HS381 George W. Bush in the Texas Air National Guard, 1968 – 1973.
Photo Credit: George Bush Presidential Library
If you can look past left-leaning elements of this film you’ll be intrigued by it the way I was…
It’s also a must-see for media junkies!
We’re talking the docudrama TRUTH which takes us behind the scenes of what turned out to be CBS’ 60 MINUTES lowest period ever during its record network run.
With Robert Redford cast as iconic newscaster Dan Rather the film takes us into the heart of the news magazine’s operations center. It was the development of a special segment probing President George W. Bush’s alleged preferential treatment by officials of the Texas Air National Guard.
Did his stature keep ‘W’ out of Vietnam?
The ’60 Minutes’ piece was assigned to producer Mary Mapes and her crew. She’s portrayed superbly by Cate Blanchett who could very well qualify for a Best Actress nomination here.
It was the summer of 2004 and W’s chances for re-election didn’t look good. This network expose would surely do him in.
The push to get the story to air was great. And while the fact check research went into overdrive, it came down looking like the producers had rushed certain documents through the process without thoroughly authenticating them first.
One of the first competing organizations to question the 60 Minutes accusations was ABC News.
“They’re coming for us.”
And now as certain sources’ takes on events progressed, the more the story seemed to fall apart. Something CBS corporate had real trouble dealing with. And all those emails—DAMN, did they ever leave a bad taste in investigators mouths……
“We’re ’60 Minutes.’ We’re the gold standard.”
Great ego to have but it was more than management wanted to swallow.
>CAPTION HERE> CARTOON: Clay Bennett / The Christian Science Monitor
An internal investigation finally discredited events presented in the broadcast segment which led to the firing of Mary Mapes and her entire news production unit.
As for Dan Rather who was the face of the story, he was removed as anchor of the CBS Evening News.
What we’ve got here is a fascinating look behind the news curtain and the all too often rush to feed—AND BEAT—the appetite of today’s highly competitive 24 hour news cycle.
The film is based on producer Mary Mapes’ book entitled Truth and Duty: The Press, The President, and the Privilege of Power.
It should be required viewing for any J-student and broadcast journalist—now matter how low he or she may be on the news room totem pole.
TRUTH also features Topher Grace, Elisabeth Moss, Stacy Keach, Dermot Mulroney and Dennis Quaid.
It opens this weekend in limited runs and scores an absorbing B.
That incident should have been a wake up call to journalists, tho from what I’ve heard of last night’s debate sounds like some are getting worse.
we thought W’s (cheny’s) mission for war over supposed WMDs was a wake-up call too. but no one stirred beyond some clammoring and finger-pointing.
we tolerate these irresponsible, reprehensible, bold-faced lies from our government, so what’s a little made-up hatchet job by the media to be so worried about?
so clearly our priorities are out of whack. we crucify our journalists if caught in a lie or even embellishing the facts. yet we’ll let presidents, vice presidents, top military brass and congress, get by with lying and cheating, and some would say murder.
I have a feeling MikeT. loves Goverment Cheese.
I expect MikeT was just presenting a logical alternative to how we live now. You, on the other hand, are simply trolling.
and oh what a feeling it is, right? but unless you’re getting it from that little device in your pocket, you’re are wrong.
never been on guvmet cheese. pretty sure i wouldn’t like it.
nope, i just went off on a tangent, esp given this was a freakin’ movie review.
sorry jack. opened up a can here..
I think we’re trying like hell to make our government responsible ( and I sure get tired of that old WWD rant – – when are we going to start making Obama accountable for his lies?). So we just throw up our hands and say o well?
Who “we”? Conservatives? I think not.
I can see where this is going, and it’s very tiresome. “… never the twain shall meet,” as the old saying goes. Sad…
“Never the twain shall meet” is tiresome, and the direct result of conservatives spending the last 4 years doing exemplary work like submitting 50 useless bills to kill the ACA, instead of honestly doing the people’s business.
And, yes, it’s sad.
Keeping the pressure up to rid the country of Deathcare is doing the people’s business. And, prior to the Republican majority in the Senate, Harry Reid held up literally hundreds of bills that he refused to allow to get an up,or down vote. So spare us the Stalinist nonsense that something would have happened differently had Republicans not tried to thwart Obama’s totalitarian agenda.
Here is a report on “Rathergate”.
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/6055248/ns/politics/t/cbs-news-admits-bush-documents-cant-be-verified/#.VjJs0NGFPIV
The movie sounds pretty good. The quote in the last paragraph of the story I noted above is, ““The story of how this happened is going to be a much more interesting story than the veracity of these documents,” Jones said, “and I hope CBS will tell it.”
This movie probably tells the truth for the most part. Bush was a rich guy from a famous family and was accorded all the expected privileges (Senator’s Sons, be that as it were.) that landed gentry usually get in times of war.
If anyone wants more current and believable news about CBS News, I would go straight to Sharyl Attkisson . She is one of the most credible and diligent journalists on the job today, pulling no punches and offering no relief to those who call themselves “Journalists” when in fact, they are no more than George Stephanopoulos apparatchiks who know less about facts and the truth than Brian Williams.
Gail, you are right, but conservatives should indeed wear the sackcloth for that war, it was a Cheney-Bush production from soup to nuts and the legacy is sitting in the Oval Office now. His lies and they are legion, are made possible by the lies that were told before. We reaped and sowed a crop of death, destruction and dystopia on an international level, now, Obama offers us more of the same here at home.
Keep in mind that this a a ‘DocuD R A M A’—NOT a documentary!
It is ‘based’ on real events and on the book WRITTEN by Mary Mapes who lost her producers gig over the mess.
Noted.
… in other words it’s a fiction.
The problem with the movie is that, like most fascist propaganda, it’s a pack of lies made in the furtherance of revisionist history. Once again Hollywood demonstrates its position in American society as traitors within. Where is Sen. McCarthy when you really need him?
As forward looking as All of the President’s Men was, this film is a bad attempt to excuse bad reporting. If you fail to quote your source, you are responsible for anything you publish. The network was lucky that they didn’t have a massive libel suit. The excuse of liberal thought will not save Redford on this one.