Don Hewitt, RIP: Reprimanded Rather and CBS Over Bush National Guard Hit Piece
August 19, 2009 by Brent Baker
Don Hewitt, the creator and long-time Executive Producer of CBS's 60 Minutes, who passed away this morning (Wednesday) at age 86, had recognized the bias which led Dan Rather to target President George W. Bush with a 2004 story based on forged documents, as he suggested such a flimsy hit piece damaging to the liberal candidate would have earned more scrutiny for accuracy before it ever got onto the air: “Does anybody really think there wouldn't have been more scrutiny if this had been about John Kerry?” (Rather's piece aired on the weekday 60 Minutes, which Hewitt did not oversee, four months after Hewitt's retirement.)
Though in 2004 he predicted “I would bet I'll probably vote for Kerry” since “I know why I don't want to vote for George Bush,” in 2007 he recalled how in the aftermath of the Bush National Guard story he had proposed to Rather: “If this had been John Kerry, wouldn't you have been more careful about the story?” He also defended CBS's decision to fire Rather: “Any news organization, print or broadcast, has the right to protect its reputation by divesting itself of a reporter, irrespective of who he or she is, who it feels reported as fact something that reflected his or her biases more than the facts bear.”
news media, bias, scandal, liberalism, left wing, elections