The Dan Rather Angle

1. Noticed on Avweb that Dan Rather (the head of CBS News) owns property
near an airpark in Austin, TX.

2. Over the years Austin land owners have managed to shut down almost all
the GA airports in the area through political wrangling.

3. Story on CBS was not about an airport, but an airpark.

Anyone else suspicious about all this? I don't think this story is about
jounalistic ineptitude, I smell an agenda by Mr. Rather.

Anyone else?

Dan Rather?
Agenda?
Say it isn't true.
Couldn't possibly be.


On Sat, 17 Jan 2004 08:58:36 GMT, "Dude" wrote:

1. Noticed on Avweb that Dan Rather (the head of CBS News) owns property
near an airpark in Austin, TX.

2. Over the years Austin land owners have managed to shut down almost all
the GA airports in the area through political wrangling.

3. Story on CBS was not about an airport, but an airpark.

Anyone else suspicious about all this? I don't think this story is about
jounalistic ineptitude, I smell an agenda by Mr. Rather.

Anyone else?

"Dude" wrote:
1. Noticed on Avweb that Dan Rather (the head of CBS News)

Dan Rather is not the head of CBS news, unless you mean the "talking
head." He has bosses; Andrew Heyward is the president. In light of the
shrill sensationalism in their story about the threat from small
airplanes, pilots will no doubt find some irony in speech he gave a few
years ago to the Radio and Television News Directors Association in Los
Angeles:

"The people out there in America know that life is not as simple as what
they see on the news: a world of heroes and villains, winners and
losers, exploiters and victims, yet that's what we show them, night
after night. We reduce complicated debates over policy to political
slugfests, which we cover as though they were sporting events.
"And when news is over-hyped, a cynical public tunes it out. Over the
years, we've exaggerated so much that we've eroded our own ability to
convey what's truly signficant. If everything is momentous, nothing
stands out."

Anyone else suspicious about all this? I don't think this story is
about
jounalistic ineptitude, I smell an agenda by Mr. Rather.

Mr. Rather is no friend to GA, as evidenced by some of his off-hand
comments during the hoopla over the JFK Jr. crash, but it would be
conceited to think that CBS news cares enough about GA to have an
"agenda" about it. Neither do I think this story was jounalistic
ineptitude; rather, it was cynical, calculated fear-mongering for
ratings.
--
Dan
C172RG at BFM
(remove pants to reply by email)

I learned to fly and first soloed in 1966 at Eagle's Nest (then just Waynesboro
Airport), the location for the CBS report the other night.

I don't need to know whether Dan Rather has an agenda. It's apparent to me that
his editorial style is to transform anything remotely scary into a dire
emergency, just for the sake of jazzing his ratings a little. Pretty
unattractive.

Let's face it, what could be SAFER than a small airport where retired airline
pilots and their families live a few feet away 24/7? Not a likely launch pad
for someone with bad intentions.

David Sproul, Bethesda, MD

"DaveSproul" wrote:
I don't need to know whether Dan Rather has an agenda.
It's apparent to me that his editorial style is to transform
anything remotely scary into a dire emergency, just for the
sake of jazzing his ratings a little.

Exactly. It's what all TV news organizations do. I once saw a funny bit
on Mad TV wherein a TV station desperate for ratings tried to portray
the sun going down as a frightening emergency. On-scene reporters got
street interviews with people saying things like "Yeah, it's sure
getting dark. Kinda makes you nervous."

Pretty unattractive.

Positively disgusting, I'd say.
--
Dan
C172RG at BFM
(remove pants to reply by email)

i can't read this CBS string without encouraging everyone to listen to the song
"rocked by rape" by the band "evolution control comittee". don't let the
title scare you - it's an excellent commentary on the news using dan rather's
own words...

i love the message - and as an audio production person i appreciate the work
that went into it..

http://evolution-control.com/sounds/...l%20Committee%
20-%20Rocked%20By%20Rape.mp3

if that link doesn't work:

http://evolution-control.com/sounds.html

i love the line "a plane crash set an entire neighborhood on fire"...

looks like you'll have to copy and paste the URL

love to hear comments...

http://evolution-control.com/sounds/...l%20Committee%
20-%20Rocked%20By%20Rape.mp3

Excellent . . . thanks for the link. I wonder if Rather has heard it.


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