This month we are learning about some of our favorite newscasters from the past. It’s hard to compare today’s news atmosphere with 24/7 coverage of everything, but the three network newscasts held a different importance in the fifties, sixties, and seventies. Nightly newscasters were highly respected and listened to. Dan Rather is one of the news correspondents who straddled these two eras. He would cover President Kennedy’s assassination, Watergate, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Gulf War, 9/11, and the Iraq War.
He was born in 1931 in Texas where his father was an oil pipe lineman. The family moved to Houston where he attended grade school, middle school, and high school, graduating in 1950. As a youngster, Dan was bedridden with rheumatic fever. During that time, he was fascinated by radio broadcasts by Edward R. Murrow and Eric Sevareid.
He enrolled at Sam Houston State Teachers College, graduating in 1953 with a degree in journalism. During those years, he was the editor of the school newspaper and worked at KSM-FM radio as a play-by-play announcer for high school and university football games.
He briefly attended South Texas College of Law before enlisting in the Marine Corps. When the Marines found out about his rheumatic fever, he was honorably discharged.
In 1957 Rather married Jean Goebel and they had two children. Their daughter became an activist and environmentalist, and their son was ADA in the District Attorney’s office in Manhattan.
Rather began his career in his home state. In September 1961, Rather was reporting during Hurricane Carla, and he saved thousands of lives, initiating an evacuation of 350,000 residents, becoming a household name overnight. He created the first radar weather report by overlaying a transparent map over a radar image of the hurricane.
His reporting on the assassination of Kennedy in Dallas got him promoted to White House correspondent at CBS News.
Later he would serve as a foreign correspondent in both London and Vietnam before returning to the White House. He was at the White House during Nixon’s presidency, covering his trip to China, the Watergate scandal, and Nixon’s resignation. During this time, Peter Jennings was at ABC, and Tom Brokaw was at NBC.
He joined the 60 Minutes cast in 1975.
After Walter Cronkite’s retirement, Rather became the anchor for the CBS Evening News from 1981-2005. For most of those years, he signed off with “That’s part of our world tonight.” Rather was often criticized for being outspoken and brash on things he didn’t agree with. In 1987, he was upset that his broadcast that night was being cut short for a tennis match; he walked off the set early, causing CBS to transmit a blank signal for six minutes.
In 1994, Sam Houston State University renamed its mass communications building after Rather.
Rather had a 2004 report on 60 Minutes II about President Bush’s military record with the Texas Air National Guard. His report was based on documents that were questioned for their authenticity. Rather admitted that the authenticity could not be proven. Rather later stated that “If I knew then what I know now, I would not have gone ahead with the story as it was aired, and I certainly would not have used the documents in question.”
When his contract ended the next year, he was let go. At his final CBS news broadcast, Rather ended his report with the following: “We’ve shared a lot in the 24 years we’ve been meeting here each evening, and before I say ‘Good night’ this night, I need to say thank you. Thank you to thousands of wonderful professionals at CBS News, past and present, with whom it’s been my honor to work over these years. And a deeply felt thanks to all of you, who have let us into your homes night after night; it has been a privilege, and one never taken lightly.”
He then hosted Dan Rather Reports, an investigative news program on AXS TV (known then as HDNet) from 2006-2013. During this time, he released an autobiography, Rather Outspoken: My Life in the News.
After 2013, Rather produced several series and documentaries. He also was a frequent guest on news shows, including The Rachel Maddow Show and The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell. He also wrote for “The Huffington Post” and “Mashable.”
In 2016, he joined SiriusXM Radio with “Dan Rather’s America.”
Dan Rather had an interesting career. He received high praise and loud criticism. He was quickly promoted and quickly fired. He covered many of the top stories from 1960 – 2015. He conducted interviews with some of the world’s leaders including Fidel Castro and Nelson Mandela. He was part of network news, documentaries, independent stations, and Sirius Radio. However, no matter what was happening around him, he stuck to his principles and covered the news the way he thought was best for the American public. You have to admire that.
thewritelife61 