Whatever my errors are,” Dan Rather said, “I am an American reporter.”
Context is everything, so when the CBS anchor spoke that line Thursday, with what seemed a politician’s premeditation, the strong, if not rousing, applause seemed notable, even if itself ultimately illusory.
Before him was a packed auditorium of about 500 of the military’s best and brightest leaders-to-be at the U.S. Naval War College, the oldest war college and a sort of combo Harvard graduate school and think tank for those from all branches of the armed services.
Taking part in a daylong “National Security and the Media Conference” were commanders of nuclear submarines, infantry officers, doctors, fighter pilots, press attaches at U.S. embassies overseas, Defense Intelligence Agency snoops, and big cheese admirals and Marine generals, among others.
Virtually all are students at the college, with just over half actually from the Navy, and are there for an intense 10-month, fully accredited master’s degree program in national security and strategic studies, before splitting to their next assignment.
Clearly opting for a mix of the celebrated and the unknown, the college invited Rather and me as back-to-back opening speakers. And while I needed an introduction (desperately so), Rather possibly needed a shield. A post-Vietnam Blame the Media Syndrome lingers, and his name is a catchphrase in these environs for confidentiality-breaking, liberal media scum.
Rear Adm. Joseph Strasser, the college president, who resembles an avuncular, balding senior partner on the old “L.A. Law,” made clear in his kickoff remarks at “0900” (that’s 9 a.m. for you civilians) that “interaction between government and media can lead to considerable friction.” That’s an understatement.
The military culture is at odds with that of the press. One prizes confidentiality, the other openness. One’s aim is to protect the nation, at virtually all costs, and the other’s to disclose information.
One can be marked by the paranoid, the other by the self-righteous.
It explained the suspicion, even veiled contempt, implicit when a young, and misinformed, naval officer claimed recollection of watching Rather on a public television panel in which hypothetical war scenarios were played out.
In his purported PBS recollection, the officer thought that Rather had ventured forth with some enemy squad in battle, only to be with them as they prepared an ambush of Americans. Would he scream out and warn the Americans? According to the officer, Rather said no.
The anchor quickly disabused the officer, saying he had the wrong anchor. “Under that scenario, my answer would be to the contrary. Whatever my errors are, I am an American reporter. I don’t think I could be in that situation and not shout or send up a flare.”
“At the point you think my reporting puts in peril a single American life, that’s the point I back off,” he said minutes later.
That came at the tail end of a deceptively ambiguous performance by a man with a brief Marine career himself and extensive war reporting record (partly explaining the nine-page resume he’d sent ahead to the press staff here). He had the stature to be taken seriously in this lion’s den.
There was the harsh critic of military control and deception, especially of the “overt censorship” that took place in the Persian Gulf War (“unnecessary control fogged up a great story”).
There was the intriguing futurist of sorts on the impact of technology on both future media coverage and military control. The miniaturization of equipment, he said, will allow the pocket of a bush jacket to hold everything one needs to beam up to a satellite and transmit worldwide and live.
There was the seemingly passionate defender of old, fast-fleeing journalistic virtues, such as the apprenticeship that reporters would once serve as they pulled duty at the courthouse, police station and City Hall, covering hundreds of modest local happenings.
But there were also what one suspected were well-honed lecture lines, like on his being a graduate of the Secret School for Anchors who took the class on “How to Be Frequently in Error But Rarely in Doubt.”
Benign, for sure, but there was also the unconvincing. He sought, to little avail, to assert professional high-mindedness at the same moment he conceded his own network’s overcoverage of the O.J. Simpson trial.
He has the “ultimate responsibility” for what goes on “The CBS Evening News” (which he took over as anchor 14 years ago that day), yet can’t make decisions “in a vacuum”; thus, insane competition wins out and he shows lots of O.J. The Nielsens make him do it.
And there was the preachy and self-important: He decried the “politics of deception and lying” in the same breath as declaring, “But it doesn’t mean we disagree, you and I. I see us as partners in patriotism; trying to get the truth to citizens seeking truth.”
Partners in patriotism?
This crowd didn’t quite buy it and, several would say later, they felt somewhat like citizens listening to a too-intent-by-half political candidate seeking their votes.
” `Dan Rather’ still stands for a pinko liberal who will publish anything,” explained Tom Grassey, a retired reserve naval intelligence captain who is editor of the quarterly Naval War College Review and teaches a military ethics course here.
It wasn’t that Grassey himself buys that assessment. But the philosophy Ph.D. discerns among his students “the common prejudice that he (Rather) would sacrifice lives to get a story.”
Thus, for all the laudable free exchange that the college stands for and aggressively promotes, and as much as the military’s mistrust of the media may have lessened in recent years, the doubts remain a formidable fact of its life. There may be little that Rather can do to combat a potent mythology.
That cultural prejudice came out frequently, including in seminars in which 12 to 15 officers discussed the media-military relationship.
In mine, one found an interesting mix of students who included a nuclear submarine commander, a doctor, a fighter pilot, a lieutenant colonel in the Army’s elite 10th Mountain Division, a Marine infantry lieutenant colonel, and a Navy public information officer (many of whom apparently felt that Rather’s patriotism comment was playing to a crowd).
One officer was incensed over a high-profile, gay rights-related flap he was ensnarled in. He acerbically referred to his job as “politically incorrect,” in the best of times, and frustration that he had to face media questioning over the incident.
“We get paid to get ready for war, not to curry favor with the public,” said another student.
When it wound down after 90 minutes of impressively open dialogue, another student staked his ground on the topic of media access to any operations he’d be involved in. “We should decide what the media see, not the media.”
I respectfully disagreed. But it was a fitting way to underscore a tension that can, probably at best, be eased, not erased.
Cokie Watch
ABC News’ new ethics rules, barring folks from taking money from for-profit groups and trade associations, might be a bit elastic.
Cokie Roberts will be keynote speaker April 21 at a women’s business conference in Ft. Lauderdale. Her speech is sponsored by JM Family Enterprises Inc.
JM Family Enterprises is the holding company of former Chicagoan Jim Moran, owner of the nation’s biggest Toyota distributorship. Privately held, it has an estimated annual revenue of $3.3 billion.
In 1993, a Crestview, Fla., jury ordered Moran to pay $39 million to another dealer. It concluded that Moran forced dealers to sell after-factory accessories, warranties and financing provided by his subsidiaries if they wanted the best selection of cars. Moran then settled a dozen related suits from dealers who alleged that he was squeezing them.
Last year, an Orlando car dealer sued Moran for similarly trying to illegally pressure him, while also alleging that he was forced to provide Moran with prostitutes for 25 years. The suit, in which that dealer says he kept a separate “T&A” account to track those expenses, is pending in a Jacksonville court.
A source indicates that Roberts will receive $35,000 for her appearance.
