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Dan Rather into the sunset?
Part-time Austinite and life-long Texan Dan Rather will not be part of “60 Minutes” in the fall, according to Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post. In fact, he will not be part of CBS at all, his professional home for four decades.
Kurtz reports that CBS executives will ease the 74-year-old Rather out of the last vestiges of his contract when Katie Couric joins CBS as “Evening News” anchor and “60 Minutes” correspondent in September. Rather’s contract is supposed to run until November.
Neither CBS nor Rather is commenting on this latest slap at the man who inherited Walter Cronkite’s throne and occupied it for 24 years. That sometimes rocky reign ended in March 2005, when Rather was forced to apologize for a poorly sourced story about President Bush’s National Guard service during the Vietnam War.
I’ve always thought Rather was one of the least comfortable anchors on network television. When he wasn’t spouting “Ratherisms” (“He looks like he’s been rode hard and put away wet!”), Rather seemed stiff, like a stallion forced into a too-small stall.
But I’ve also always thought Rather is one of television’s best, most tenacious reporters. It’s a shame his career ended on such a sour note — and mostly because he put too much trust in the producer, Mary Mapes, who failed to verify documents on which the National Guard story was based.
If it’s any consolation to Rather, CBS treated Uncle Walter shabbily, too. When Rather became anchor, forcing Cronkite into a retirement he really didn’t want, Cronkite was basically banished from the air. He turned up on cable specials about space, and he was allowed to maintain an office at Black Rock. But he was shoved aside.
Will we ever see Dan Rather on TV again? Or will we just have to catch him ambling through Whole Foods, near his downtown Austin condo?
It’s hard to imagine Rather sitting still for long. Sure, he loves to fish and play with his grandkids, but he’s too energetic, smart and restless to languish for long. It would surprise no one if he turned up on CNN — or even Fox — and began trotting the globe once again.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Categories: News coverage
Comments
By Mike
June 15, 2006 01:09 PM | Link to this
Gotta disagree with ya here, Diane. I've been watching the news since back when Walter explained to his viewers how astronauts would go to the bathroom on Apollo 11, or the night he got the news over the phone that LBJ had died, all live on the air. Cronkite and Rather both started out at the top of their game; neither of then ended up there. Cronkite, like Johnny Carson, tired of the grind of daily television and was working less and less before his retirement. Rather committed the sin of becoming the news, rather than the reporter, when, for example, he walked off the show when the U.S. Open tennis tournament ran long and the news was late in starting; remember George H.W. Bush rubbing his face in that during the 1988 presidential campaign? Rather also editorialized against his employer's need for more reporters, not mentioning that his $2,000,000 salary -- more than twice his competitors' on NBC and ABC at the time -- could have been cut in half to hire 20 more staff. Rather was great following the Nixon campaign and during the early investigative reporting of 60 Minutes, and yes, television news has changed for the worse since those days, progressing from "Harvest of Shame" to the network brand of "Entertainment Tonight". But what have Walt or Dan done for the network lately?
By Dave
June 15, 2006 12:37 PM | Link to this
The internet was the vehicle that exposed the truth, something that Dan had little regard for. If the internet was a force 20 years ago, he and his many ginned up "reports" would have been exposed long ago. CBS has not changed though, but that too is coming.
By Suzie
June 15, 2006 11:44 AM | Link to this
Further proof that the mainstream media networks want puppets working for them, not thinkers - it's always been that way:
"Our job is to give people not what they want, but what WE decide they ought to have."
-- Richard Salant, former President of CBS News (1961-1963 and 1966-1979)