Former CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather has been pursuing a breach-of-contract suit against his former employer since 2007, accusing them of making him a scapegoat in the scandal surrounding his 2004 60 Minutes piece on George Bush’s National Guard Service. Rather claimed that the network had succumbed to pressure from the government to get rid of him. In the intervening years, judges have systematically pared down his case, until the New York Supreme Court finally dismissed it last fall. His request for an appeal was declined today, putting the entire legal matter to bed, finally. “Naturally I am disappointed in today’s ruling because we know it is a grave miscarriage of justice,” he said in a statement to the Times. “Most of all I am disappointed that no court or jury studied the evidence and heard the actual facts of the case. The case was dismissed on purely technical grounds. My mission continues to be working to ensure that the media can gather and report news unfettered by the influence of government and major corporate interests.”
Appeal Request by Dan Rather Is Turned Down [Media Decoder/NYT]
