Jackie Danicki

Jeff Jarvis (a veteran reporter, editor, and columnist in addition to being an authority on the intersection of journalism and the internet) does a bang-up job of fisking Rather’s silly lawsuit. I had a soft spot for Dan Rather as a child, because my grandfather always watched his evening news broadcast - if someone was good enough for Grampa, he was good enough for me. Until he wasn’t. It’s sad to see Rather embarrass himself like this.

Terry Heaton, another media guy, calls Rather “the servant who thought he was king” and predicts:

CBS, which is certainly representative of contemporary professional journalism, will settle this suit — not because anybody there actually believes they’d lose the case — but because they know what a trial would do to journalism’s already strained relationship with the public. Dan doesn’t care what kind of fool he makes of himself, but CBS — and all of professional journalism — does.

And so the unintended consequence of Dan Rather suing CBS to get his reputation “back” is that it focuses attention on the self-centered nature of a once-proud institution, one that lost its way in the lust for significance within a culture it was supposed to serve.

Filed under: Life