Over the years, Dan Rather has acquired a reputation for "jumping the gun" on big news events, reporting something as a fact that has not been established in his haste to get the scoop. Here are a few of Rather's "exclusives." For our coverage of Rather being tricked by a Howard Stern fan during his coverage of the space shuttle Columbia disaster, see Previous News.

Winging it at the Nixon White House
"Rather often adhered to the 'informed sources' or 'the White House announced today' formulas, but he was famous in the trade for the times when he bypassed these formulas and ‘winged it' on a story. Rather would go with an item even if he didn't have it completely nailed down with verifiable facts. If a rumor sounded solid to him, if he believed it in his gut or had gotten it from a man who struck him as honest, he would let it rip. The other White House reporters hated Rather for this. They knew exactly why he got away with it: being handsome as a cowboy, Rather was a star on CBS News, and that gave him the clout he needed. They could quote all his lapses from fact, like the three times he had Ellsworth Bunker resigning, the two occasions on which he announced that J. Edgar Hoover would step down, or the time he incorrectly predicted that Nixon was about to veto an education bill."
--Timothy Crouse in his book The Boys on the Bus which detailed the press's coverage of the 1972 presidential campaigns.

"Dan Rather called to advise me that CBS had taped a video interview with a man in London named Ratnoff who said that in January 1971 I approached him to buy bugging equipment. The alleged incident was said to have occurred face-to-face in a town in New Jersey I had never visited and never knew existed. This was my first taste of that spasm of dread and nausea that even a phony story produces for someone in government who knows that publication alone will produce a scandal. I shouted indignantly at Rather that the story was an 'absolute, goddamn, f---ing fabrication.' To my exhausted relief, after half a day of back and forth, Rather chose to believe me. In those days, such a story would rarely run without corroboration. Now it could happen with ease."
--Leonard Garment, longtime personal friend and advisor to Richard Nixon, in his 1997 book Crazy Rhythm.

During the Nixon administration, Justice Harlan, a liberal, decided to retire from the Supreme Court. This was the fourth justice to resign during his administration:
"Dan Rather appeared on CBS news to tell the American people that the President had known of the Harlan resignation far in advance. 'The letter has been written for weeks,' Rather confided. Rather was wrong again. Actually we had no advance notice; the timing of Harlan's resignation had taken us all by surprise."
--John Ehrlichman, Nixon's chief assistant for domestic affairs, in Witness to Power: The Nixon Years, 1982.

During the 1996 Republican nomination battle, Senator Phil Gramm and Pat Buchanan were bitter rivals; Rather interviewed Buchanan:
"Phil Gramm says, in effect, it'd be suicidal for the Republican Party to nominate you because you're too far to the right, particularly on abortion."
--Dan Rather to Pat Buchanan on the CBS Evening News, February 11, 1996.

"Senator Phil Gramm's staff called to say they believe viewers may have gotten the wrong impression from something said on the CBS Evening News last night. If any clarification is needed, it should be noted that nowhere on the record has Senator Gramm characterized Pat Buchanan as too far to the right on abortion."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, February 12, 1996.

“Baba Booey’s Teeth”

"Lieutenant Gaynor:" Watch Dan Rather as he gets fooled by a Howard Stern fan during a live broadcast. Choose either Windows Media (56KB/s, 500KB) or RealVideo (56KB/s, 693KB)

In July of 1999, the private airplane of John Kennedy, son of the former president, was reported to be missing in the vicinity of the Massachusetts island of Martha's Vineyard. There was speculation that the craft had crashed, but there was no evidence it had. During the search for the plane, CBS decided to pre-empt normal programming to provide live coverage. A Howard Stern fan decided he'd see how far Rather would let him get posing as a Coast Guard official with potentially hot news:

RATHER: We now have Lieutenant Ed Gaynor of the United States Coast Guard that they've found some debris. Lieutenant, what can you tell us about this debris?

ED GAYNOR, U.S. Coast Guard–Cape Cod (As identified on screen): Some debris has been spotted, and it is consistent with debris from a Saratoga. Whether it's John F. Kennedy's Saratoga, we don't know. We also found Baba Booey's teeth were laying along the bay, too, and Howard Stern and Baba Booey were all there. [Gary "Baba Booey" Dell'Abate is the producer of Stern's radio show.]

RATHER: Excuse me, when you said you have determined this debris is from a Piper Saratoga--

[Pause, no response from caller]

Well, I'm not sure that we heard correctly there. Lieutenant Gaynor of the Coast Guard telling us--and this is breaking information. I remind you again this is live television. We take in raw information, and we do the best we can to be rock solid in stating fact. But now earlier there was a report of debris spotted. Then there was a report from the FAA.

Bob Orr said, 'Well, the FAA, in effect, steered us away from making any conclusions that the debris might or might not have anything to do with John Kennedy's plane.

But now, this just in: The Coast Guard lieutenant says they have found debris; that the debris, I believe that he said—we've lost him for the moment now—was consistent with a Piper Saratoga, but that they couldn't determine whether it was John F. Kennedy Jr.'s Piper Saratoga aircraft. But this puts the late information in a whole new context, a whole new perspective.

[In Rather's earpiece, he's told it's a prank]

I want to emphasize to you that this is raw information. Sometimes people call in and say things that aren't true. Sometimes, you know, cranks, that sort of thing happens. So let's be very, very careful here with this information. One thought comes to mind: Was this actually the Coast Guard lieutenant that we thought we were talking to? He jumped off that phone very--very pronto.

Let's go to Bob Orr in Washington.

ORR: Dan, I--I've never understood why, when--if you're in a crisis-type story and when people are hungry for good, reliable information, I've never understood why pranksters think it's funny to come on and--and just pass out erroneous information.

I can tell you categorically, Dan, that last report was completely unfounded. I doubt that it was anybody from the Coast Guard. We have been told on the record by the Coast Guard and by a senior source in the Department of Transportation just a couple of minutes ago, in fact, that no debris has been found consistent with the Kennedy plane.
--Dan Rather and Bob Orr in a "Special Report," July 17, 1999.

We Know How to Call 'Em
At the start of Election Night 2000, before any states had been called, Dan Rather announced:
"Let's get one thing straight right from the get-go. We would rather be last in reporting returns than to be wrong. And again, our record demonstrates that true. If you hear someplace else that somebody's carried a state and you're off, as you shouldn't be, watching them, then come back here, because if we say somebody's carried a state, you can pretty much take it to the bank, book it, that that's true."
--Dan Rather during live Election Night coverage November 7, 2000.

"To err is to human--is human, to really foul up requires a computer. And that's what's happened with Florida. Everybody that we know of had put Florida into the Gore column sometime ago. Now we're pulling it back into the undecided column because some bad data came from certain precincts in Florida."
--Dan Rather during live Election Night coverage November 7, 2000.

"Now if you're disgusted with us, frankly, I don't blame you. But everybody in the business virtually had called Florida for Gore based on data that turns out to be suspect, suspect data from some precincts did it. . . . I know of nobody who didn't believe it."
--Dan Rather during live Election Night coverage November 7, 2000.

CBS's polling department was embarrassed; Rather tried to comfort them:
"In fairness to Dr. Kathy Frankovic and her highly professional CBS News survey team, we'd like to point out that her final CBS News poll before yesterday's election came closer to the actual popular vote than any other national survey."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, November 9, 2000. print_file('footer'); ?>