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Is Dan Rather right to accuse Katie Couric of dumbing down and tarting up the news?
Results so far:
| No | 47% | 107 votes | Total: 226 votes | |
| Yes | 53% | 119 votes |
No
by Raul Mitterand
Created on: June 18, 2007 Last Updated: April 05, 2012
Dan Rather is an accomplished journalist who has spent many years covering wars, presidents, kings and queens, and always prided himself on being ethical. It is a sad shame that his rather illustrious career went down in flames just because he decided to run with a story on President George W. Bush, a story that had no merits and was clearly not true.
Perhaps it was the CBS corporation that pressured him to run with the story, having bought into the media frenzy of Bush bashing. I don't mind to bash the imbecile from time to time, but let's be fair: he IS the president of the free world, and deserves respect where respect is due. As a moral human being, I don't mind what people say about me, I mind more when lies are spread and people tend to believe a lie more than truth itself.
That is exactly what happened here, and Dan Rather has had to succumb his career on a rather sour note. Perhaps we can conclude that he is a man's man, very macho, and did things his way regardless of the consequences. Now that he has had his time in the limelight, he does not like the proverbial light being shone on him, the way he has put the light on subjects he covered in the past. I suppose one can conjecture that Dan Rather is very bitter, and is willing to bring down ANY journalist that stands in his way.
I don't care for Katie Couric either way, but I believe in people, trusting what they do more than what they say, as one's actions determine what they do in life, not necessarily the words they speak. Katie Couric is a fantastic journalist in her own right, having suffered the loss of her husband and friend, and having to raise her children without him- that alone makes her a great woman in my book. I don't think she is responsible for the dumbing down of America, rather America is forcing her to dumb down.
I believe since the freedom of the 60's, American began sliding towards a sort of moral decline, partly because of a need to shake up the establishment of racism and prejudice, and it was simply time to usher in a new era of thinking. Unfortunately no one was minding the store when all this changing was taking place, and now our era of over-political correctness and low morals on television and other media has taken a stronghold in all our daily lives. I used to think that art imitated life, now. .I am not so sure.
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Yes
by Roberto Alvarez-Galloso
Created on: March 04, 2009
The question is not whether Dan Rather was right in accusing Katie Couric of dumbing down and tarting up the news. The question is whether the Mainstream Media in the United States of America is dumbed down and tarted up to begin with.
Before continuing with the comments, I would like to remind people of how KLAS TV Reporter Polly Gonzalez once confronted Dan Rather on the lack of minorities in US Mainstream Media.
While Dan Rather was right in his accusations, he has no right in accusing Katie Couric since most of the people in the US Mainstream Media have been doing it for a long time. What are the examples.
Instead of allowing Libertarians and Greens to participate in serious political debates, it appears that the US Mainstream Media was more concerned with the amount of clothes used by Alaska Governor Sarah Palin when she was the Vice Presidential Nominee of the Republican Party during the 2008 Elections.
There have been other examples such as the publicity given to American Idol, Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, and how some Radio and TV Presenters have made themselves look like total fools for their presentation style. We also have one presenter who sniffed her own armpits while giving the news.
Antonia Zerbisias wrote in the Toronto Star about the comments of BBC Reporter Michael Buerk. Mr. Buerk commented about the men and women who report from their hotel room where the news was given instead of where the action is. He has repeatedly said that a "dumbed down news" would lead to a "flawed" democracy because of ill informed people being unable to make a choice.
Mr. Buerk also referred to the how today's journalists have become the "cult of celebrity" with their every moves detected even by the gossip columnists. The words described by Mr. Buerk for the news of today's Western World is coarser, shallower, insensitive, inaccurate, and more trivial with each passing year".
It is a shame that the West including the United States of America supposedly is one of the greatest powers of the world yet the media does not reflect that. In fact, the media has played a part in discrediting the United States of America before its very eyes.
I have often said that if people wanted serious news, they can go to CRI [China Radio International], VOR [Voice of Russia], Press TV, Radio Prague, Radio Polonia, Vatican Radio, KBS [Korean Broadcasting Corporation], Liberty News Network [Libertarian Party of America], Merinews, and IRIB [Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting].
If I want a news that is dumbed down or comedy, CNN as well as CBS and ABC would do wonders.
Reference:
http://www.commondre ams.org/views05/0301 -29.htm
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