Former CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather, whose career at the network came to an end after he erroneously reported on President George W. Bush’s service in the Texas Air National Guard, stood firm in an interview with CNN’s Reliable Sources host Brian Stelter on Sunday in his claim that he was correct:
We reported the truth. We reported a true story, a factual story. We could be faulted and should be faulted, but look, this was the darkest period of my professional career, because we were not perfect in the way we got this story. But we got to the truth, we got to facts.
Rather blamed the “propaganda machine” for successfully changing the subject from the “facts” to how they obtained the story, admitting that they were “vulnerable” on the documents—the same documents that were central to Rather’s charges against Bush, because their source changed his story.
“Truth,” which is based on former CBS News producer Mary Mapes’ book on the story that led to her firing as well as Rather’s retirement, is nothing more than an attempt by the Hollywood propaganda machine to rewrite history and rehabilitate Rather, who has been relegated to little-watched cable television programs and has been largely forgotten in the last 10 years.
Despite the star power of Robert Redford and Cate Blanchett, “Truth” is bombing at the box office, having taken in a little over $1 million to date and, more telling, averaging a paltry $781 per screen in its first week of wide release.
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