A look back to 1991

[A. Joseph Ross]

On 12 Jul 2004 at 22:49, Kevin Vahey wrote:

> CBS Television went off the air saying Princess Di was resting 
> comfortably in a Paris hospital

Well, I've had a pretty low opinion of CBS news for some time already.  One evening during 
the Gulf War in 1991, after the first Iraqi hits against Israel, Dan Rather reported that Israeli 
retaliation was under way.  He was the only one reporting that, and he was saying it very 
positively.  No other network reported the retaliation, since there was none.  Eventually, 
Rather simply stopped reporting it -- never saying they'd been wrong, just dropping the story.

Then there was the story I've told before in this forum of how WEEI falsely claimed to be 
covering Dukakis's walk down the Statehouse steps in January 1979.  On the day Ed King 
was inaugurated as governor, at noon, Dukakis made the traditional walk of an outgoing 
governor down the main Statehouse steps.  I was there watching.  On the transistor radio in 
my pocket, I heard WEEI carry the CBS network news on the hour.  By the time the network 
news was over, Dukakis had left, the crowd had dissipated, and WEEI came on and said 
that Dukakis was about to make the traditional walk down the Statehouse steps.  And then 
they pretended to be covering it live.

-- 
A. Joseph Ross, J.D.                           617.367.0468
 15 Court Square, Suite 210                 lawyer@attorneyross.com
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