Actually that particular story itself was accurate... they just got screwed by a source and that was used to shoot the messenger. I was never a fan of Rather --- largely because of his over-dramatic on-air style --- but in the end he was the victim of a retaliatory smear.
I don't know exactly why Rather was removed, or retired, or whatever, but if it was solely because of the Bush 41 National Guard / draft evasion, Rather clearly ran with fabricated, fake docs, and Rather (and his editors / producers) did absolutely zero to validate, vet, check sources and accuracy, legitimacy. Because Rather wanted with every fiber of his being to take GWB down.
In fact, that story and agenda is very similar to Kane et al and letting their hatred for UNC and wanting to believe anything to take them down....cloud / overrun objectivity and journalistic standards. Exactly the same for Rather / GWB and Kane / UNC.
"Fake but accurate" - well, that just gets into one guys opinion and emotion. I'm sure Kane still thinks UNC should be taken down, he just can't find the facts to support his case, so has to create them or find where they've been created / fabricated for him.
Fake but accurate is a quite flimsy starting framework to build a journalistic case on, IMO.....
I'm not defending GWB.... just saying....if we get to just what people believe to be true holding up as factual evidence, then we (UNC) would've been totally screwed in this instance.
A UNC parallel to the Rather / GWB storey is if Kane or one of his "sources" created a letter or e-mail from Roy Williams to the players telling them "these classes are easy. You all take only these. I'll make sure you get a good grade without doing anything"......... then just using this "letter" as solid evidence, just because Kane knows in his heart that this is what must be happening, so let's go with it....EVERYBODY with a brain must know for sure that's what Roy really does, so why do we need factual evidence?
