Rather Sticky: Dan Rather Sues CBS in the Interest of "Freedom of the Press"

Longtime news anchor Dan Rather is suing CBS for $70 million, alleging he was forced to step down as the network succombed to outside pressure after a "60 Minutes" story ran in 2004 questioning President Bush's service record. Rather said in an interview with Larry King on CNN, "You can't have freedom of the press if you're going to have large, big corporations and big government intruding and intimidating in newsrooms. The chilling effect on investigative reporting is going to be something we don't want to see."

Good for him!!

I've been a journalist since 1984, working either freelance or on staff for a daily newspaper, a monthly general-interest magazine, two monthly business magazines, a weekly business newspaper, three weekly trade magazines and two business Web sites. I can attest that there can be a nasty level of pressure and sometimes downright interference from corporations, politicians, unions, associations and other organizations to not make them look bad.

Some examples, some of which involved me, some of which involved colleagues:

* One publisher pulled a cover photo right before it went to press because the cover photo included a prop that happened to be a brand that competed with a major advertiser.

* Many more than one editor has called a reporter on the carpet for not including a major advertiser in a round-up article, or for writing something that made a major advertiser look bad. In one case, the reporter deliberately did not include what was said about that advertiser because all comments were negative and he didn't think they were particularly justified, but the editor, even after hearing that, lambasted him anyway.

* I once wrote a story about a company that had done illegal things, gotten kicked off of a government project and banned from doing business with that government entity. The CEO deliberately lied to me -- I asked certain questions every conceivable way, knowing the answer, and he denied, denied, denied -- but I had all of my facts confirmed from the right sources. He said to me, "You're going to hurt my business if you write about this!" I told him I was reporting on what had happened on a government contract, which was public information. After the story ran, the CEO called my editor and complained and, unbeknownst to me, got my editor to agree not to have me cover his company after that.

Probably a year and a half later, that CEO and I were at the same conference, went into the bar at the hotel where the conference was, I let him vent, I told him my side of things, we hugged and made up and we've been pals ever since. (His business is now thriving, by the way.) He's the one who told me that he'd asked my editor to take me off of covering his company, which my editor had subtly done. I thought that was pretty skeevy on the part of my editor, who usually stood up for his reporters. So much for taking a stand for the truth.

Should subjects be able to dictate who in the media covers them? No way! Barry Manilow was scheduled to appear on "The View" last week, but requested that anyone but co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck interview him. "View" producers refused and Manilow did not appear. Whether it was his idea to cancel or theirs, I like the idea that someone couldn't dictate who interviewed him. (And I do like Barry Manilow.)

And don't even get me started on news organizations paying sources for interviews, a la Paris Hilton recently when she got out of jail. I was delighted when the sordid pay-to-play offer that NBC allegedly made to Hilton came to light, which an embarrassed NBC denied...sort of. ABC also supposedly made an offer but both networks ended up passing, no doubt to try to salvage their reputations, as it's a huge, HUGE no-no for legitimate news organizations to pay for interviews. No doubt that's eroding too. It's coming out that "certain fees" are negotiated at times to pay for certain expenses the subjects may incur. Geez.

On the positive side, one of my editors wrote a rather critical cover story about our biggest advertiser, knowing that their annual advertising contract was up for renewal the next month. To their credit, the advertiser renewed.

It's not unusual for publications to give positive coverage to major advertisers. I've always been lucky to work for pubs that subscribed to the philosophy that there should be a rigid line between church and state. But advertisers sometimes end up getting positive press because the sales person talks with the company, hears something interesting and passes it along to a reporter. Pressure from sales people usually hasn't netted anything but a little slap on the hand of the sales person. Most understand that it's the independence of the reporters that gives legitimacy to whatever positive press a company gets.

Every corporation has its politics. Every news organization has to weigh the risks and rewards of every story. The best illustration of this was well documented in the true-story movie The Insider, starring Al Pacino and Russell Crowe. It's about what (ironically) CBS went through when "60 Minutes" went after the tobacco industry for lying about cigarettes not being addictive via an interview with a research chemist whistleblower. Terrific movie! Really shows, fairly realistically, in my view, the passion, the angst and the behind-the-scenes discussions, arguments and blow-ups when corporate politics are involved.

Most corporations get away with their politics inside the organization. It's just the way they do business. Most don't consider that they even play politics, which ihs a political play itself. The fact that Dan Rather, a truly credible newsman, is bringing CBS's corporate politics into light, whether he wins or loses, is already a big win for journalism. And God knows, in this day of eroding freedom of the press, we can use all the help we can get.