A new movie about the forged Killian documents that undid Dan Rather’s career at CBS in 2004 only features a few scenes involving Rather, who is played by Robert Redford.
At two hours in length, “Truth,” which centers on how the controversy unfolded at “60 Minutes,” only features Rather’s character in about a dozen scenes, even though today Rather is entirely synonymous with the fallout.
The movie instead makes Mary Mapes, then the producer of “60 Minutes,” the focus of the story and casts her as the overwhelming driving force behind the scandal that threatened to cost President George W. Bush a second term.
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Journalists who have seen the movie have said that it makes “heroes” out of Rather, Mapes and their team, despite the fact that documents they used to prove Bush had gone AWOL during his time at the National Guard turned out to be fraudulent.
Asked Wednesday during a screening in Washington, D.C., what he says to critics who believe the film is an attempt to exonerate him, Dan Rather was defiant.
“From what did I need exonerating?” said Rather, who has maintained that the “60 Minutes” was true even if the documents weren’t authentic. “We reported a true story. Like I said, the process by which we provide the truth is not perfect. So, from what did we need exonerating?”
Director James Vanderbilt was also at the screening and said he intended to show audiences that it is TV producers who do the bulk of the behind-the-scenes researching and newsgathering, not the on-air correspondents.
“Dan was anchoring the [‘Evening News’] five nights a week,” Vanderbilt said. “If there was a hurricane, he was certainly there. If there was a war on, and there were two at the time, he was there and he was also doing ’60 Minutes,’ too. So, Mary Mapes’ job was to find that story and put it together. So, I was fascinated by that. I was fascinated by how that works.”
The movie, which releases nationwide Friday, does show missteps Mapes and her production team took in verifying the credibility of some sources and their motivations in cooperating with her investigation. Rather’s character is mostly seen receiving information on the development of the story and only one time does he ask that Mapes seek another way to verify the contents of the documents.
“One of the things I love about the film is I don’t think it sugar coated what went on,” said Rather. “It showed us at some of our worst moments. It showed some of the worst decisions that we made. And I think the film is all the stronger for doing that. Far from exonerating us, it took you inside and showed you what was happening, when it was happening, how it was happening. And what the results were.”
