CBS Fired Jimmy the Greek; Silent on Rather Slur

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NewsMax.com

Monday July 23, 2001; 12:59 p.m. EDT

More than three days after "CBS Evening News" anchorman Dan Rather invoked an anti-black stereotype in a nationally broadcast radio interview, the network refuses to comment on complaints over the incident, in marked contrast to the way it handled a similiar episode 13 years ago involving the late CBS Sports commentator Jimmy "the Greek" Snyder.

On Jan. 15, 1988, Rather himself aired video shot that afternoon at Duke Zeibert's restaurant in Washington, D.C., featuring Snyder explaining why he thought African-Americans excelled in sports.

"The black is the better athlete," The Greek said. "And he practices to be the better athlete, and he's bred to be the better athlete because this goes way back to the slave period. The slave owner would breed this big black with this big black woman so he could have a big black kid. That's where it all started."

Though the film was shot by WRC-TV, the Washington affiliate of network rival NBC, and WRC reporter Ed Hotaling acknowledged that The Greek had said he was speaking off the record during the interview, Rather decided Snyder's remarks deserved national coverage.

During the "CBS Evening News" broadcast, the politically correct newsman noted his network had received hundreds of complaints about Snyder's remarks. He ended the segment with Snyder's abject apology.

"I'm truly sorry for my remarks earlier today and I offer a full, heartfelt apology to all I may have offended," Rather quoted Snyder as saying.

Despite the apology, the CBS newsman's prominent coverage of his colleague's faux pas helped seal Snyder's fate. After The Greek's off the record remarks were turned into national news, black organizations from coast-to-coast felt compelled to comment.

The Urban League called Snyder's statement "ludicrous" and suggested he shouldn't be on-the-air. The NAACP was more direct, calling on CBS to fire The Greek, saying his comments "could set race relations back 100 years or more."

The next day, Rather's network handed Jimmy the Greek his walking papers.

Thirteen years later the shoe is on the other foot.

"They got the willies, they got the Buckwheats," Rather blurted out to radioman Don Imus Thursday, while explaining why his bosses had caved to outside pressure and forced him to cover the Chandra Levy-Gary Condit story.

Minutes after NewsMax.com reported Rather's verbatim comments, e-mail began to pour in saying the anchorman had slurred African-Americans by likening his bosses' cave-in to Buckwheat, the easily-frightened black character from "The Little Rascals."

Over the weekend, the nation's most prominent conservative black minister, Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, head of the Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny (BOND), slammed the CBS anchorman for his "Buckwheat" remark, saying it was so offensive that Rather shouldn't be allowed to get away with it.

As the protests pour in, will CBS brass decide to give Dan Rather the same treatment they gave Jimmy the Greek?

To learn more about Rev. Peterson and BOND, visit their website at www.bondinfo.org.

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:

Media Bias

 

NewsMax.com

 

Monday July 23, 2001; 5:27 p.m. EDT

Unlike Rather, Radio Host Was Suspended for 'Buckwheat' Remark

Did "CBS Evening News" anchorman Dan Rather engage in racially offensive stereotyping when he invoked the "Little Rascals" character Buckwheat last week to illustrate his bosses' cave-in on the Chandra Levy story? Or was it just an innocuous remark with no racial significance?

Ask Ed Tyll, the former Atlanta radioman who was suspended by WGST management in 1987 for comparing Congressman John Lewis to Buckwheat.

Here's how the New York Times covered the incident that nearly cost Tyll his job:

"Mr. Tyll made the remark Friday in an exchange with Senator Wyche Fowler, Democrat of Georgia, a day after Mr. Lewis had been interviewed on Mr. Tyll's afternoon program.

"Senator Fowler, who had been interupted by Mr. Tyll in an interview about the Iran-Contra hearings, asked that he be allowed to finish a comment he was making. When Mr. Tyll refused to let him finish the statement, the Senator ended the conversation.

"Mr. Tyll then said: 'I can't stand illiterates. I am not going to stand here and talk to a moron like John Lewis. I am not going to stand here and have Wyche Fowler or Ronald Reagan or John Lauer or anybody tell me how to do the show. Nobody is going to do that. And I don't care who it upsets.' Mr. Tyll added, 'The other one the other day sounded like Buckwheat out of the Little Rascals.'"

Rather's insult was directed at CBS brass who failed to back him, not a prominent Democratic congressman. Still, his reference to the "Little Rascals" character who, when scared, would react with eyeballs bugged out and hair standing on end was plain enough.

"They got the willies, they got the Buckwheats. Their knees wobbled and we gave it up," Rather told "Imus in the Morning" the day after he was ordered to relent on his Condit-Levy news blackout.

Fourteen years ago, the NAACP was outraged over Ed Tyll's Buckwheat remark and demanded that WGST fire him on the spot.

So far with Rather, the NAACP has been silent. Neither they nor CBS News has returned calls requesting comment on the anchorman's Buckwheat outburst.

 

Major News Censored by CBS's Dan Rather

Just how much news on the Condit-Levy story has CBS anchorman Dan Rather failed to report? The list is astonishing.

NewsMax.com
Tuesday, July 24, 2001

Curiously, when Rather finally broke his silence on the story Wednesday because of pressure from his superiors, he reported a minor incident that is far less important than the police search of a congressman's apartment - and CBS bungled its story anyway.

Here is a list of the major developments Rather ignored: