The great Dan Rather weighed in on WSJ’s Gerard Bakers comment on Sunday’s Meet The Press.
On Facebook, Rather blasted Baker by opening with “A lie, is a lie, is a lie.”
“Journalism, as I was taught it, is a process of getting as close to some valid version of the truth as is humanly possible. And one of my definitions of news is information that the powerful don’t want you to know,” Rather wrote.
The Editor of the second largest newspaper in the US said he was not going to call a lie a lie, and while Chuck todd might have been inspired, Dan Rather was not having any of it and he posted on facebook”
“It is not the proper role of journalists to meet lies—especially from someone of Mr. Trump’s stature and power—by hiding behind semantics and euphemisms. Our role is to call it as we see it, based on solid reporting. When something is, in fact, a demonstrable lie, it is our responsibility to say so,” he continued. “As I have said before and will say as long as people are willing to listen, this is a gut check moment for the press. We are being confronted by versions of what are claimed to be ‘the truth’ that resemble something spewed out by a fertilizer-spreader in a wind tunnel.
With all the upside downism since November 8th, for Gods sakes, we need to make sure that we don’t blur the lines on what is a lie. Actually the upside downism has been going on for a long time before Nov 8th but its been on a frightening pace since then.