Veteran journalist Dan Rather on Monday criticized The Wall Street Journal editor Gerard Baker for saying his news organization would not blatantly refer to President-elect Donald Trump as a liar, calling the statement "deeply disturbing."
"It is not the proper role of journalists to meet lies — especially from someone of Mr. Trump's stature and power — by hiding behind semantics and euphemisms," Rather, the former news anchor for CBS Evening News, posted on his Facebook page. "Our role is to call it as we see it, based on solid reporting. When something is, in fact, a demonstrable lie, it is our responsibility to say so."
Baker, in an interview with "Meet the Press' on Sunday, told Chuck Todd he wanted to be careful about using the word "lie" because "lie implies much more than just saying something that's false."
"It implies a deliberate intent to mislead."
He went on to say he thought the paper should present the facts and allow the reader to make up his or her own mind so The Journal can remain objective.
Rather responded by saying this was a gut check moment for the press.
"We are being confronted by versions of what are claimed to be 'the truth' that resemble something spewed out by a fertilizer-spreader in a wind tunnel," he wrote. "And there is every indication that this will only continue in the Tweets and statements of the man who will now hold forth from behind the Great Seal of the President of the United States."