[Peace-discuss] Rather: I'd be necklaced if I told the truth

[Jim Buell]

Greg Palast mentioned this incident from BBC Newsnight last month, during 
his talk on Democracy Now last Friday. It's worth knowing about. This 
account is from the Guardian - 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/bush/story/0,7369,717097,00.html.

Palast, BTW, is not especially impressed by the confessional. As he put it 
in a different radio interview from last Thursday on his own site 
(http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=162&row=1):

>He's sitting there talking about being part of the
>propaganda arm of the U.S. State Department.
>There's that line from Shakespeare in Hamlet --
>"words without deeds never to heaven go." And
>my view is, okay, Dan, you've just confessed.
>But, you know, you run a news program, Dan.
>
>We can't say you're off the hook with three Hail
>Marys. What you have to do now is go back to
>your network and say: no, I'm not going to read
>this crap anymore.

jb

>US media cowed by patriotic
>fever, says CBS star
>
>Network news veteran admits national mood caused
>him to shrink from tough questions on war in
>Afghanistan
>
>Matthew Engel in Washington
>Friday May 17, 2002
>The Guardian
>
>Dan Rather, the star news anchor for the US television network
>CBS, said last night that "patriotism run amok" was in danger of
>trampling the freedom of American journalists to ask tough
>questions. And he admitted that he had shrunk from taking on
>the Bush administration over the war on terrorism.
>
>In the weeks after September 11 Rather wore a Stars and
>Stripes pin in his lapel during his evening news show in an
>apparent display of total solidarity with the American cause.
>However, in an interview with BBC's Newsnight, he graphically
>described the pressures to conform that built up after the
>attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.
>
>"It is an obscene comparison - you know I am not sure I like it -
>but you know there was a time in South Africa that people would
>put flaming tyres around people's necks if they dissented. And
>in some ways the fear is that you will be necklaced here, you
>will have a flaming tyre of lack of patriotism put around your
>neck," he said. "Now it is that fear that keeps journalists from
>asking the toughest of the tough questions."
>
>Rather did not exempt himself from the criticism, and said the
>problem was self-censorship. "It starts with a feeling of
>patriotism within oneself. It carries through with a certain
>knowledge that the country as a whole - and for all the right
>reasons - felt and continues to feel this surge of patriotism within
>themselves. And one finds oneself saying: 'I know the right
>question, but you know what? This is not exactly the right time
>to ask it.'"
>
>Such a confession is astonishing, bearing in mind its source.
>Rather is almost as famous in the US as the president, though
>he is more secure in his tenure, far better paid and probably
>more pampered.
>
>Rather, 70, has held what used to be regarded as the top job in
>American journalism for two decades, since he was chosen to
>succeed the revered and avuncular Walter Cronkite as CBS
>News's anchorman. Traditionally, CBS was the country's No 1
>news channel but has lost its status and ratings after years of
>budget cutbacks.
>
>The White House was to blame for its failure to provide adequate
>information about the war, Rather said. "There has never been
>an American war, small or large, in which access has been so
>limited as this one.
>
>"Limiting access, limiting information to cover the backsides of
>those who are in charge of the war, is extremely dangerous and
>cannot and should not be accepted. And I am sorry to say that,
>up to and including the moment of this interview, that
>overwhelmingly it has been accepted by the American people.
>And the current administration revels in that, they relish that,
>and they take refuge in that."
>
>He said his view of the patriotism differed from that of the
>administration. "It's unpatriotic not to stand up, look them in the
>eye, and ask the questions they don't want to hear - they being
>those who have the responsibility, the ultimate responsibility - of
>sending our sons and daughters, our husbands, wives, our
>blood, to face death."