Dan Rather

Today, for the umpteenth time, the legal teams of Dan Rather and CBS appeared back in court in lower Manhattan, for yet another round of legal gymnastics over Mr. Rather's $70 million civil suit against his former employers.

Nearly two weeks ago, on April 10, Justice Ira Gammerman of the New York Supreme Court made his first major ruling in the case, dismissing 4 of Mr. Rather's 7 initial causes for action (including the claim of fraud) while allowing several issues (including breach of contract) to move forward.  read more »

The Media Mob has learned that after several months of hearing from lawyers on both sides of the case, Justice Ira Gammerman of the New York Supreme Court has just made a ruling regarding CBS's motion to dismiss the $70 million civil lawsuit that Dan Rather initially brought against CBS back on Sept. 19, 2007.

In short: The case will proceed on a limited basis.

Lawyers for CBS did succeed, however, in knocking down several major aspects of Mr. Rather's suit.  read more »

Yesterday the legal teams for Dan Rather and CBS appeared in New York Supreme Court, where they told Justice Ira Gammerman that the two sides had more or less agreed on terms for the discovery process moving forward in Mr. Rather's $70 million suit against his former bosses.  read more »

Today, the legal teams for Dan Rather and CBS were back in New York Supreme Court in Lower Manhattan.

During a brief hearing, the two sides told Justice Ira Gammerman that they had more or less reached an agreement on most of the issues, regarding the discovery process in Mr. Rather’s $70 million civil suit against his former bosses.

Lawyer Jim Quinn, who is representing CBS, told the Media Mob on Wednesday afternoon, that CBS had agreed to produce “virtually all of the materials” which Mr. Rather’s lawyers had asked for.  read more »

On Wednesday afternoon, in New York Supreme Court in Lower Manhattan, Justice Ira Gammerman decided to allow Dan Rather's $70 million civil lawsuit against his former bosses to move forward into the discovery phase.

Afterwards, Mr. Rather stood in the hallway outside the courtroom, surrounded by reporters, and said he was "pleased" by the justice's decision, which would "put us on the road" to finding out "what really happened."  read more »

On Friday evening, Dan Rather appeared on the Fox Business Network.

During the interview, FBN's Neil Cavuto asked Mr. Rather how he would respond if CBS honchos offered to settle his $70 million civil lawsuit against them.

"I certainly would look at it, that's not to say whether we would accept it or not," said Mr. Rather. "I want the truth to come out about this, and if the truth reflects badly on me when we get to discovery and find out what really happened in this case, then so be it."

Tonight at 6pm, according to an FBN press staffer, Neil Cavuto will be interviewing Dan Rather on FBN about subjects ranging from presidential politics to Mr. Rather's recent talk with the late Benazir Bhutto.

More bad news for Katie Couric and CBS: Evening News lost 1.1 million viewers over the last 12 months, according to ratings numbers for the third week of December reported by the New York Post.

By contrast, Brian Williams of NBC lost just 164,000 viewers, and ABC's Charlie Gibson gained 38,000 over the same period.

Somewhere, Dan Rather is smiling.

Last night, Dan Rather emerged from the cable news ether to speak at length with CNN's Wolf Blitzer about the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the late former prime minister of Pakistan.

Throughout the segment, CNN played clips of Mr. Rather's recent interview with Ms. Bhutto for his show on HDNet (which you can watch above), and Mr. Blitzer peppered the Category 5 Newsman with questions about her qualities as a leader.

"She saw, perhaps better than most, the depth of the feeling of radical Islamic terrorists and she wanted to do something about it," said Mr. Rather. "And that was her vision. That's the reason she went back, knowing that she was in real peril when she went back."  read more »

Because here at Media Mob we never miss a trick on the Rather beat...here are a couple of the best revelations from former Observer reporter Joe Hagan's New York magazine piece about the Category-5 newsman's $70 million lawsuit against his former bosses at CBS, and what he hopes to get out of it:

Most notably, Mr. Hagan reports that within months of leaving CBS, Mr. Rather hired a team of three investigators to try to shed light on the ultimate mystery surrounding CBS's September 2004 flawed story on President Bush's National Guard service--that is, the origin of the documents at the heart of the controversy.  read more »

Former aviator hired to investigate documents was taken off the case by CBS—now, Dan wants him to talk.  read more »

Last week, lawyers for CBS filed a motion to dismiss Dan Rather’s $70 million civil lawsuit against them in New York State Supreme Court.

One of their arguments is that Mr. Rather is essentially bringing a defamation charge against the network. Yesterday we caught up with Mr. Rather's lawyer, Martin Gold.  read more »

The Huffington Post's Rachel Sklar -- who's actually, you know, a lawyer -- has taken a close look at Dan Rather's lawsuit and CBS's motion to dismiss it, and concluded that it has merit enough not to get thrown out before discovery.  She writes:

The lawsuit isn't without merit and CBS knows that, and Rather does, too, even if his expectations about the kind of damages he's entitled to or his perception of his own lack of responsibility are all seriously off the mark. The best solution for both sides, ultimately, is to settle — and to close this ugly chapter once and for all.

True, maybe, but the best solution for the rest of us is obviously for this thing to go to trial so we can learn all about CBS's (alleged) nefarious plot to team up with Karl Rove and destroy investigative journalism.

Yesterday, in New York Supreme Court, CBS lawyers filed a motion to dismiss Dan Rather's civil lawsuit against the network, alleging that their former Voice of God news anchor was out to "settle old scores" and "to misuse the discovery process and the power of subpeona in an effort to vindicate his own faulty reporting."

Today, in a statement released to Media Mob, Mr. Rather's lead attorney, Marty Gold, responded:

"It is unfortunate that CBS is trying to delay discovery of the facts and a trial of Dan's claims. We are confident the Court will reject these tactics and and allow the case to go forward."  read more »

Wanna see a clip of Katie Couric making fun of Dan Rather for trying to decide whether to wear his coat open or closed? Ok, so did we.  read more »

Herein, CBS's 30-page motion to dismiss argument in "Dan Rather vs. CBS Coporation, Viacom Inc., Leslie Moonves, Sumner Redstone, and Andrew Heyward." CBS filed the motion to dismiss today in New York Supreme Court.

Click here to read the filing (pdf).

Today, in New York Supreme Court, in response to Dan Rather's civil lawsuit, CBS filed a lengthy 30-page motion to dismiss the case.

CBS executives also released a statement today, noting that they are "mystified" by Rather's "bizarre allegations" but will "vigorously" defend themselves in court if need be.

UPDATE: Click here to read the filing (pdf).  read more »

Tomorrow, Thursday November 15, marks an important date in Dan Rather's civil lawsuit against CBS.

CBS has until the end of the day, according to members of Mr. Rather's legal team, to file its motion to dismiss argument in response to Mr. Rather's suit.

Contacted on Wednesday evening, Rebecca Hughes Parker, an associate with Sonnenschein, Nath, & Rosenthal, the firm representing Mr. Rather, said that she had yet to see the motion, but expected CBS to meet the deadline tomorrow.

Media Mob has put in a call to Weil, Gotshal & Manges, the firm, which, according to court documents, is representing CBS in the case. We'll let you know when we hear back from them.  read more »

On Sunday night, James Carville, who touts himself, perhaps accurately, as the best-known political consultant in the country, sat down with Dan Rather at the 92nd St Y to discuss the 2008 presidential election.

But he was at his most passionate, by far, when talking instead about the 2000 campaign, and denouncing the way it was covered by the country’s two leading national newspapers.

The New York Times’ coverage of that race “was borderline criminal—and The Washington Post’s was worse,” said Mr. Carville, joining a growing list of commentators who have argued lately that the media was overly focused on superficial issues, and exaggerated Al Gore’s flaws while giving a pass to George W. Bush.  read more »

“A lot of people know Dan, and nobody knows him.” Two and a half years later, not much has changed.  read more »

'Democracy cannot survive, much less thrive, with the level of big corporate and big government interference and intimidation in news.'  read more »

From The Times' Jacques Steinberg:

Mr. Rather, 75, asserts that the network violated his contract by giving him insufficient airtime on “60 Minutes” after forcing him to step down as anchor of the “CBS Evening News” in March 2005.  read more »

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“It’s a long road to Tipperary,” Dan Rather sang, tentatively, in a whisper-soft baritone.  read more »

“It’s a long road to Tipperary,” Dan Rather sang, tentatively, in a whisper-soft b  read more »

HDNet, Mark Cuban's new cable channel, issued a formal statement today rebutting a Radar report that Mary Mapes, the former CBS producer, would be coming on board with Dan Rather. Yesterday, Radar editor Maer Roshan said that his publication's story was "true" and "confirmed." Ms. Mapes said it was "not true" and "hilarious." The statement, attributed to Colette Carey, Director of Marketing and Public Relations for HDNet, reads in its entirety:

"Contrary to several reports in online news outlets, former CBS News '60 Minutes' producer Mary Mapes is not joining the staff of HDNet's investigative news program 'Dan Rather Reports.' HDNet has not had any discussions with Mary Mapes, and there are no plans, now or in the future, for her to join HDNet or 'Dan Rather Reports.'"

—Rebecca Dana

Flab-ulous!   To the Editor:    read more »

Flab-ulous!

To the Editor:  read more »

If it’s gonna be,” Dan Rather used to intone, striding through the CBS newsroom, “it’s up to  read more »

If it’s gonna be,” Dan Rather used to intone, striding through the CBS newsroom, “  read more »

Dan Rather and CBS News president Sean McManus had their end-of-the-Rather-era lunch today, as scheduled. The meal was at media hotspot Gabriel's, on 60th Street and Broadway, and lasted two hours, according to a source with knowledge of the lunch. They were "amiable and engaged in energetic conversation" throughout. Both had the ravioli.

--Rebecca Dana

"Karl Rove started talking to me again," John Roberts, CBS News' White House correspondent, said of  read more »

EASTLAND, TEX.-Three days before Dan Rather was to retire from the CBS Evening News on March 9, the  read more »

Once again, we're proud to have our byline on the same page as Joe Hagan's. Hagan, the Observer's TV writer, is way, way deeper into the CBS/Dan Rather/Bush National Guard story than any other reporter, and this week he's reporting from Texas with an antidote to the official version in which blameless corporate executives were cruelly betrayed by their, perhaps biased, subordinates in the news business.

Hagan has come across some taped conversations with the detective CBS hired, supposedly to determine the truth of the mysterious documents and of the whole story.

He reports that the detective, Eric Rigler, "went on to say that interviews with former National Guardsmen were leading him to believe the truth of the documents, if not their authenticity."

But for a variety of reasons, CBS apparently wasn't that interested in where Rigler was headed.  read more »

"This is not a real investigation," Rigler said on one tape.

Dear Dan,Courage.  read more »

Against a mise-en-scène of blue surf, swaying palm trees and a tsunami-flayed beach, CNN anchor And  read more »

"My advice to CBS News," said Larry Gelbart, the TV writer, playwright and comedy master behind the  read more »

With CBS anchor Dan Rather preparing to vacate his desk in March 2005, the campaign to replace him h  read more »

"I love this job," said 73-year-old CBS News anchor Dan Rather on Tuesday, Nov.  read more »

Wednesday 29th Perhaps it’s the cloves simmering in the hot apple cider , but sniff hard enough a  read more »

"I have never been more confident of a story in my life." So said Dan Rather, the face of CBS News f  read more »

In a week in which it was burnt by at least one high-profile source, CBS News is being accused by an  read more »

Dear Dan Rather: Well, it’s over.  read more »

The silly season is traditionally the slow month of August, when the media turns its attention to sh  read more »

The last seven days brought this: Dick Cheney suggested that the election of John Kerry would result  read more »

"With respect: answer the questions," said Dan Rather, the CBS News anchor.  read more »

Everywhere you looked around the Four Seasons restaurant on Aug.  read more »

Wednesday, June 16* CBS News legend Dan Rather was one of the few people to get his hands on an adva  read more »

Some days, the contest between the Daily News and the New York Post is all about counterprogramming:  read more »

"Senator, it's Dan Rather. How are you doing?"It was 8:53 p.m.  read more »

"As I speak to you, we are cruising across where the Iraqi desert meets the Jordanian desert, though  read more »