C-Span Interview: Dan Rather and Tucker Carlson
Posted by jsouthee on March 8, 2011
Dan Rather, former CBS anchor and current managing editor and anchor for HDNet, joined George Mason students Feburary 24th in a C-Span interview. Tucker Carlson, a correspondent for Fox News who is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Daily Caller, was also a guest on the show.
Dan Rather
Rather and Carlson spoke mainly of the state of journalism today and what it takes to be a good reporter. “American journalism today needs a spine transplant,” was the way that Rather described the current state of American journalism. “The best journalism is tough and doesn’t suck up to power,” he said. Politicans and other public figures in power have learned how to manipulate the media to their advantage, just like in the past when they were able to manipulate T.V. and radio, he says. According to him, news is something important that people want to know that people in power don’t want to be known. In Rather’s words the journalism motto should be this: “Let’s get the facts, as many facts as we can. Let’s get the truth, as close to the truth as possible.”
In Carlson’s opinion the problem with online journalism today is that “it’s young and it’s costly. It’s very expensive to send entourages to places all over the world and the money hasn’t yet shifted online. This is a transition period for the online medium.”
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