Proof that CBS managment tossed Rather out to please outsiders, would help provide information that could be useful in a class action suit against the newspapers.
It would be similar to someone finding paperwork that seemed to establish that Hitler's invasion of Poland was premeditated and then subsequently found the paperwork to be counterfeit and stated that the bogus paperwork proved positively that Hitler hadn't invaded Poland at all.
Voting machines. Did the two newspaper continue to ignore the distinct possibility that the machines were vulnerable and that subsequently the election results could be tipped into a victory for the loosing candidate? Did they accept unquestioningly the reassurances of the party that stood to benefit by any such deception? Was that in accord with the principles of basic journalism or was it . . .
Did newspapers provide as much cheerleader like enthusiasm as Jim Cramer did? Is so, wasn't the Real estate bubble and all the ensuing trouble just as much their fault as Cramer's?
Did any respectable member of the media do any research on what constituted a war crime and look up any precedents which had been established at Nuremberg? If not, isn't such background information and related material usually relevant to complete coverage of a story? Why were such stories dropped from the pre war news coverage? So, why did they forget the basics of Journalism 101 and commit an error that favored George W. Bush rather than the steps that they would have been taught in a college journalism course?
Has journalism recovered their old enthusiasm for antagonizing the politicians who mislead and deceive the public? Do those two newspapers seem to be on the AIG bonus story in a manner that could call up images of the great Oklahoma land rush, or are they just reverting to the old stenography is journalism in action modus operandi?
Were citizens harmed by the lack of aggressive high quality journalism during the Bush era? American soldiers got killed and folks lost their retirement nest egg in droves. That should qualify as a "yes" answer.
Is it time for people to join together and mount a class action suit against these two newspapers? We've asked a lawyer and were advised to put the facts into a column and see if any of the readers would endorse the class action move, and, also, to see if any lawyer who specialized in class action suits, thought that there were sufficient grounds to merit a class action suit.
This column is meant to be a quick on-line read, but if there is an enthusiastic response to it, many of the quick points made, could be expanded into much more specific information and more detailed sections in a longer article.
We will keep a close eye on the comments posted in response to this column and also check our e-mails. If the reaction to this column warrants it, we will update the audience about it in another column in the future. If, on the other hand, we get no encouragement along these lines, then, perhaps, it will be time to spend more time writing columns about other more innocuous topics.
To be continued . . .
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