A decade after Dan Rather’s career ended over an attempt to pass off forged documents about President Bush’s military service, Robert Redford is working on a movie about the case. The movie is based on CBS producer Mary Mapes’ book “Truth”, which denies the truth that the documents were not written on a 70s typewriter, but in Microsoft Word.
That scandal led to the coining of the phrase, “Fake, but Accurate”. Ten years later, they’re still fake but accurate.
Rathergate has many similarities to the Rolling Stone rape hoax. Both ignored the basic rules of journalism to pursue a narrative. The narrative was so full of holes that bloggers and even casual readers realized that something was wrong and stepped in where the professional journalists had failed.
The difference is that Rolling Stone has even less investment in its journalistic credibility than CBS did. The principals will not be forced out. Their work may have been fake, but it was still accurate.
Modern lefty media journalism is more interested in narratives than in facts. The specific facts of a case may be fake, but that doesn’t matter as long as the narrative is accurate.
It had always felt compellingly true to them that President Bush dodged military service or otherwise benefited from undue influence. It was the perfect finishing touch for their arguments against the Iraq War. It made their position the righteous and patriotic one. It was the perfect note on which to begin the rise of President Kerry. It was so emotionally and ideologically compelling that it had to be true.