Our story was about whether the President fulfilled his service, but nobody wants to talk about that.... they want to talk about fonts and forgeries and they hope to God the truth gets lost in the scrum!"
For a large portion of my formative years, my afternoons went kinda like this: Get home, do homework, watch silly cartoons, eat dinner, watch the news, watch Jeopardy. The homework was usually quick or non-existent, the silly cartoons ranged from Tiny-toons to Animaniacs, dinner was always together with my family, Jeopardy was always trying to keep up with my Daddy, and the news was nearly always Dan Rather. With his smooth delivery, sly grin, and empathetic half-wink he guided me through the end of the Cold War, the election of the first Democratic president of my life, the slimy fall from grace that president would have a few years later, and the worst day any of us could imagine in September not long after. More than any other before or after (and with apologies to Jon Stewart), Dan Rather will always be MY newsman.
With the rise of talk radio and cable news, I could tell the CBS evening news and it's magazine edition 60 minutes were struggling to find more provocative and intriguing material. This story was pretty much the demise of the struggle and the surrender of the once mighty news giant. Blanchett and Redford step seamlessly into their respective roles of producer Mary Mapes and Rather. As the viewer is treated to the story behind the story it plays as both a memoriam for the days of hard-hitting no-nonsense reporting and an elegy of its demise. As the quote above alludes to, gone are the days where the real facts matter. The only thing that is left is does the perception of a fact match my preconceived dialogue. If so, run it... If not, who cares.... What has gotten lost in it all though.... Is the reverence for TRUTH.
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