I have seen in the media threads several statements about the trust level of the media. calling it Rathergate has been another propaganda device of the right. vs AWOLgate. Thus we have the fact that Dan Rather has filed suit asking for $70 million in damages. With this Dan will be able to subpoena CBS heads as well as government officials.

For instance it was purported that the person who discovered the formatting discrepancy was some independent blogger. It turns out this person was a republican insider/operative, yet the media reported his as some lone blogger. Now me a real independent blogger with no specific ties I have a theory that the documents were scanned as the government has gone paperless. In scanning such a document and doing the OCR (optical character recognition) the formatting and as stated spacing a manual typewriter could not do and changes of different fonts in the letter are reasonably explained. These OCR type programs do integrate and preserve signatures. Interestingly convicted republican the Dukester one of the companies he was found guilty of illegal influence peddling was a military software OCR system to computerize old military documents, and the military did not like this companies software.

So questions for the debate, what are the facts we have to date. what are the theories backed by the facts you can present. 3, Will Dan Rather get his day in court? Does he deserve one and what is going to be his legal strategy.

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Business/story?i...5465&page=1

some back up documents

here is a OCR program that will retain images like signatures. http://www.smu.edu/csr/OmniPage.pdf
as noted the convicted Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham represented a company who's software was being used by the military to convert documents electronically. I believe that contractor has been found guilty of bribing the Randy “Duke” Cunningham.

http://dukecunningham.org/cunningham-home.php
http://dukecunningham.org/bibliography/plea-agreement.html

I found this ironic fon the above reference



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brent_Wilkes


http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/09/08/...ain641984.shtml
http://mediamatters.org/items/200409100005

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rathergate


here is the so called lone blogger who discovered this theory,, ya right.. a guy who petitioned in another state for Clintons removal.

http://www.dkosopedia.com/index.php/Killian_documents

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1220997/posts
"Buckhead," who said CBS memos were forged, is a GOP-linked attorney
Seattle Times ^ | 09/18/04 | Peter Wallsten Peter Wallsten
Posted on 09/19/2004 9:17:14 PM PDT by Andy from Beaverton
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rathergate






the documents
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2004-09-09bushdocs.pdf

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/02/12/....texas.records/
Guardsman says he saw Bush's Guard records in trash
Allbaugh: Charges are 'hogwash' and 'absolute garbage'

You've got to be joking. The problem with the documents is that they were created using Microsoft Word.

Forget the superscript. It's the kerning. It is perfectly aligned with a Word document. They're fake. Fake but accurate doesn't cut it. Didn't cut it for Rathergate, didn't cut it for Shock Troops, doesn't cut it at all - it's over. Dan Rather may or may not have gotten screwed it's a private, civil matter.

This thread was started Oct 7. It went nowhere. So, it's originator bumped it yesterday and it has received one reply.

Obviously there's not much interest. When one starts a thread, and I've started my share, there's no guarantee it will generate interest. I have doubts about self-bumping of essentially dead threads.

Sorry, but refighting Rathergate is low priority.

I think what Inventor is trying to claim is that the original document was first scanned as an image file, then processed by some OCR software into a text document. Then the text file imported into MicroSoft Word and printed using the Word formatting. Now, while this is technically possible to do, it's actually pretty easy, what Inventor's theory leaves out is the who and the why. The only reason why someone would go through this process as opposed to just saving the original as an image file would be to edit the text in the original. Right there it makes these documents forgeries. But let's give the questions a go anyway......

what are the facts we have to date. what are the theories backed by the facts you can present.

Well, the facts we have to date is that CBS News presented documents of questionable authenticity in order to question Bush's military record in the National Guard. Bad journalism and since Dan Rather was supposed to be the head journalist in all of this, it reflects badly on his credibility. And, he was fired because of that.

3, Will Dan Rather get his day in court? Does he deserve one and what is going to be his legal strategy.

Well, he already has started the legal process, near as I can tell with a wrongful termination lawsuit, so he's getting his day in court. I don't think he's going to win, but he will get his final 15 minutes of fame out of it and maybe a book deal or something. He was fired for cause.

Aquilla

I went to the so called source of evidence you provided.

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=12526&only

read the source and typed out a document in word, and could not match what the person reported as he could so easily do.

and then I took a look at the document of the original. and anyone can clearly see this document shows it was not written simply with a word processor and saved. It appears to me to be scanned with OCR that could not tell all the document was one font. If one looks at the font of the word Subject you will see that the J and T are certainly not the same font times New Roman, but they appear to be the same kind of strange font. the probability of these two letters having this error and none of the others is astronomical. Specially since another capital T does show up later as a this type of problem would occur is consistent with being an electronically stored document. in a scanned document that was run through a OCR program for electronic storage that I have shown the government/military was even doing with documents in storage in Panama in the 2000s.

also the author does not account for the floating J in the top left at any point, to say the document is a match/identical in every respect and have a character not accounted for and not discussed is pathetic trash.


but here me just a real independent blogger has found the J and T were different fonts completely and no one goes and types with different fonts in a single word. Again this would be consistent with the government military eliminating paper files and scanning all documents which there OCR programs would and do make font mistakes and can align to any format they would be set up to.

And as noted, to date the signature on the documents have been consistent with Killians official one from other documents Bush submitted.

Now why would the documents be scanned, and OCR, again this would be to save money, paper storage is much more expensive than electronic. thats why there wee many companies like ADSC making big bucks scanning and changing them into a readable format. If only scanned one does not have the ability to do a search and retrieve relevant documents. and scanned files take a lot more size in storage, we all know how much the differential in one page of a scanned vs making it a doc file. and when the government is talking millions if not billions of pages we are talking massive data storage so OCR with signature retention is the way to go.






it my be a low priority for most, but does not mean it is not for Dan and others. I have seen many posts citing the media as a standard when people should be fired. and seems that the media reports wrong things everyday and no one is fired. and I see rathergate yelled by those on the right in many threads. Seems to me there is a double standard here. I would have no problem if the information was vetted like this and every one on the radio TV and print was fired for the same standards. But remember Fox argued in court that they do not have to tell the truth, that they can force their announcers to lie and if the announcer does not lie for them that they have the right to fire them. one can not have it both ways...

My argument with Dans, is there was consistent evidence that these were real documents, that the signature was consistent, that even several people including the secretary remembered that the Bush issues were present in the office.

Oh brother.

The official story was that these were faxed, which you well know is a form of scanning.

The J & T merely have "remnants" on them. It's so obviously NTR that you'd have to be blind not to see it.

And again Inventor... IT'S THE KERNING. Kerning is the spacing of letters IN ALL DIRECTIONS. That document was written in Word. Just freaking look at at. The J looking thing up top, while interesting has no bearing on the fact that the document is 100% consistent with a document created with Microsoft Word.

But, hey, you go ahead and keep believing this is a massive cover up to hide Bush's AWOL 40 years ago.

I wish a independent council would have been appointed. If our media is going to be judged by those on the right by this action for eternity then let the truth be known. the complete truth, no hiding under oh this is classified or personal. I hope Dan has enough money to carry this through, I am betting Bush will not give and release all documents for some reason without a battle. He certainly can not argue a sitting president can not be compelled to testify in a case while in office.



oh brother,

since you do understand the J and T issue, note that the T has complete symmetry a fax error would not distort with symitry and to make it match the J one in style is just not a faxable issue. specially since the other one matches the font properly.

but to believe those who said it was identical, is ridiculous, because if as they purported to match the word to it to the same document we would have seen blurring on the combined documents at these letters, but we see no such blurring. and the J in lala land is still not accounted for... yet people on the right say it is identical....

and I typed the document as they said and could not line it up... they said it was simple, i tried and it was not. do it yourself. it is not an out of the gate set up that one would have used as they imply. My MS word is not modified it is set for a standard default 8.5 by 11 paper and it did not type their format as they claim. So they are just liars right off.

exactly when did MS word come out, was it 1980s. and OCR software was when?

Now you've gone from the sublime to the ridiculous. Better check that tin hat of yours, it might have a leak (no doubt due to global warming). First of all, this entire lawsuit is a CIVIL proceeding. We don't appoint special prosecutors for CIVIL actions. And Bush isn't being sued, CBS is and the issue isn't even about whether or not the documents were forged or not, that tsn't the issue in this lawsuit. Chances are they were forged, or at least modified to such an extent that they no longer constituted evidence strong enough to present a news story as truth. This story was just plain bad journalism. Whether Dan Rather allowed this story to air was because he was lazy, incompetent or in order to advance his known liberal agenda is immaterial. The fact is that he did allow it to go to air and in doing so damaged his credibility as a journalist(whatever little he had left), and the credibility of CBS News in general (for whatever that is worth). When a journalist loses their credibility, they lose their job. That's why Rather and Mapes and others were fired. End of case.

Now, you can go to work on telling us how America faked landing on the moon.

Aquilla

we are here for CIVIL debates correct? Since you are so interested in my hat, lets see what others who know me personally or by my brians think; well in grade school I was Capitan of an undefeated football team, captain of a conference champion wrestling team, virtually a straight a student, president and first board of a chess team, a member of a chess team that took second in state, My hat, has held positions of VP of Engineering after three years of full time work experience, Director of R&D of a bay area tech company, many many patents, over 6 major national and international awards, selling of one patent over 7 figures. tell me what makes what is under your hat such hot stuff. what are you made of to make such great statements, as I know there are better than I... have you ever been recognized for any accomplishment or are they still frothing in the hat? lets see if you are able to put milk on the table as well as you are able to open that mouth.

So tell me, Me wishing there would have and would be a independent council wow, draws that conclusion from you. maybe you believe that the media is not important, but certainly the founders did. gee they even spoke of the media in the constitution. we have had independent councils for much less. and this was a big issues and is to this day as it is brought up as some kind of media un-standard. It strikes at the foundations of journalism and what is acceptable. How do you defend Fox arguing in a court of law that they do not have to report the truth that there is no law against them stating lies in essence. that they fired two reporters who would not lie as they were told to....

And correct Bush is not being sued, but the plaintiff will prove his case with testimony about the documents and the events. You are aware that when you sue you can also require documents and depose from other than the sued person. and included would be testimony and all discovery about the documents and accounts of the events.

again I find the documents reasonable, and with two others who have stated they remember such discussions at the time about Bush how can one say these were absolutely not correct.

inventor, this is the third or fourth time you have listed your impeccable resume on a media debate. It's not relevant.

Your argument here is ludicrous. The day after the story came out, thousands of us, including me and some attorney in Atlanta, opened Microsoft Word and typed the Killian "CYA" memo in default settings on Microsoft Word on Windows PCs. It is a perfect match. The first "argument" to defend the documents was arcane typewriter technology and who had an IBM selectric composer, etc.

Now, that argument fails so you tell us that the signatures have been authenticated, but also that the document was scanned into OCR software. How does the signature get on it the OCR-scanned letter? Bring Killian back from the dead to sign it?

Lastly, Bush's military records were obviously released for his run at governor and president. How 40 year-old documents are remotely relevant to anything anyway strikes me as unclear. The guy was president for 4 years already when this story broke. There were plenty of reasons to vote or not vote for him. Here is a much more recent reason. Only in America.

"Now me a real independent blogger" (from the original post)

^^^^Now this one's a gem.

You find? I must have missed the part of your resume where you became a New York State Supreme Court judge. Rather's lawsuit against CBS accuses them of violating his contract. You can read all about it here. From that article.....



Nothing in there at all claiming that the documents were accurate, only that Rather shouldn't have been fired for reporting on them. It's highly unlikely that the court would uphold any kind of a subpoena for testimony or documents from the White House in this lawsuit. That wouldn't be relevant. What's relevant is the process that was followed by Rather et al to authenticate the documents and whether or not it followed solid journalistic procedures to verify the veracity of the claims made by Rather on air. What is also relevant is what role Rather had, and under his contract what role he should have had in the verification process. Obviously there were problems with the documents as have been pointed out here time and time again. Rather is just claiming that the mistakes made in airing them weren't his fault.

Aquilla

hi sweetie, when someone infers one wears tin foil I will give them the chance to show what gives their words more weight than mine. again that sic nauseum is banned but I give the person the benefit of the doubt. I wait to see.

Now I assume you are not involved with various geniuses in your life, (I will tell you I am, my father first and foremost) because if you were you would also know this.... and as far as I know there is no law preventing dyslexics from printing their opinion's with correct grammar or spelling. with your way maybe George Washington would have been better off in the back country surveying, good thing he did not listen to people like you....

http://www.audiblox2000.com/dyslexia_dysle...dyslexia016.htm
Dyslexia: Gift or Affliction?
Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Auguste Rodin, George Patton, and Woodrow Wilson were apparently dyslexic. Dyslexia is therefore considered as a sign of genius. Is this true, or is there perhaps another side to the dyslexia coin that is overlooked?

http://www.dyslexia.com/qafame.htm

http://www.learningdisabilityforum.com/bbs-ld/621.html


Ok so what I am a dyslexic. and gee I do not allow my handicap to stop me from posting my opinions and supporting facts. and when someone does post a tin post lure I will put it right back in their face, and if they have some ground to stand on I will listen, but poster has not had time to support their hat allegation. and that you apparently support such actions of that poster is telling in itself...

wow the day after the story.... well we will check that out. But as I said I just opened ms word and typed it and could NOT get it to format just like it. I spent a good amount of time later trying and can not get it to do it. and again someone keeps forgetting the flying J in the upper left is not accounted for.... see to me exact includes everything not most. and can one say that this proportialal spacing is not the spec. remember a font has a pixel definition, thats what defines a font on computers. How many different computer programs was this tried on, but..... as I said I could not get it to format the same way with default settings. or any setting.

let me try to clarify to you. I am guessing you have not used OCR before, I have in the real world. there are features in OCR programs to keep signatures in tact, some for legal purposes, I have never used the high end OCR programs that the defense department pays tens of millions for but assume they are at least a little better than what is available for $200.00. So in the design it would be the software designer who gets to decide where and how this is implemented if activated. and as a engineer I can tell you I could have it done several ways. Have you ever scanned business cards, it has this feature too because there are many fonts or signatures that can not be categorized recognized. have you ever created a text document with graphics? very common now a days. these are still substantially smaller files than all graphics.

How 40 year-old records are remotely relevant has to do with the voters, and if he was AWOL (he has never denied he wasn't) and received special privialages (this he denies) may not be important to the people of the right but when he says or implicitly implies it was not true 40 years later and it is found he was lying is relevant at least to me. See if he came out and said he was AWOL and got special privileges and he was sorry for it, you know what I could forgive him for that. I do not hold it against him that he was a drunk till he was 40ish, just that he calls it his youth..

and it is relevant to me to find out the truth, for several people were fired and their careers ruined... life is not that easy to go get new careers in the middle of it... there are not liberal billionaires owning the media hiring out there. it is possible that he allowed people to be fired for his concealing the truth. For this alone the truth needs to be determined. all he had to do via executive order is allow a full forensic examination of all the records by a independent source, he has had the power to do that from day one. Note he has never specifically denied the issue once it became an issue, read his cleverly forged words. I think his statement to the effect is his father never asked anyone in the reserve.

Really? It worked like a charm for me. Default settings in Microsoft Word 2003 (Windows version): 12 point Times New Roman, 1.25" margins left and right.


The PDF files you're looking at were scanned from a low-resolution fax transmission. You're imagining things if you think there's enough information in them to say that the J and T are different fonts. You're looking at quantization error. Unless you can point to a single military document that has been OCRed and ended up looking like these memos, there's no reason to believe your convoluted theory.


You've obviously never heard of Mark Cuban.

Jobius

I used the same settings and with the same settings and the second and third line of the first paragraph do not line up at the end with the line above and below as the submitted document. the "Austin" is the obvious on mine as the two ggs match the t in Austin..

and by the way I may not have been clear on the computer definition of a font and size, but these should be very uniform in exact size and spacing throughout the entire industry. that is why when one goes to print with documents created in adobe vs publisher things should not move around, the fonts have to be loaded as a standard. But this is a example where it is strange that I can not duplicate what you are saying you are doing on a computer. And yes I do do a lot of professional graphic technical work for products.

Now as point to a single military document you missed my post where the military spent was it 10 million just on one small contract doing this with the convicted guy associated with Cunningham. I have read before that the military did not like his software for OCR and were upset that they had to use it at all, they were using a much better one for the majority of their work. I will ask my father and brother to use the freedom of information act to get their records. I am rather sure my father has his fathers (he is writing a book about his father) so I can start there.

As far as pixilation and scanning as I mentioned I deal with graphics designers all the time, I even go into high res graphics and will change artwork pixel by pixel. there are too many pixels there... As an engineer 300 and greater dpi resolution and error is not unfamiliar to me. and in the document because of a three tier effect is why I used it, again the there were two letters that jumped out as mentioned the J and T in subject. notice how there was no other very deviant pixilation changes. and notice the symmetry of the T. then look at the E. then if you go to the OETR the E has the same effect but the T doesn't.

I did not see the plural people getting the jobs, Dan I do not worry about if he was making 6 million a year. is M Cuban a liberal billionaire? Please back this claim up.

Now I do not believe this is an original document printed with the Selectric that the others were arguing. That was the debate, I am stating that this is a scanned document that including the mysterious J in the upper left could be explained with. Please explain this we shall call the "flying J" with your thinking faxing pixilation. I have done faxes and scans for years and never seen such an example of a mysterious flying J.

also who could have written the subject matter so (pardon me) on t with what the secretary remembered was going on. How does one explain that and the correct signature.

Ok, in an effort to actually address the questions posed for debate here by Inventor which were...........

what are the facts we have to date. what are the theories backed by the facts you can present. 3, Will Dan Rather get his day in court? Does he deserve one and what is going to be his legal strategy.

Now, I may be mistaken (having not been the captain of my grade school chess team), but it sure seems to me that these questions center around Dan Rather's lawsuit against CBS for a breach of contract. That alleged breach has very little or even nothing to do with the actual veracity of the documents he used in his report about Bush's National Guard service. Rather (no pun intended), it has everything to do with the journalistic standards and practices followed by Dan Rather in presenting this story on national television. He was at the time, a managing editor for CBS News and it's most recognizable on-air persona. As such, he had the responsibility to his employer (CBS) to uphold the high standards of professional journalism set by those who came before him - Edward R. Murrow and Walter Chronkite. When he failed to meet that burden, CBS had no choice but to replace him.

And, in this case, he failed and failed miserably. From the Los Angeles Times, hardly a bastion of conservatism, we get this.....



That's the entire crux of the lawsuit cited by Inventor in his opening post and as the subject of this debate. Now, we can sit around and argue fonts and spacing and OCR until the cows come home (or Jaime puts this thread out of it's misery, whichever comes first), but it's not germane to Dan Rather's lawsuit. Not in the least. What is germane and the key question in this lawsuit was whether or not Dan Rather followed the sound, ethical and rigorous journalistic standards expected of him when CBS hired him as an anchor and managing editor. Clearly he did not, and thus he was the one who breached his contract. He'll get his day in court, but at the end of that day, he's going to lose.


Aquilla

Oh for the record I did only draw with one of the best chess players one of our national labs had as a child. darn I did not win or lose. hey but they thought it was a significant feat that I won an award for a draw. to my knowledge no other person beat him or drew with him at that tournament.

Now lets see what the crux of the lawsuit is from a different source. the article I cited. Gee the Washington Post has Geogre Will for heavens sake so that makes anything they print unbiased liberal? And the LA times has at least owner/ person who is so far to the right.





now why did dan fight back and why did he keep quiet after it.... this does not sound like he agreed the information was not accurate.


now for another in the medias perspective that comes close to mine on where this can reach .
http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/20...t/index_np.html


here is the teeth behind my exact premise... he just writes better than I.



I think I inferred this too: and I have inferred he will go after the president to testify.



boy if this first bolded part ends up being proved in court CBS is going to be paying some big money.... huge....... turns out the hired investigators were people who owed Bush 1. I bet they were very independent ha...

I haven't used OCR much, not since I worked in a law office.

So, advanced OCR software can keep a signature. Great.

- Who scanned the document? No one anywhere has claimed to have done so.
- In what decade was it scanned?
- Do you trust the chain of custody for these memos, given that no one ever found "Lucy Ramirez?"

I'd buy something as fantastic as, say, the whole episode was engineered by the right-wing conspiracy who created fake documents and planted them. But there is no way I'm not buying that these documents are even close to real. No one believes that.

Back to the lawsuit, you do understand that it's not my job or anyone else's to prove the documents false. It is a reporter's duty to prove that they are real. Before they broadcast the story. That's the journalistic standard, and why the bitter fantacist Ms. Mapes is out of work, and why Mr. Rather is employed by Billionaire liberal media mogul Mark Cuban.

First what is journalistic integrity, why do they have to prove they are real..... FOX argued in court that they have in essence have a constitutional right to lie in the media. That they have no obligation to tell the truth. Now if we work via the Fox Liars doctrine, the right has no right to complain about anything put on the media. and the right has no right to demand retractions and lies are to be the norm. with that said your chain of custody in not needed for use in the media as a credible source, it may be for a definitive in the legal arena to give the death penalty, but may not be needed for reasonable standards.

In the specific lawsuit descriptions from what I have read and posed support documents to it is not the issue of the documents being false, that no document to date from as they put it from a credible source has shown that these documents were not accurate. That in fact the investigator hired by CBS (CBS had a monetary-political agenda to help Bush) found even more evidence to support the documents credibility. That is not the proving issue of the lawsuit. That document proving will be done because Dan will ie as pointed out he is not going to settle, he is going to want his discovery. But the essence is they trashed Dan to meet with their goals of getting the republicans elected which will support their political and monetary objectives of more monopilization of the media.

Next please prove unsupported statement Mark Cuban is a liberal media mogul. Because the Washington Post employs George Will it is a right wing media seems to be your implication.

Well, for starters, here is an outline of guideliines from the Society of Professional Journalists. It's just a guide, other media outlets have their own set of rules. For example, here are the rules for the LA Times. Journalists who work for the LA Times are expected to adhere to those rules or they can be terminated for cause. I'm sure CBS has their own standards as well. Moving on......




Oh please.... Not the Akre case that has the whacklib bloggers' panties in an bunch. Jane Akre and her husband were fired by a FOX affiliate for refusing the present both sides of an investigative story they were doing on Bovine Growth Hormone (BGH). Monsanto Corporation responded to their allegations about BGH and they refused to air the response, claiming it was "lies". From the code of ethics cited above.....



They refused to do that and they were fired for it. They filed a wrongful termination lawsuit citing the Florida whistle blower law and the appeals court ruled in FOX's favor because the language in the statute didn't apply in this case. There was no criminal wrong-doing on the part of FOX which is required for the whistle blower statute to be invoked. FOX argued that they had the right to enforce ethical standards on their journalists and that Akre had violated those standards. Thus she was fired for cause. The court agreed. Sheesh, talk about distorting something....... Moving along.....




You're sure getting a lot of milage in this thread and the other one from one single op-ed piece written by Sidney (Vast Right Wing Conspiracy) Blumenthal. The problem ole Dan is going to have in this lawsuit, should it ever go to trial will be his own words........



So, was he lying then? Or is he lying now?


Aquilla

Aquilla answered this, and I hope you respond.

Dude, Dan Rather himself doesn't believe in the documents. He has concerns about how they got them, or as I called it, the "chain of custody." The guy who gave Rather these documents is not credible.




We are reaching a point where you are either delusional or dishonest. To be fair, Mary Mapes is right there with you, but seriously, no one believes that those documents are real. No one. A mentally ill guy named Bill Birkett who says he had arranged to meet "Lucy Ramirez" at a livestock show in Houston, but a "dark complected" guy came instead and handed him an envelope with documents. Which Birkett then faxed to Mapes from Kinko's. Seriously. Oh, and they just happen to be a perfect match for MS Word (for everyone except you). Please. To believe in this, you have to be mentally ill.



Well, he's certainly a media mogul, a billionaire who controls media production and broadcast. To be fair Cuban is more of a libertarian, a la Ayn Rand. I wasn't saying that he was liberal for employing Rather. Simply that he's not a right-wing guy, since you say that they control everything.

Now, will you please acknowledge that the documents are fakes? You will feel better, I promise.

?easy was he was required/requested by management to state that in a compromise. He was not the president or the decider.. Or even false information was presented by the management that was later found to have no credibility.

so back to the threshold issue of what is required by journalist. Your society one is nice, does Rush, O"riely, Hannity, King, Savage et al abide by those? Do they have jobs?
http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/2000Q4/lawsuit.html

Remember FOX Lost in the trial.... again a jury decided...



Again they testified to the effect that they did not want to lose an advertiser that could cost then advertising all across the USA. they would rather lie and potentially let people die if the drug is dangerous. just that one market was $50,000.00 potential loss in advertising.

this was later overturned on a technicality because there for whitleblower status, there must be a law that is broken. and as Fox argued they have the right to lie and mislead all they want. again lying on TV is not against the law, rule or regulation....
http://www.organicconsumers.org/rbgh/akre022103.cfm



if you want to play this type of delusional or dishonest type of debate, let me put it this way, you have the right to call a career guard person any name you want. I think he could be a bit smarter than you? Think about it he already has his get out of jail free card with your statements. How else do you release guard records you do not have the right to without going to jail. What a delema... as I said, I think you just gave him his get out of jail free card. so is he smarter than you now? Also he claimed a bush adviser came in and cleansed Bushes files, if I remember (read many years ago about this so no documentation) he stated there was a garbage can full of documents that wasn't before this guy was in the room. So is it a crime to remove documents that are in the garbage?

lets look from your loony proposal side, can a incompetent person fax or copy records he found in the military files? Does that make those documents not real?

Again you also miss the point these documents all fit in with the military jargon of the times, and the specific situation with EXACT proper timing. the probability of no date problems or not being consistent including with the secretary official response of remembering those specific issues. the probability of that is slim to none. I did not see the anyone say Killians secretary was lying. So just her word un-opposed with a second person also remembering those events is fine with me, when her recollection was not disputed, granted she was not under oath, but Bush could have put a federal prosecutor after her if he wanted.

The issues of the documents still ring true, Dan would not spend these legal fees that will hit the 10s of millions if he was not sure....

This is like deja vu all over again - Yogi Berra

Not going to even bother cutting and pasting Inventor's latest post. No need to since he has once again made the same mistake in his premise that he did to start this thread. The Rather case and the Akre case are both about contractual obligations to which each agreed with they took their respective jobs. In Rather's case, he was required to verify that information he reported on the air as truth was indeed truth. He failed in performing that verification process and was thus in violation of his contract with CBS. In Akre's case she was required to follow FOX's journalistic standards, one of which was to present both sides of the story, and she refused to do so. Thus, she too was in violation of her contract. End of case. and Deja Vu.

Aquilla

inventor, that was not a "loony proposal." That was one of Birkett's stories when Mapes asked him where the documents came from. It is quite literally fantastic.

None of the people you list are journalists. The are pundits, and commentators. Dan Rather is supposed to be a journalist. He's got rules. He failed them.

Still Ring True... You mean to say Fake But Accurate. Just like Scott Beauchamp?

the so called she refused to abide by foxs standards as you state was arbitrated and decided by a jury....
here is the fact you keep neglecting, it is a fact that Fox lost the case when determined by a jury. that is a fact. It is a fact that Fox won on a appeal to what must be the right wing judges who legislate from the bench that Fox argued ""There is no law, rule or regulation against slanting the news," he told the judge." thus winning the appeal because to win a whiltsle blower case in Florida one must have employer's misconduct must be a violation of an adopted law, rule or regulation. Again do you understand from those facts.... do you understand Fox argued and won saying they can slant the news to any degree they want, are they really journalists?.

Now for Rather, his case is very different, he claims they negotiated specific conditions for continued employment at that time which included him giving the statement/apology and accepting them to do other things to rectify the incident. You are saying they were terminating him for his actions per contract for the past action. Let me put it this way, that would be considered bargaining in bad faith on CBS part which is actionable if damages occur because you rely on their false and misleading statements.. if you are firing someone you do not offer him another contract with a larger raise. those are two contradictory issues that can not be combined. If they did such an action to further their ratings and to get in with the white house for political gain they bargained in bad faith and would taken to the cleaners by a good lawyer. See you do not offer raises if you believe a person has violated any significant contractual terms. If you do you may be waiving your right to enforce.


you miss my other point, whether a loony from the national guard as you describe him faxes you a document, does it change the document? IE even a loony can fax a document... does it make it a bad document because it was faxed by a career member of the national guard? even if he had 8 personalities?



and here I thought the correct answer is only liberals are journalists... hahahahah gee it really seems that is what you are saying, liberals are journalists, conservatives are repugnant, did you say? No you said pundits... so you are saying nothing on Fox is journalism? nothing on CNN is journalism? only the networks talking heads are journalists. And a independent show is it news or investigative reporting 60 minutes is not pundits and commentators?

Hey we are talking about 40 year old documents, and how the military keeps them is to be determined.... Note the military NEVER stepped in and said they were or were not actual documents.... Amazing how the commander and chief did not request a full investigation? to this date...

if a document goes through a shredder and is put together scanned and faxed to you is it real? If the military OCRs all their documents are they real in any fashion when printed?

I can play the scott game... for a better example of the starters would be the paid for shows by the government by was it Armstrong Williams or maybe the male escort service owner provider turned journalist Gannon with a weekend religions course for his journalism degree for top white house passed by a no one, was it 300 or 400 back door passes so to speak. But this was in both cases just fake not accurate so not as good as you example you got me on that one, and these were acting on both cases with the endorsement and permission and one definitely but possibly both of these were paid services of the white house.

You probably ought to stop throwing rocks in the water there, Inventor, you're making it pretty muddy. Let's see if I can do my "green good deed" for the day and clean up the river.......

Fox's argument in the Akre case was purely a legal argument over a point of law. They didn't say that they slanted the news story in question. Rather they said that even if they did it would be immaterial in this case because the law it was based on didn't apply. That's called arguing the law and lawyers do that with appeals court judges. With juries, sometimes they argue the emotions, and that's why we have an appeals process.


Now, with Rather, well, you've misstated and distorted that one too. (again) I've read his filing, all 32 pages of it. He isn't claiming that he was fired by CBS before his contract expired because he wasn't. What he is claiming "damaged him" was being removed as the CBS Anchor (and overall big man on campus) and relegated to lesser roles. This gave him less air time to use fabricated evidence to smear Republicans. He claimed nothing in this story was his fault because he didn't do anything in this story other than read it and make people believe it was true. He wasn't fired from his contract, he certainly wasn't offered an extension or a raise either. (not a clue where you came up with that one). Actually, I do have a clue, but I won't say it here....

CBS has yet to file a response to this suit, at least I haven't found it, but I suspect they will claim they were forced to remove Rather from the anchor position and re-assign him because he had lost all credibility with their viewers. Depending on the exact wording in Rather's contract that could very well be a breach on Rather's part.


Aquilla

When you propsed your argument it was weak. Now that you've, just like CBS, completely lost the argument you've shown yourself to be a really bad argument maker.

Fox and CNN both have actual News people. You just didn't mention any. I can't possibly unravel the rest of the point since it isn't a point as much as a very very dull and smooth muddy rock.

Your next homophobia laced point, I mean pointless, is just some latent paranoia.

As for Bushco not caring about the documents in question enough to call for any investigation - THEY ARE SUCH HORRENDOUS FAKES THERE IS NO POINT IN EVEN CONSIDERING THEM.