adorkablex

I think it's a song by REM
Something to do with Kenneth

__________________

fatesfaery

What's the Frequency Kenneth?~REM

As far as I know, the song doesn't have anything to do with Dan Rather....he was attacked in a men's room (or was it the subway?) years ago. The attackers kept saying that line over and over again...
As far as Rather leaving....doesn't matter to me one way or another...our local CBS station seems to go for sensationalism as much as possible, so I never watch CBS news. It's amazing how they can report the same story as other local channels and make it seem sordid.

__________________
Níl gach uile fhánaí caillte

janelle

It was so funny on election night and Rather was trying his darndest to figure how Kerry could win. He was calculating every which way. LOL

I told hubby to turn him off cause he would be at it all night. I wanted to see his face when he declared Bush the winner but he just calculated for hours. Ho Hum. LOL

YNKYH8R

CBS News anchor Dan Rather, renowned for his unusual expressions and sayings, has led a colorful life. However, one bizarre event really takes the cake.
One night in October 1986, Rather was walking down a Manhattan street when he was punched from behind and thrown to the ground. His assailant kicked and beat him while repeating, "Kenneth, what is the frequency?"

No one could explain the event, and the rumors flew fast and wide. Some speculated the assailant was a KGB agent, while others claimed the attack was the work of a jealous husband. Rather himself couldn't shed any light on the subject. His explanation at the time?

I got mugged. Who understands these things? I didn't and I don't now. I didn't make a lot of it at the time and I don't now. I wish I knew who did it and why, but I have no idea.
Apparently the strange event moved R.E.M. singer Michael Stipe, who said of the incident:

It remains the premier unsolved American surrealist act of the 20th century. It's a misunderstanding that was scarily random, media hyped and just plain bizarre.
The attack inspired the 1994 R.E.M. hit "What's the Frequency, Kenneth." Being a good sport, Dan Rather even accompanied the band when they performed the song on a Late Show with David Letterman appearance.

In 1997, based on a tip from a psychiatrist, Rather's attacker was identified as William Tager. According to the psychiatrist, Tager, who was currently serving time for killing an NBC stagehand, blamed news media for beaming signals into his head, and thought if he could just find out the correct frequency, he could block those signals that were constantly assailing him. Hence the enigmatic inquiry.

__________________
ARMPIT

Jolie Rouge

BLOGGERS WIN THEIR AIR ATTACK VS. DAN
Wed Nov 24, 2:27 AM ET
Op/Ed - New York Post
By DEBORAH ORIN [/i]

WASHINGTON - CBS anchor Dan Rather's discharge under less than honorable circumstances is the icing on the 2004 election cake for a lot of Republicans who see him as the icon of liberal media bias.

It's also a dramatic sign of the Internet-fueled revolution that means the old "mainstream media," such as CBS and The New York Times, can no longer set the terms of political debate, as they did just a few years ago. CBS and the Times tried, but failed, to dismiss challenges to Democrat John Kerry's Vietnam War service from the anti-Kerry Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. The Internet helped the group make its case.

Now Rather is going out in ignominy because of his "60 Minutes" report using fabricated memos from a discredited source to question President Bush's National Guard service.

The story was quickly torn apart by Internet bloggers, who produced convincing evidence that the memos were forged. Some anti-Rather bloggers now fume that he is still getting away with murder, and that there is a CBS cover-up because he's keeping his job on "60 Minutes."

But go back four years to the 2000 presidential election, in the pre-blogger era, and Rather would likely have gotten away with his phony story and it could have tilted the election against Bush. Instead, because of the bloggers, the story backfired, boosting Bush by revving up his supporters. "The Michael Moores and Dan Rathers of the world attacking Bush kept the Republican base motivated and helped get out the vote, and that's why, to some extent, I'm actually sorry to see him go," said GOP pollster Jim McLaughlin.

Republican strategist Rich Galen put it this way: "The problem with Rather is that he insisted his view was not just a view but the only view. But now the marketplace is deciding who people will read and who people will believe."

__________________
Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?

Technologist

Sounds like a lot of people I know.... LOL!

Jolie Rouge

moi ??

__________________
Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?

Jolie Rouge

RATHER’S RESIGNATION BASED ON FALSE INFORMATION

Internal CBS Memo a Phony, Anchor Reveals Veteran CBS anchorman withdrew his resignation from the network’s evening newscast today, revealing that his decision to resign had been based on information that later turned out to be false.

Mr. Rather said that he only decided to resign after obtaining an internal CBS report blasting him for his role in the network’s recent “Memogate” scandal, but then later discovered that the report itself was a forgery.

When he made the startling discovery, Mr. Rather said, “My face was redder than my Aunt Mabel’s rhubarb pie.”

The veteran newsman indicated that he first suspected that the internal CBS report might be bogus when he saw that it had been faxed from a Kinko’s copy center in Canoga Park, California, and was typed on Holiday Inn stationery.

But the embattled anchor’s attempt to reclaim his nightly newscast may be doomed, one network insider said, because CBS chairman Les Moonves “has already changed the locks.”

According to the insider, security personnel at CBS’ broadcast facility have been instructed to nab Mr. Rather if he attempts to enter the building and have been warned to “be on the lookout for a 73-year-old white man disguised as a Mujahideen.”

While Mr. Rather’s days in the CBS anchor chair may be at an end, associates of the newscaster believe that he may begin a new career at the Central Intelligence Agency, where his ability to gather phony information is said to be highly regarded.

Elsewhere, U.S. forces searching a bomb-making factory in Falluja over the weekend discovered the screenplay of the movie “Alexander.”

www.borowitzreport.com/default.asp

__________________
Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?

Jolie Rouge

CBS Fires Four Staffers After Memo Probe
By DAVID BAUDER

NEW YORK (AP) - Four CBS News staffers were fired Monday following the release of an independent investigation that said a ``myopic zeal'' led to the airing of a discredited story about President Bush's military service.

The panel's 224-page report detailed dozens of missteps, including the reliance on documents that were allegedly forged to a circle-the-wagons mentality that compounded the damage.

CBS fired Mary Mapes, producer of the report aired Sept. 8 on ``60 Minutes Wednesday''; Josh Howard, executive producer of the show; his top deputy Mary Murphy; and senior vice president Betsy West.

Dan Rather, who narrated the report, was faulted for ``errors of credulity and overenthusiasm,'' but was not disciplined by top CBS executive Leslie Moonves. Rather announced in November that he was stepping down as anchorman of the ``CBS Evening News,'' but insisted the timing had nothing to do with the investigation.

CBS News President Andrew Heyward kept his job. The panel said Heyward had explicitly urged caution before the report aired.

Moonves had appointed former Republican Attorney General Dick Thornburgh and Louis D. Boccardi, retired president and chief executive officer of The Associated Press, to investigate what went wrong. They delivered their report last week. ``These problems were caused primarily by a myopic zeal to be the first news organization to broadcast what was believed to be a new story about President Bush's Texas Air National Guard service, and the rigid and blind defense of the segment after it aired despite numerous indications of its shortcomings,'' the panelists concluded.

Boccardi and Thornburgh said they could find no evidence to conclude the report - aired two months before Bush won re-election - was politically motivated.

The report cited documents purported to be from one of Bush's commanders in the Texas Air National Guard. The documents say the commander, the late Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, ordered Bush to take a medical exam and the future president did not. Killian also reportedly felt pressured to sugarcoat an evaluation of then 1st Lt. Bush.

Questions were quickly raised about the memo. Some document experts said a font used in the document appeared to have been created on a computer and not on any typewriter that was available at the time.

Although the panel said it couldn't prove conclusively the documents were forged, it said CBS News failed to authenticate them and falsely claimed an expert had done so when all he had done was authenticate one signature.

The panel said Mapes had misled her superiors about the documents and the background of her source, retired Texas National Guard Lt. Col. Bill Burkett. CBS News executives relied too heavily on Mapes, who only months earlier had broken the story about the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and had been investigating Bush's National Guard service since 1999. Howard, who had begun supervising ``60 Minutes Wednesday'' in June, gave too much deference to her and Rather, the panel said.


Reached at her Dallas home Monday, Mapes said: ``I haven't seen the report yet, so I won't be saying anything until I do.''

Two days after the report, Heyward ordered West to review the opinions of document examiners and confidential sources who had supported the story - but no such investigation was done, Thornburgh and Boccardi said. ``Had this directive been followed promptly, the panel does not believe that `60 Minutes Wednesday' would have publicly defended the segment for another 10 days,'' Boccardi and Thornburgh wrote.

The panel faulted Rather, and said it did not appear he had even seen the report until its broadcast. And it said CBS' apology, issued nearly two weeks after the report aired, unfairly pinned too much blame on Burkett and not enough on its own failures.

Following the independent investigation, CBS News appointed one of its executives, Linda Mason, to a newly created job of senior vice president of standards and special projects. It will be her job to thoroughly review everything about an investigative scandal before it airs.

Jeff Fager, executive producer of ``60 Minutes'' on Sunday, will oversee the Wednesday broadcast as well for the rest of the TV season.

Both Moonves and the panel said it hoped the report did not have a ``chilling effect'' on CBS News' commitment to investigative journalism. ``By doing what needed to be done, as painful as some of these steps are, we hope to have moved decisively to set the record straight, and to turn this crisis into an opportunity to make CBS News stronger than it ever has been,'' Moonves said.



01/10/05 14:48

__________________
Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?

Jolie Rouge

Rather Saves Job, but Reputation Takes Hit
By DAVID BAUDER

NEW YORK (AP) - As his anchor career nears its end in March, Dan Rather's reputation as a hard-charging news reporter took some damaging blows from the independent panel that probed CBS' discredited story on President Bush's National Guard service.

Three CBS News executives and the producer of last September's ``60 Minutes Wednesday'' report were fired Monday by CBS chief Leslie Moonves for rushing the story to air and then blindly defending it.

Rather was portrayed by the panel - retired Associated Press chief executive officer Louis D. Boccardi and former GOP Attorney General Dick Thornburgh - as ``pushed to the limit'' by coverage of the Republican National Convention and Hurricane Frances as final reporting on the story was done. ``He's had a distingusihed television news career, he's one of the largest figures in this industry and this event doesn't erase the other things that he has accomplished,'' Boccardi said Tuesday in an interview on CBS' ``The Early Show.''

The veteran anchorman did not see the story before it aired, or appear to have participated in any of the vetting sessions, Boccardi and Thornburgh found. ``The panel has found that his unwillingness to consider that CBS News and his colleague were in the wrong was a mistake, and that the broadcast would have benefited from a more direct involvement on Rather's part,'' Moonves said in a statement.

Given Rather's voluntary retirement as anchor, a decision that Rather said was unrelated to the National Guard story, Moonves said he decided not to discipline him. Rather will move then to ``60 Minutes,'' where Moonves said he will have ``more time to concentrate on his reporting.''

Rather did not anchor the ``CBS Evening News'' on Monday, after traveling back from Thailand over the weekend. An aide said he was reading the report and did not have an immediate comment.

It had to have been a particularly painful moment for a man who regards as one of his proudest legacies that he remained a reporter as well as a newsreader in a quarter-century at the anchor desk. He frequently traveled to the sites of major stories, including tsunami-devastated Asia.



Fired were Mary Mapes, the story's producer; Josh Howard, executive producer of ``60 Minutes Wednesday''; Howard's top deputy, Mary Murphy; and CBS News senior vice president Betsy West.


Boccardi and Thornburgh's 224-page report catalogued a long series of missteps, essentially saying the report was aired too soon under competitive pressure without being thoroughly checked out. Four months after the report was aired, the panel still couldn't say conclusively whether memos allegedly disparaging Bush's service were real or fake. ``If these experienced vetters knew everything that we know about the circumstances, the authentication, they wouldn't have let the program go on the air,'' Boccardi said in his interview Tuesday.

Added Thornburgh: ``One of the things I think that surprised us was the fact that nobody within the CBS family seemed to have any appreciation of how tricky the process of authenticating documents is.''

After compounding its errors by defending the initial report without looking into it further, CBS apologized 12 days later. But the panel found fault with Rather's Sept. 20 apology, saying it placed too much of the blame on the source of the memos and not enough on CBS.

Rather told the panel that he did not think an apology was appropriate, but did it because he was a ``team player.'' Rather also told Boccardi and Thornburgh that he still believes the content of the documents is true.

``It is clear that Rather's joining in the apology given his role as the correspondent on the segment and his status as CBS News' most visible presence was critical to its acceptance,'' the report said. ``The panel finds his comments disavowing the apology to be troubling.''


The only glimmer of good news for CBS and Rather - long the target of conservative critics - is that the panel said it had found no evidence of political bias. But it said it was inappropriate for Mapes to have contacted the Kerry campaign at the behest of her source. ``We can't prove that Mapes or Dan Rather did this thing in order to hurt President Bush,'' Boccardi said. ``If you can't prove it - and maybe in another way the lesson of the Sept. 8 report is, don't say it.''

As predicted by Thornburgh, however, that conclusion did not quiet political criticism of CBS News. ``Such error layered upon error can only happen when there is a rigid political orthodoxy that not only does not encourage dissent, it does not even recognized that dissent might exist,'' said Michael Paranzino, founder of a Web log encouraging a boycott of CBS.

Along with Rather, CBS News President Andrew Heyward emerged from the independent review with no discipline from Moonves. Rich Hanley, director of graduate programs at Quinnipiac University's School of Communications, said the failure to hold Heyward and Rather accountable for these mistakes is ``astonishing.''


But Moonves, in an interview, said it was not Heyward's job to vet individual sources or material. ``Andrew gave explicit directions that just weren't carried out, about not stampeding the project on the air, verifying every syllable ... and making sure everything was buttoned down, and it just didn't happen,'' Moonves said.

``On that basis, I find Andrew's sin was trusting his lieutenants too much,'' he said.



Mapes, in a statement, said she was shocked by Moonves' ``vitriolic scapegoating.'' She said the decision to air the story when it did was made by her superiors, including Heyward, and not by her. ``If there was a journalistic crime committed here, it was not by me,'' she said.


On the Net:


Full report: www.cbsnews.com



01/11/05 08:37

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/ns/news/...14.htm&sc=1401

__________________
Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?

Jolie Rouge

January 18, 2005

Not going gently into that good night

-Keith Olbermann


SECAUCUS — After the Thornburgh-Boccardi report on CBS News came out a week ago yesterday, it was the big question: Why did four mid-level executives lose their jobs, when nobody above them and nobody on the air, did?

Never assume, as Felix Ungar warned. It turns out three of those four executives are still working for CBS News. Thus did CBS President/Chairman Leslie Moonves confirm to writers covering the television publicity tour in Los Angeles today.

Mary Mapes, the producer behind the so-called "Killian Memos" story, was fired outright. But Senior Vice President Betsy West, "60 Minutes 2" Executive Producer Josh Howard, and his deputy Mary Murphy, were asked to resign in the aftermath of the independent investigation.

Mr. Moonves says they have not. "They are in discussions now," he noted, and added that there were lawyers now involved, so he couldn't say much more. But he did go into detail about the continuation of Andrew Heyward as President of CBS News. Moonves said he made the decision to retain him, adding that Heyward's subordinates were responsible for the quote "screw-up."

As to what's next, Moonves says that when Dan Rather leaves the CBS Evening News in seven weeks, he wants a quote "revolution and not an evolution," possibly including an anchor team — the members of which might even be in different cities. He refused to comment on any of the names mentioned as Rather's successor: Katie Couric, John Roberts, John Stewart, Stuart Little, Little Richard, Richard Lewis, or Lewis Black.

But Moonves did talk about what he saw as a "reinventing" of the news format to discontinue what he called the "voice of God" style of single host. "We are looking at all sorts of options, ensembles... big names, little names. One of the ways we're looking at is making it younger and more relevant, something that younger people can relate to, as opposed to that guy preaching from the mountaintop about what we should and should not watch."

Hey, pal — I'm workin' this side of the street.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6667405/#050118a

__________________
Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?