"To use tragedy to sow division is the hallmark of a despot."

“Those who dumb down the news, trivialize the news with in-studio shouting matches passing for debate, those who tart up the news with celebrity gossip, scandal and sensationalism are playing right into the hands of those that stand to gain the most from the news being seen as irrelevant and trivial and no more or less worth your attention than the next episode of 'American Idol.' I worry that if it becomes no more than a reality show, something that could be scripted and rigged behind the scenes without anyone really getting upset about it, that our freedom of the press will become another one of those constitutionally granted rights that can be watered down and eventually taken away from us.”

“Good evening. President Reagan, still training his spotlight on the economy, today signed a package of budget cuts that he will send to Congress tomorrow. Lesley Stahl has the story.”

“What are the odds that Dan Rather would have accepted such patently phony documents from, say, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth?”

“Occasional candor from big-name journalists can be illuminating. Eight months after 9/11, in an interview with BBC television, Dan Rather said that American journalists were intimidated in the wake of the attacks. Making what he called “an obscene comparison,” the CBS news anchor ruminated: “There was a time in South Africa that people would put flaming tires around people’s necks if they dissented. And in some ways the fear is that you will be ‘necklaced’ here, you will have a flaming tire of lack of patriotism put around your neck. Now it is that fear that keeps journalists from asking the toughest of the tough questions.” Rather added that “I do not except myself from this criticism,” and he went on: “What we are talking about here—whether one wants to recognize it or not, or call it by its proper name or not—is a form of self-censorship. I worry that patriotism run amok will trample the very values that the country seeks to defend.”

“Did Rather ever break any news? Sure. He reported, in 1969, that President Nixon was about to fire J. Edgar Hoover. Except Nixon never did fire Hoover, who was still FBI director at his death in 1972. Rather also bungled a story that Nixon was about to fire a top Vietnam official. “Dan had an overwhelming drive and ambition, and at times his ambition overcame his journalistic caution,” Rather’s longtime CBS colleague Bob Pierpoint told Weisman, adding, “He had a more dramatic persona than the others.”

“106 in the valley...I was sweating like Dan Rather checking for forged documents.”