Tag Results for Viacom

Dan Rather's $70 million fraud and breach-of-contract lawsuit against CBS has been thrown out by a New York state appellate court, which rejected Rather's claims that the network improperly elbowed him off the air after a story about President George W. Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard.

Los Angeles Times reports that the New York Supreme Court appellate division found that CBS did not violate Rather's contract because it did not require the network to actually put him on the air, only to pay him his $6 million annual salary on an accelerated basis if it didn't. Rather's claims that CBS's actions damaged his future earnings potential were dismissed as too speculative.

Rather had alleged that the network's former parent company, Viacom, pressured commissioned a "sham" investigation by former US Attorney General Dick Thornburgh into the Bush story that was designed to appease the White House and its allies in Congress, not find the truth.

Rather was the lead reporter in a 2004 "60 Minutes" report about Bush's military service, which included four memos attributed to a former Texas Air National Guard Commander. Questions about the authenticity of the documents were raised, and CBS News ultimately said it could not prove that they were real and called the airing of the story a "mistake."

The Thornburgh report did not ultimately decide the authenticity of the documents either, but charged that the story violated CBS's responsibility to be fair and accurate. Four CBS staffers were either asked to resign or were fired, while Rather stepped down as anchor of "The CBS Evening News" a few months later.