Via TVNewser, Lloyd Grove reports that Don Hewitt told a panel yesterday that Dan Rather should have been fired over the CBS-National Guard incident:
CBS legend Don Hewitt hasn’t been shy about criticizing Dan Rather, but the grand old man of “60 Minutes” had stopped short of publicly recommending termination for the central figure in CBS News’ painful 2004 Memogate flap.
Until yesterday.“Should Dan Rather have been fired?” Time magazine managing editor Jim Kelly asked the 83-year-old Hewitt during a Court TV journalism panel at Michael’s.
“Yes,” Hewitt answered. He suggested that the 74-year-old Rather – a “60 Minutes” correspondent since stepping down last March as “Evening News” anchor – was politically motivated in airing a controversial pre-election report on President Bush’s National Guard service.
“I have a built-in bias against reporters who have axes to grind,” Hewitt said. “I think there are reporters that allow their own bias to encroach on their journalism, and that’s a crime against journalism.”
Hewitt’s a little too harsh here. Bias is unavoidable, which is why reporters should drop the pretense of neutrality. Isn’t the real crime against journalism the fact that Rather used fake documents to advance his agenda?