Cone of Silence Indicts American Media

While glorying in the predicament of their compatriot, Dan Rather, as CBS's independent review board released its findings, no one from the mainstream media exercised any journalistic rigor. No one investigated the story beyond its surface. No one mentioned Dan Rather's betrayal of America's Vietnam veterans in his disgraced 1988 documentary, CBS Reports: The Wall Within. I've written of this before, but the silence from the major media is still stunning.

If you google CBS Reports: The Wall Within, you'll find that the scandal has been exorcised, even from the archives of the major news organizations, and is only remembered now by bloggers. When the Rathergate story broke, Journalism 101 should have told even the greenest reporters to check Rather's record to see if he'd done this before. No one did.

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