Dan Rather movie is no way to establish the ‘Truth’
Big-name stars fail to sell story of a journalistic disaster
This is a movie the world didn’t need.
Why would anyone think it’s a good idea to make a film portraying two journalists responsible for a major ethical blunder in a heroic light? With A-lister Robert Redford — who played Bob Woodward in All the President’s
Men, a celebration of good journalism — cast as one of them, no less. I’m referring, of course, to
Truth, the new movie about thenCBS anchor Dan Rather, his producer Mary Mapes and the catastrophic 60 Minutes Wednesday segment on President George W, Bush’s disputed service in the Texas Air National Guard. The report ran on Sept. 8, 2004, when Bush was in the middle of his re-election battle with Democrat John Kerry.
The segment, suggesting Bush had received special treatment, unraveled when the documents on which it relied heavily were rapidly discredited. CBS ordered up an independent investigation, which led to a devastating report on the segment’s shoddy journalism. Mapes and three others were fired, and Rather was escorted out of his anchor chair.
Ever since, Mapes and Rather have portrayed themselves not as journalists who cavalierly rushed onto air a piece that wasn’t anywhere near ready — which was the case — but as martyrs to the pursuit of the truth, done in by evil corporate forces. That’s always an appealing storyline, but in this case it’s nonsense.
The report, by former U.S. attorney general Dick Thornburgh and former Associated Press president and CEO Lou Boccardi, said their probe found “considerable and fundamental deficiencies relating to the reporting and production” of the segment. It listed plenty of specifics. The investigators blamed the flawed report on
60 Minutes’ “myopic zeal” to be first with the story and called out the “rigid and blind defense” exhibited when questions were instantly raised.
Particularly troubling was the fact that 60 Minutes had rushed the documents on air without authenticating them.
But despite the episode’s obvious trainwreck nature, Rather and Mapes have not excelled when it comes to accepting responsibility. Their position is that while mistakes were made, the basic thrust of the story is true, and that’s what matters.
While he apologized on air, Rather later sued CBS unsuccessfully for breach of contract. And Mapes published her account of the fiasco in the 2005 book Truth
and Duty, pointing fingers at everyone else and taking none of the blame. And guess what — Truth is based on her book.
What’s the big deal, you ask? After all, it’s just a movie. Well, yes and no. Sure, movies are entertainment, not accurate re-creations of history. But they often have a major impact on how events are perceived by people, particularly those not intimately familiar with the subject. You remember the flap earlier this year over the film
Selma, when critics were upset that it distorted the important role of President Lyndon Johnson in securing passage of the Voting Rights Act.
While it’s not as much fun as the Back to the Future- style time travel everyone is talking about this week, if you are interested in a voyage to a parallel universe, check out the episode of The New
York Times’ TimesTalk in which Redford, co-star Cate Blanchett, Rather and Mapes talk about the movie and its significance. But a warning: It’s rated C for cringe-worthy.
Blanchett says the film explores the questions of media ownership and whether some powerful targets are off-limits. Redford talks about politics intruding on the truth and laments that the support The Washington Post had for Woodward and Carl Bernstein during Watergate wasn’t shown by CBS for Rather and Mapes. Astonishingly, there is virtually no mention of the fact that we’re talking about a journalistic disaster, about the manifold errors by 60
Minutes.
Rather speaks rather grandly about the duty to tell truth to power and clings to the greater truth blather, as if airing an error-riddled story that may possibly per- haps be true anyway is what journalism is all about.
To grasp a sense of just how deep the Mapes/Rather denial is, all you need is this comment from Mapes: “I think there was a tremendously strong perception that we bungled, bungled, bungled very badly. And I think we were in the normal journalistic range of bungle.” Fortunately, that’s not the case. It’s pretty basic. Being sure you are right and having high-minded rhetoric aren’t enough. You have to have the facts. You have to make the case. And if your evidence blows up on you, that’s a huge problem, Robert Redford and Cate Blanchett to the contrary.