Critics are calling the media scandal over the Jerry Killian forgeries “Rathergate.” But to thousands of Vietnam veterans, the real Rathergate took place 16 years ago when Dan Rather successfully foisted a fraud onto the American people. Then, unlike now, there was no blogosphere to expose him.
ALso no blogosphere to laugh and call it Rathergate….
2, 1988, CBS aired an hour-long special titled CBS Reports: The Wall Within, which CBS trumpeted as the “rebirth of the TV documentary.” It purported to tell the true story of Vietnam through the eyes of six of the men who fought there. And what terrible stories they had to tell.
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The The Wall Within was hailed by critics who — like the Washington Post’s Tom Shales — gushed that the documentary was “extraordinarily powerful.” There was just one problem: Almost none of it was true.
This story is pretty damning. Seems that Rather has rather a bit of a problem with the truth.
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It goes back much further than that even. I can’t recall the specific incident(s), perhaps it was the Westmoreland “story”, but I definitely remember this cartoon.