Dan Rather Sues CBS,Viacom For $70 Million Over Rathergate
All because he didn't bother to fact check. It was the premise of the story, as Dan would say. Just because the National Guard memo about President Bush was faked, doesn't mean it didn't happen. etc. Dan dug his own hole, now he wants a pile of money to get him out of it.
As if CBS hadn't been rattled enough by legal flaps from shock jocks Howard Stern and Don Imus, a languishing newscast with Katie Couric as well as the controversial reality show "Kid Nation," the network has been slapped with a $70 million lawsuit by former anchor Dan Rather.
Rather, whose decades-long career at CBS came to an inglorious end over his role in a report criticizing President Bush's Vietnam-era National Guard service, on Wednesday sued the broadcaster and its former Viacom Inc. parent, as well as CBS CEO Leslie Moonves, Viacom and CBS chairman Sumner Redstone, and former CBS News president Andrew Heyward.
The suit, filed in New York State Supreme Court, argues that CBS violated Rather's contract by giving him insufficient airtime on "60 Minutes" after summarily dismissing him as anchor of "CBS Evening News" in March 2005.
