time employer. Don Hewitt, the founder and long-lasting executive producer of 60 Minutes, told the magazine he asked Rather the big bias question: "If this had been John Kerry, wouldn’t you have been more careful about the story?" It’s certainly true that 60 Minutes went easy on Kerry on 2004, with a soft-soap Ed Bradley interview in January, and a syrupy and supportive Lesley Stahl interview in July.

Another anonymous CBS insider says Rather looks "pathetic...the musing of an older man who can’t let go." Roberts reported that while the network wouldn’t comment beyond saying it was old news, others were more forthcoming:

Take, for example, Don Hewitt, the legendary producer of "60 Minutes." "Any news organization, print or broadcast, has the right to protect its reputation by divesting itself of a reporter, irrespective of who he or she is, who it feels reported as fact something that reflected his or her biases more than the facts bear," he said in a NEWSWEEK interview. "And if the reporter’s defense is that he or she had been ‘had,’ isn’t he or she someone a news organization worth its salt can no longer trust not to be ‘had’ again."

Hewitt says he had questioned whether the reporting was biased at a CBS meeting convened to discuss the controversy that began to swell after the story aired. "Let me ask one question," he recalls addressing the gathering. "If this had been John Kerry, wouldn’t you have been more careful about the story?" A senior CBS News insider said Rather is further damaging his reputation by suing. "I think it looks pathetic," this executive told NEWSWEEK on condition of not being identified. "It looks like the musing of an older man who can’t let go. This will have no winners. But the biggest loser will be Dan."

And another former colleague questioned Rather’s motives, declaring that the former anchor is seeking to raise his profile in his post-CBS career at HDNet, a cable channel controlled by billionaire Mark Cuban. "Had he been a big success in his new life" at HDNet, this person speculated, "I don’t believe this would have happened. How do I get myself back into the news? Sue CBS, of course. All of a sudden, people are now talking about Dan Rather again."

Here's how I summarized the two Kerry interviews in 2004, not tough investigative pieces, but clearly favorable publicity exercises:

January 25. In a soft Kerry interview, Ed Bradley touted Kerry’s medals and brushed over Kerry's wild and unsubstantiated 1971 Senate testimony by noting: "It's still emotional after all these years. Vietnam is something that just doesn't leave you." Kerry said: "It's young people dying young for the wrong reasons, because leaders don't do the things that they should do to protect them." Bradley replied: "Do you see a parallel with Iraq?"

July 11. Interviewing the Democratic ticket and their wives, CBS's Lesley Stahl giggled about how well everyone was getting along: "How do you think the honeymoon is going?" Stahl asked Kerry about Edwards: "You're looser. Do you think that his energy is rubbing off on you?"

—Tim Graham is Director of Media Analysis at the Media Research Center


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Nut sentence: Any news

September 23, 2007 - 22:12 ET by SMGalbraith

Nut sentence: Any news organization, print or broadcast, has the right to protect its reputation by divesting itself of a reporter, irrespective of who he or she is, who it feels reported as fact something that reflected his or her biases more than the facts bear.

Not only does it have the right but it has an obligation to protect its reputation. Because the failure to do so calls into question, fairly or not, the integrity of not only that specific reporter in question but other reporters for that news organization.

Are you listening Phil Griffin? Dan Abrams? Is anyone at home at MSNBC?

Keith Olbermann and David Shuster's worst nightmare would be seeing Mr. Hewitt named as news director at MSNBC. Because those gentleman would be doing weather reports for a station in Topeka.

And not at an NBC affiliate either.

SMG

 

SMG

September 23, 2007 - 22:15 ET by botg

you might add that they have a fiduciary (sp) duty to their investors to do so

Supreme Court,  National Security,  Borders,  Fiscal Restraint, my litmus test for President.

Please, please, please...

September 24, 2007 - 00:01 ET by Rastus03

 

The good folks of Topeka don't deserve that level of stupidity!

Send 'em to Outer Mongolia where they can rant at each other until they simultaneously explode into tiny liberal fragments to be devoured by famished field mice.

Har!

 

Conspicuously absent is the answer

September 24, 2007 - 04:15 ET by SportPolitics

to the question asked by Hewitt concerning the likelihood of more caution if Kerry were the target. I can't really say I remember hearing what the answers were at that meeting. I didn't see any in the article. I understand the question was stated with an implication.

 I guess we will all be left wondering. It couldn't be that Newsweek never followed up with "Well, what did they say ? " Or better yet "What do you think?" - and print that answer...

 I guess, in the liberal mind, that means this guy Hewitt.... is a target now ? Or is he a protected and revered commodity ? He asked the tough question! Ok, it appears by the way they claim Hewitt asked " the one" question, that he has an opinion in the matter, and believes they would have been much more cautious. But then again, he never says so. It could be a point blank "simple test".

Did anyone reply ? Does Newsweek know ?

 I thank our lucky stars Hewitt knew enough to know what question to ask the lefty minions. Wow, that shows incredible insight.

Amazing there aren't 3 or 4 anonymous sources quoted with their answers.

 I still don't know what Hewitt thought about it all. Newsweek never told us.

 I'm so glad Newsweek prints all this speculative garbage that really doesn't inform me of anything.

Oh, gee, I started thinking...look what turned up.

"

Vermillion, S.D. — Don Hewitt says he doesn't like what's become of televised debates. He says while he's proud he produced the first one, he's sorry that it changed politics. (what a powerful guy! Wow he changed the world ! I feel faint...here I thought it was the millions of TV's spreading to every household...)

"And from that moment on the number one qualification to hold office in the world's greatest democracy is the ability to raise money for television time. And virtually no candidate for public office can do with out being in bed with or at least in the pocket of one or more special interests," he said. Hewitt watched the debate between President Bush and Sen. John Kerry with special interest. He wanted a reason to vote at all. He says he couldn't find anything about either candidate he liked.(PBS garbage lie- as you see what he really said- in the very next line - this is how stupid leftists are)

"I think my mind got changed this evening. I thought Kerry was pretty strong. I think Kerry made the better points and I think I'd feel a little more secure. I'm inclined anyway this evening right this minute after watching this," he said."

Ahh yes, sitting with George McGovern to watch...your mind "changed".... you were neutral, in fact PBS implied you didn't care "for any of em" - but after watching Kerry, "your unbiased mind suddenly changed"... and you'd "feel a little more secure" - perhaps "safer" from say "terrorists" or something ? Yes, very good spin, that should help a lot people who were thinking Kerry was "soft" on security.

WOW.... I bet they sure wish I was as stupid as they pretend I should be....but then it is a PBS link

http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/2004/10/01_hetlandc_debatereax/

 

 

Don

September 24, 2007 - 06:07 ET by Tim Graham

I think Hewitt's question is rhetorical. He knows dang well which candidate CBS favored.

And he has always had a grandiose sense of his own place in recent broadcast/political history.

Thank you Tim Graham

September 25, 2007 - 20:03 ET by SportPolitics

I appreciate that response a lot. Thank you.

I listened to his whole 25 minute speech at the PBS, and see how the "hidden" democrat supporter that he is plops in the same sick, tired, "but the democrats are doing it too, they're not totally innocent , you know " type of stance ( oh no, say it ain't so Lucy!), along with the vague and detached I'm not part of them and they all need to clean it up type speil. He also claimed Ted Kennedy gave the greatest he line he ever heard, and then recited it. After starting out with 5 minutes of bragging how he never worked for 50 years because he was at the Coronations of dignitaries and on D Day beach, he later quipped how these journalist leaders so often have an overblown egotistical sense of themselves. Ahh, boy that's comfortable, if only those other people could behave, and just maybe he should, if one can connect the dots, but his immense life means he doesn't have to, nor should anyone really expect him to. That was contrasted by his Bronx or whatever it was "down on the docks or in the factory" accent and demeanor, and shared "humble beginnings copy boy(pure DEMOCRAT in nature).

 I sure wish his type, and all the reporters, would just finally be MEN enough to declare their allegiance.

 Hugh Hewitt a while back interviewed ABC's gang of 500 producer, and the disconnect and lies and claims of unbias were nothing short of laughably astounding. He would not reveal who he had voted for- ever, even as his blatantly liberal positions spewed forth, right down the middle according to him, when he was claiming over and again he totally divorces himself from his personal beliefs. 

 Anyway, thanks for your comment.

Bill Moyers, are you listening?

September 24, 2007 - 00:08 ET by KC Mulville

When you use other people's resources to broadcast your personal agenda, you're headed for a crash. Moyers is broadcasting on our dime. Why isn't he representing the view of a substantial portion of this country, when that substantial portion is paying his way? Why does he deserve to rant with our money?

Note to Moyers --- do you see how quickly his colleagues turned on Dan Rather? Look around, big guy ... look around.