Dan Rather Files $70 Million Dollar Lawsuit Against CBS!
Dan Rather, whose career at CBS News came to a screeching halt 15 months ago over his role in an unsubstantiated report questioning President Bush’s Vietnam-era National Guard service, filed a $70 million lawsuit this afternoon against the network, its corporate parent VIACOM and three of his former bosses.
SHOCKER! Who saw this one coming?
Mr. Rather, 75, asserts that the network violated his contract by giving him insufficient airtime on “60 Minutes†after forcing him to step down as anchor of the “CBS Evening News†in March 2005. He also contends that the network committed fraud by commissioning a “biased†and incomplete investigation of the flawed Guard broadcast and, in the process, “seriously damaged his reputation.†As plaintiffs, the suit names CBS and its chief executive, Leslie Moonves; Viacom and its chief executive, Sumner Redstone; and Andrew Heyward, the former president of CBS News.
In the suit, filed this afternoon in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, Mr. Rather charges that CBS and its executives made him “a scapegoat†in an attempt “to pacify the White House,†though the formal complaint presents virtually no direct evidence to that effect. To buttress this claim, Mr. Rather quotes the executive who oversaw his regular segment on CBS Radio, telling Mr. Rather in November 2004 that he was losing that slot, effective immediately, because of “pressure from ‘the right wing.’ â€
He also continues to take vehement issue with the appointment by CBS of Richard Thornburgh, an attorney general in the administration of the elder President Bush , as one of the two outside panelists given the job of reviewing how the disputed broadcast had been prepared.
Mr. Rather sums up that he was forced to apologize on air, even though he felt no apology was warranted.
Mr. Rather says in the filing that he allowed himself to be reduced to little more than a patsy in the furor that followed, after CBS — and later the outside panel it commissioned — concluded that the report was based on documents that could not be authenticated. Under pressure, Mr. Rather says, he delivered a public apology on his newscast on Sept. 20, 2004 — written not by him but by a CBS corporate publicist — “despite his own personal feelings that no public apology from him was warranted.â€
source: Rather Files $70 Million Suit Against CBS [ny times]; Dan Rather sues CBS for $70 million [CNN]
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