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Dan Rather still stands by the CBS News report that got him fired, nearly a decade and one feature film later.
The former anchor’s reputation was tarnished after the accuracy of his 2004 story questioning
President George W. Bush‘s military service was publicly disputed by the leader’s administration. The entire saga was recently dramatized on the big screen in
Truth, starring
Robert Redford as Rather.
“We reported a true story. We didn’t do it perfectly,” the 84-year-old recently told
The Hollywood Reporter. “We made some mistakes of getting to the truth. But that didn’t change the truth of what we reported.”
Rather and his producer Mary Mapes (played by
Cate Blanchett in
Truth) aired a story that alleged that Bush went AWOL during his time in the Texas Air National Guard. The Bush administration charged that the documents used as the basis for the report were inauthentic, leading to an independent investigation that ultimately concluded that the piece disregarded “fundamental journalistic principles.” The documents were not, however, ever proved to be forgeries.
Rather was subsequently removed from the anchor desk before
leaving CBS News for good in 2006 after 44 years. The departure wasn’t without controversy – Rather filed a $70 million lawsuit against the news network, a claim that was eventually dismissed.
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Dan Rather stands by his September 2004 CBS News report on President George W. Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard that got him fired.
people.com
Dan Rather was fired but should not have been.
The evidence is Bush failed to show up for his National Guard duties.
It was claimed the documents he used were forgeries due to the use of a proportional font, but many printers back then, like the IBM Selectrics, had proportional font capabilities. They were just not as common as the uniform spacing printers.