March 09, 2005 | 17:27:20 EST
When Daniel Irving Rather, Jr. retires from the anchordesk later today, an era in American television news and in media history will have ended.
To us, the creators of RatherBiased.com, the day couldn't have come sooner. During the course of operating this site, we've been highly critical of Rather in the hopes that such criticisms would both improve his journalism and educate others of the need for this improvement.
Rather in many ways is a complex figure. In some ways, he was the last of the old-school not-for-profit television reporters that were so common before the 1980s. But he never quite fit that mould, or any other mould for that matter. In the end, the stereotype that fits him best is that of a classical tragic figure, defined by contrasting characteristics, achieving great success and ultimately being done in by the very traits that brought him to his vaunted position.
The Two Dans
Many of those who know Rather say he was the same person in public as in private which is true, when you consider that there really were two Dan Rathers: a polite, loyal, old-fashioned fellow who tried to fit within the CBS tradition, a hard worker and team player. But another Dan Rather existed in public and private as well--lazy, conniving, partisan, vengeful, stubborn, and conspiratorial. The one thing the two shared in common was a tendency to jump to conclusions. Ultimately all of these qualities were what lead to the Memogate debacle, but for the longest time they made Rather virtually unstoppable.
After pulling an innovative stunt broadcasting live-on-the-scene as Hurricane Carla slammed into Galveston, Texas in 1961, Rather got noticed by the CBS brass and was hired soon thereafter. Me-journalism, defined later by Hunter Thompson in magazines and Tom Wolfe in newspapers, had gotten a toehold within television news.
Rather's dual nature showed itself again during his coverage of the assassination of then-president John Kennedy when the ambitious young correspondent apparently took credit for a local reporter's scoop that the president had died. It was a gutsy call and it turned out to be true. The same couldn't be said for Rather's later report that Dallas school children had cheered when they learned of Kennedy's death. The record was never fully corrected and to this day, many reporters and historians continue to believe the false story which Rather knew to be incorrect.
From there, young Dan was on the fast track, becoming CBS's White House correspondent, later reporting in Vietnam, and then returning to Washington during the Nixon administration.
During all of this, Rather's reputation for jumping the gun grew, as he twice incorrectly reported the resignation of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover and bungled a number of administrative and governmental stories. This, along with Rather's often theatrical and biased questioning of president Nixon, leading CBS to almost hire Tom Brokaw to replace him before word of the plan leaked to the press. Purging Dissentors
Jockeying succeed Walter Cronkite with Roger Mudd, the more easy-going man hardly stood a chance, despite being favored by Cronkite himself. Rather's office politicking played off marvelously. The coup-de- gre turned out to be Rather's threat to jump ship to ABC if he wasn't given exclusive control of CBS's "Evening News" (previously the network had considered moving to a dual-anchor format). Afraid of losing his star, rookie CBS News president Bill Leonard gave in, much to the chagrin of the old guard of Cronkite, "60 Minutes" creator Don Hewitt and others like Cronkite's producer Sandy Socolow who saw Rather as the embodiment of the worst aspects of television: selfish, egotistical, illiterate, and immoderate.
For a time, they made their preferences known.loudly. Newspaper writers who covered the TV news business wrote thousands of words on the discontent within CBS about its new anchorman. That changed in the mid-eighties as a different CBS News leadership decided to put an end to the backbiting and make everyone get behind the new anchorman. Under the leadership of Van Gordon Sauter, many of the old guard were let go to stop them from undermining Rather.
Under fire from lawsuits, a Reagan administration which repeatedly accused Rather and CBS of being the most unfair network, and some new conservative groups called Accuracy in Media and one led by North Carolina Republican Senator Jesse Helms which wanted to purchase CBS and fire him, Rather was more than eager to purge the internal critics. He helped out, identifying reporters who may have been a potential threat (including "The View" co-host Meredith Viera), news executives, and, eventually Sauter and his deputy themselves.
Cronkite himself was a casualty of the purge. Originally intending to "come back for more," after turning over the anchor's chair sooner than he'd have liked to (Cronkite was 65 while Rather is 73), the outgoing anchor wanted to continue to do special reports and occasionally join Rather on "Evening." This was quickly put to a stop. [We suspect the same thing will happen to Rather, incidentally.]
Except for some short-lived furor over Rather's famous refusal to go on the air after a tennis match and his ambush interview of then U.S. vice president George H. W. Bush, the personnel changes calmed the internal storms that plagued CBS for almost a decade.
The quelling of internal dissent created its own problems, leading what one former CBS producer referred to as a "cult-like mentality where loyalty to CBS, to Rather, mattered more than anything else, even good journalism or the truth." The heightened atmosphere of fear (which nearly all former CBS employees we've talked to admit existed) exacerbated the network's gross lack of ideological diversity.
Despite the best attempts of true lovers of CBS like former "Evening News" star Bernard Goldberg and New York Times TV reporter Peter Boyer to blow the whistle on Rather's vast organizational power, nothing was done to reign in the star's influence, even after he had managed to become the chief anchor of "Evening," "48 Hours," and a regular on "60 Minutes Wednesday."
Less perceptive journalists (including the Thornburgh report researchers) thought that the reason for this overload on Rather's part was because he "couldn't say no," when in truth the real reason Rather was included in these programs was that he killed programs he felt were taking away resources from his own.
In the end, the unfortunate combination of Rather's being stretched thin, his long record of lowering his journalistic standards when it came to allegations of Republican malfeasance, his virtually unlimited power, and Rather's innate stubbornness that did his career in. Had any one of these variables been changed, it's likely that CBS's document debacle and Rather's career could have ended on a more honorable note.
Rather's Impact
As the first new journalist on television, Dan Rather was very much a transition figure. Here are some of the points we think Rather will be remembered for aside from Memogate a:
- Turning television journalism into more of a traveling anchor show. This has had positive and negative effects since such travelogue stories are of some use. We happen to agree with Rather's colleague Tom Fenton who argues in his new book Bad News that it's more useful to the viewer to be told the news by a correspondent stationed in the area who does not have to parachute in. Still, the idea of "you are there" pieces have some value, up to a point. It's ironic that the me-journalism pioneered by Rather is often practiced by many blogs.
- Injecting opinion into news. Dan Rather in many ways was somewhat of a forerunner for talk radio and cable television. His willingness to express opinions such as "You've made us hypocrites in the face of the world! How could you sign on to such a policy?!" (though he was never forthright enough to admit they were such) probably helped provide an audience for conservative talk radio and provided an environment in which enforcement of the FCC's Fairness Doctrine against righty radio was absurd. We hope Dan has the courage and honesty to pull up a chair at a cable network and fess up to being an old-fashioned Southern liberal Democrat.
- As witness to history. True enough, Rather has been the (mostly willing) witness to a number of historical events ranging from the presidential resignation and impeachment to natural disasters to the end of one cold war and the beginning of another.
- Being a pop-culture figure. The side-effect of making the news about you is that your daily doings will become news much more likely. Dan Rather was the first TV news person to become a pop-culture icon, though often not in the manner he would have appreciated.
- Standing up against the trivialization of news. Though he was not always consistent in this regard, as the last of the old guard media and the first of the new guard media, Rather tried to hold the fort on this point. He could have done better and resigned in protest a few times by our count, but he did try.
- As the unwilling midwife to the new media. Dan Rather's usage and stubborn defense of forged documents as chronicled on this site and elsewhere for the past few months helped finish the birthing process (begun a decade ago with the launch of the Drudge Report) of a new form of media, a true people's press, which, like its ancestors, is far from perfect, but has an intrinsic value of its own.
A Word from Us
In the course of writing RatherBiased.com, we've learned a tremendous amount about news, television, and media (most of which has never made it into these pages). In writing the site, while we've often been very critical, we've tried to do so with the highest standards of accuracy. We're proud to say that during the entire time we've run RatherBiased.com, no one has ever provided a specific instance of quoting Rather or CBS out of context.
We're grateful to all of those who read our site, supported us with financial contributions (alas we never saw any of that Scaife money), and provided fair accounts of our analysis in other media outlets.
Special thanks also go out to our hosting company, AccelerateBiz.
Following Dan's retirement, we'll be taking a vacation from CBS. You will certainly hear more from us in the future.
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