Media
Manoff, Robert Karl
MEDIA Robert Karl Manoff He'd Rather Be Right Armed Forces Journal ("an independent, monthly defense news magazine that believes in honest, impartial reporting") knows how to sell subscriptions...
...Kowet concluded that Rather "may have been sending a message to his critics...
...What a difference a day makes," he said triumphantly...
...It has fallen to Dan Rather to endure the latest round of abuse in the 1980s, Rather's principal tormentor is Accuracy in Media (AIM), a small right-wing pressure group that has spent more than a decade trying to eliminate "liberal bias" from the news...
...Many on the Right are raising that question, and not for the first time...
...The best way to improve political mettle, however, is to take on the Russian bear, and this Rather contrived to do during the October days when Mikhail Gorbachev went courting in Paris...
...And ABC is sharpening its news product and surrounding its own evening news with the kind of satellite programming—"Night-line" and "This Week with David Brink-ley"—that builds long-term viewer loyalty...
...This was less a lead-in to the news than a cheer for the home team...
...Dan Rather is in a fight for his professional life, and he knows it...
...These people aren't kidding, and they wieid a certain perverse sort of influence in the offices where the evening news is shaped and newspapers are put to bed...
...Leslie Stahl at the White House and Richard Roth in Rome begin our coverage of the day the U.S...
...The network evaded Turner's grip by buying back 21 per cent of its own stock, but doing so almost tripled the company's debt and cut its equity by two-thirds...
...Peace and the News Media at New York University...
...The anchorman himself seems to be trying to reposition himself politically to fight off the challenge to his preeminent position in television news...
...Viewers saw Gorbachev angrily replying while Rather told them, "In a follow-up question on Andrei Sakharov and human rights, Gorbachev got irritated...
...They failed to buy it, as did Ted Turner, but they succeeded in destabilizing CBS— and that may prove as useful to their purpose in the long run...
...In this respect, the William Westmoreland libel case of recent memory was a trial waiting to happen...
...But while the critics may be mollified, at least for the moment, the rest of us are left to wonder whether Rather is merely tacking to the Right or charting an entirely new course for CBS News...
...The CBS Evening News is still first in the ratings, but it now appears on a network locked in a seesaw struggle with NBC—a contest that could adversely affect Rather's share of the news-watching audience...
...The magazine's direct-mail piece that landed on thousands of doorsteps recently bannered a teaser across the face of the envelope: "Just who the hell is running the military," it asked, "Caspar Weinberger or CBS...
...took terror, captured it, and cut it down to size...
...Good evening...
...It seems his incorrigible liberalism has led him to overemphasize the risks of Agent Orange, the dangers of NutraSweet, the extent of the Pentagon's censorship of the Grenada invasion, and the public relations aspects of Reagan's foreign travels...
...Morale is low...
...MEDIA Robert Karl Manoff He'd Rather Be Right Armed Forces Journal ("an independent, monthly defense news magazine that believes in honest, impartial reporting") knows how to sell subscriptions these days...
...In his broadcast that night...
...Rather of 'grandstanding,'" Kowet said...
...Rather had asked the question that couldn't be answered...
...An amazing, daring U.S...
...not alone: When it comes to CBS, the Right has long been loaded for bear...
...Why not let everyone of Jewish heritage who wants to emigrate from the Soviet Union do so...
...This is the CBS Evening News, Dan Rather reporting," he began...
...True believers imagine that Walter Cronkite lost Vietnam for Lyndon Johnson, In the 1970s, conservatives blamed the network for ignoring the Soviet military buildup...
...He is doing so by identifying himself with the actions of the Reagan Administration he once was accused of criticizing...
...AIM shows no signs of easing up in its campaign against Dan Rather...
...Rather has also been targeted for airing a shot of Reagan enjoying a horseback ride on the day KAL 007 was shot down, for concentrating on the failures of Reaganomics, for featuring the "hunger issue," and for becoming, in the words of one headline in an AIM newsletter, Castro's Propaganda Pawn...
...The company is now selling off some $300 million of its assets and laying off staff...
...But does the motive matter...
...The message for the folks back home was clear: This guy sure knows how to bait the beast...
...Roughly a decade ago, in fact, AIM pursued Rather because he had penned an endorsement for this magazine to use in its own direct-mail solicitations...
...Since then, AIM has accused Rather of a succession of journalistic malefactions...
...That the Republic might be placed in jeopardy by coverage of a new chemical sweetener may not have occurred to the rest of us, but AIM has the picture and is prepared to make an issue of it...
...Once the chief critic of CBS News at TV Guide, Kowet delighted in Rather's presentation...
...Rather ran the tape of himself asking the question...
...The news division has been forced to absorb its second series of cuts in three years...
...On October 11, for example, when it was revealed that the United States had forced down the Achille Lauro hijackers, Rather came on the air expectant, buoyant, pleased as punch...
...The point wasn't lost...
...And, secondly, sir," he pressed on, "would you please tell us how many political prisoners there are in the Soviet Union...
...he asked Gorbachev in what quickly became a celebrated moment...
...intercept of the plane bearing four men accused of hijacking the Achille Lauro...
...Before a worldwide television audience, Mr...
...Later, some would accuse Mr...
...It may be working...
...AIM, of course, is Robert Karl Manoff, former Editor of the Columbia Journalism Review, is Managing Editor on leave of Harper's magazine and associate director ofthe Center for War...
...Not long ago, it urged its members to put pressure on his sponsors by writing to point out "how their advertising dollars on the CBS program helped pay for Castro's propaganda...
...The failure of that ploy provoked Senator Jesse Helms and his own front group, Fairness in Media, to stage a parody of the Remington shaver ad that has been running for many months: They hated CBS so much they tried to buy the company...
...CBS buckled under and ordered Rather to withdraw the testimonial...
...Don Kowet, media critic of the staunchly right-wing Washington Times, was one who noticed...
Vol. 50 • January 1986 • No. 1
