Days after Cronkite Passes with Little Notice from CBS, Rather Gets Discovery

One of the indignities of Walter Cronkite’s death on Friday was that CBS ignored his passing in favor of their regular crappy Friday night lineup. The many big names whom Cronkite had mentored instead appeared on the cable news shows to give Cronkite a proper tribute. And as reporter after reporter described Cronkite being cut from CBS, I couldn’t help but wish that Dan Rather (who of course was on the cable news paying tribute to Cronkite as well) would get discovery in his suit against CBS.

Today, the Judge in Rather’s suit ordered CBS to give Rather 3,000 documents.

Dan Rather won significant victories Tuesday in his suit against his former network, CBS. He won access to more than 3,000 documents that his lawyer said were expected to reveal evidence that CBS had tried to influence the outcome of a panel that investigated his much-debated “60 Minutes” report about former President George W. Bush’s military record.

Mr. Rather also won an appeal to restore a fraud charge against CBS that had been dismissed. Martin Gold, the lawyer representing the former anchor of the “CBS Evening News,” called it “a very successful day for us; we got everything.”

Mr. Rather called it a “good day” for his side and — referring to the name for the CBS headquarters — “a bad day for Black Rock.”

Jim Quinn, the lawyer representing CBS, called it “a minor skirmish in a long battle” and predicted that the fraud charge would be dismissed again because “it’s frivolous.”

CBS’ lawyer can scoff all he wants–the big point here was always to get discovery. Among other documents, Rather will get emails between CBS’s panel investigating Rather and the law firm CBS paid to investigate the TANG story, drafts of the investigative panel’s report, and separation agreements of a bunch of CBS employees who were silenced when they left the network.

Maybe I’m overly optimistic that these documents will reveal how CBS caved for the Bush Administration and in so doing sacrificed Rather. But it all does feel like CBS’s bad karma is catching up to it.