Dan Rather - Biography

Last Editor: fixyourpet				Dan Rather Biography -   Name : Dan Rather Profession : Journalist Birth Details : born October 31, 1931 Birth name : Dan Irvin Rather Jr. Personal quotes : "What separated Ed Murrow from the rest of the pack was courage. I know what you're thinking. I've gotten in trouble before for using the word. Pr Spouse : Jean Goebel (1958 - present) 2 children Trade mark : Use of odd metaphors, or "Texanisms," when reporting the news. In the 1980s, he used to sign off each news broadcast with the word "Cou

Dan Rather Trivia -

Born at 6:13pm-CST. In 1986, he was chased and kicked onto a Manhattan sidewalk by William Tager, a man who kept asking, "Kenneth, what is the frequency?" Graduated from Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas, where the communications building is named for him. Was the first guest on "Late Show with David Letterman" (1993) on September 17, 2001 show, Letterman's first show after the September 11, 2001 tragedy. He broke out in tears twice having to describe these terrorist events. Has one daughter, Robin, and one son, Danjack. In 1991, his car was broken into. Instead of having the criminal arrested, he gave him a lecture on the choices he had made in life. They later met in Kuwait. The man, who was now an Apache pilot, thanked Rather for giving him the lecture and turning his life around. On September 11, 1987, he became so furious at the prospect of having his CBS News broadcast delayed by a U.S. Tennis match, that he walked off the set. When he did not return in time for the start of the news, CBS aired a blank screen for over five minutes. The incident was later recalled during his January 1988 interview with then-Vice President George Bush; when Rather questioned him about the Iran-Contra scandal, Bush asked Rather if he would like to have his career judged by the blank screen incident. During CBS's live coverage of the tumultuous 1968 Democratic National Convention, he saw some men with no identification or badges trying to forcibly remove what appeared to be a Georgia delegate from the building. When he attempted to interview the candidate, one of the men punched him on camera. Announced that he is stepping down as anchor of "The CBS Evening News" in March 2005, on the 24th anniversary of his first broadcast as anchor. He will remain with CBS News as a correspondent for "60 Minutes Sunday" and "60 Minutes Wednesday." [November 2004] Appeared in disguise as an Afghan peasant for his 1980 _"60 Minutes" (1970)_ on-location reports on the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Although he explained that the disguise was necessary for reporting from the war zone, the media ridiculed him, calling him "Gunga Dan." The Soviet press agency Tass later reported Afghan newspaper had accused him of participating in the murder of three villagers while he was in Afghanistan, accusations that he denied and was generally regarded as ridiculous. On September 20, 2004, he made a televised apology for the CBS News failing to verify the authenticity of questionably documents used in support of a "60 Minutes II" (1999) story about President George W. Bush's military record in the Texas Air National Guard. A two-person investigative panel formed by CBS said that a "myopic zeal" on the part of the CBS News to break the story, which the panel found to be be neither fair nor accurate and did not meet the organization's internal standards. As a result of the panel's findings, CBS fired four CBS News employees, including three executives. Although the panel placed no specific blame on him, the incident damaged his credibility and was believed to have led to the announcement of his retirement as anchor of the "CBS Evening News". Attended Gethsemane Lutheran Church in Northwest Houston, as a youngster

Dan Rather Detailed Biography -

Daniel Irvin Rather, Jr. (born October 31, 1931) is an American journalist, who served as anchor of the CBS Evening News from March 9, 1981, until March 9, 2005. Rather was born in Wharton, Texas, the son of Daniel Irvin Rather Sr. and his wife, the former Byrl Veda Page. In 1953 he received a bachelor's degree in journalism from Sam Houston State Teachers College where he was editor of the school newspaper, The Houstonian. Rather began his career in 1950 as an Associated Press reporter in Huntsville. Later, he was a reporter for United Press International (1950–1952), several Texas radio stations, and the Houston Chronicle (1954–1955). In 1959, he entered television as a reporter for KTRK-TV in Houston. Prior to joining CBS News, Rather was news director for KHOU-TV, the CBS affiliate in Houston. In 1961, Rather reported live from the Galveston seawall as Hurricane Carla threatened the Texas coastline. This action, which has been imitated by countless other reporters to this day, impressed the network executives at CBS, and they hired him as a CBS News correspondent in 1962. In his autobiography, Rather notes that back then TV stations didn't have their own radar systems, and of course nobody then had the modern computerized radar that combines the radar image with an outline map. So he took a camera crew to a US Navy radar station in Galveston, where a technician drew a rough outline of the Gulf of Mexico on a sheet of plastic, and held that over the radar display to give Rather's audience an idea of the storm's size and position. Rather—quite by accident, as described in his autobiography—was the first television journalist to report that President John F. Kennedy had died of wounds received from an assassin. He is also known by Kennedy researchers to have seen the Zapruder film taken by an eyewitness to the passing Dallas motorcade and incorrectly reported that JFK's head went "violently forward" when he was hit. In fact it went violently backwards. Rather's reporting during the national mourning period following the Kennedy assassination and subsequent events brought him to the attention of CBS News management, which rewarded him in 1964 with the network's White House correspondent position. After serving as a foreign correspondent for CBS News, he drew the assignment as primary anchor for the CBS Sunday Night News, while serving as White House correspondent during the Richard Nixon presidency. His hard punching coverage of the Watergate Investigation and Impeachment proceedings became legendary. After President Nixon's resignation, Rather took the assignment of chief correspondent for CBS News Special Reports. Some critics wondered whether it was a demotion, but Rather's career with CBS News had one success after another. He became a correspondent of the long-running Sunday night news show 60 Minutes, just as the program was moved from a Sunday afternoon timeslot to primetime. Success there brought Rather in line to succeed Walter Cronkite as main anchor and Managing Editor of the CBS Evening News. Rather assumed the position upon Cronkite's retirement, his first broadcast taking place on March 9, 1981. From the beginning of his tenure, it was clear that Rather had a significantly different style of reporting the news. In contrast to the avuncular Cronkite, who ended his newscast with "That's the way it is," Dan Rather searched to find a broadcast ending more suitable to his tastes. For one week during the mid-1980s, Rather had tried ending his broadcasts with the word "courage" and was roundly ridiculed for it. He eventually found a wrap up phrase more modest than Cronkite's and more relaxed than his own previous attempts. For nearly two decades Rather ended the show with "That's part of our world tonight." While Rather had inherited Cronkite's ratings lead and held it for a few years, his ratings declined as his network competition changed. Simultaneously, CBS went through an institutional crisis and ultimate purchase by Laurence Tisch. When Dan Rather took the helm of CBS News anchor desk the United States had only three commercial television networks: CBS, NBC and ABC. When he retired the three commercial networks were in competition with many more news outlets, including FOX, CNN and the internet. These broadcast competitors have dampened the financial resources of the "Big Three" networks. In 1984, Tisch oversaw the layoffs of thousands of CBS News employees, including numerous correspondents such as David Andelman, Fred Graham, Morton Dean, and Ike Pappas. Fewer videotape crews were dispatched to cover stories, numerous bureaus were shuttered. The Evening News was transformed overnight from a newscast featuring enterprise reports from seasoned CBS News correspondents to one in which Rather would read "voice-over" stories to footage shot by other news organizations. The events depicted in the movie Broadcast News are thought to closely parallel those of CBS' downsizing; Rather is thought by many to be the model for the part played by Jack Nicholson, the anchor whose own astronomical salary was deemed sacrosanct as the little people were let go. For a short time from 1993 to 1995, Rather co-anchored the evening news with Connie Chung. Chung had for many years been seen anchoring short news updates. Once joining the Evening News, however, she became embroiled in distracting and embarrassing attempts to hound "pop news" stories. One famous incident had her on an airplane interviewing Tonya Harding, accused of being behind the plot to injure fellow Olympic ice skater Nancy Kerrigan. The Rather-Chung duo was cancelled and Rather went back to doing the newscast solo. Additionally, competition among cable outlets developed over the next two decades. In an age of 24-hour news on cable and internet news websites, viewership levels fell for network news broadcasts in general. At the end of Rather's career, the CBS Evening News had fallen to a distant third place in terms of viewership. Although still garnering some 7 million viewers each evening, the broadcast was behind NBC Nightly News and ABC World News Tonight. His departure from the anchor chair was troubling for CBS, as Rather's journalistic credentials were questioned during the 2004 Presidential campaign between George W. Bush and John Kerry. Rather retired from anchor of the CBS evening news at 7:00 eastern time, 9 March 2005. Rather is also a columnist whose work is distributed by King Features Syndicate. His daughter, Robin, is an environmentalist and community activist in Austin, Texas. Nixon During the presidency of Richard Nixon, critics accused Rather of being unfair in his coverage. At a Houston, Texas news conference in 1974, Nixon fielded a question from Rather, still CBS's White House correspondent, who said, "Thank you, Mr. President. Dan Rather, of CBS News. Mr. President..." The room filled with jeers and applause, prompting Nixon to joke, "Are you running for something?" Rather replied "No, sir, Mr. President. Are you?" CBS apparently considered firing Rather and its news president met with administration official John Ehrlichman to discuss the situation. According to NBC's Tom Brokaw, the network considered hiring him as its White House correspondent to replace Rather. But CBS's plans to do so were scrapped after word was leaked to the press. Afghanistan, Reagan, and George H.W. Bush Dan Rather gained national recognition for his reports from Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion of 1980 During the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, Dan Rather was filmed wearing a traditional Mujahadeen headress and garments while reporting from near the front lines. These reports were some of the first by Rather which helped him gain national prominence (and were spoofed by the comic strip Doonesbury). Later on during the 1980s, Rather gained further renown to some for his forceful and skeptical reporting on the Iran-Contra Affair that eventually led to an on-air confrontation he had with then-Vice President of the United States George H. W. Bush. This incident was widely believed to have been a notable event in Bush's campaign to win the presidency in the 1988 election. It also marked the beginning of Rather's ratings decline, a slump from which he has never recovered. Bush never forgave him and refused to grant Rather an interview after their initial tangle. His son George W. Bush has apparently followed suit, and has thus far declined to grant Rather an interview during his presidency. Shortly after the Gulf War began, Dan Rather secured an interview with Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein which, among other things, captured the flavor of Saddam's boldness towards the U.S. "There is no powerful and quick strike that a people could deliver, whatever their overall power. The United States depends on the Air Force. The Air Force has never decided a war in the history of wars." Saddam Hussein in interview with Dan Rather, Aug 29, 1990 However, Hussein underestimated the potential of air power. Persistent bombardment by Coalition air power proved instrumental in breaking Iraqi resolve prior to engagement of Coalition land forces. On February 24, 2003, Rather conducted another very famous interview of Saddam Hussein before the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. In the interview, Saddam invited Rather to be the moderator for a live television debate between Saddam and George W. Bush. The debate never occured. The Wall Within On June 2, 1988, Dan Rather hosted the CBS News special, The Wall Within. In the special, Dan Rather interviewed six individuals who presented themselves as Vietnam veterans, each purporting to have witnessed horrible acts in Vietnam. Some said that they killed civilians and others said that they saw friends die. Each man talked about the effects that the war had upon their lives such as becoming mentally depressed, becoming unemployed, using drugs, and becoming homeless. While researching for the book Stolen Valor: How the Vietnam Generation Was Robbed of its Heroes and its History, authors B. G. Burkett and Glenna Whitley claimed they easily obtained the service records of all six men, that documented where each was stationed during the Vietnam War. According to the records, only one of the six men was actually in Vietnam; he had claimed to have been a 16 year-old Navy SEAL but records had show was only an equipment repairman. Neither CBS nor Dan Rather have retracted any of the claims made in the program. The Killian documents Main article: Killian documents On 60 Minutes (Wednesday edition} on September 8, 2004, Rather went public with a series of documents concerning President George W. Bush's Texas Air National Guard service record, which purported to indicate that Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian declared Bush unfit for flight status for failure to obey an order to submit to a physical examination. The authenticity of these documents was quickly called into question by experts and critics as well as Killian's son and widow. Most document analysts quoted by the media stated that the memos are forgeries. For nearly two weeks, Rather and his team strongly stood by the memos and accused their critics of partisan motives. Rather and CBS later announced that they could not vouch for the authenticity of the documents. CBS stated that using the memos was a "mistake" and Rather apologized for the incident. Their source, former Texas Army National Guard officer named Bill Burkett, initially misled a CBS producer about the source of the documents and now states they came from another source. The surrounding controversy has been dubbed by some as "Memogate" and "Rathergate". Several CBS employees, including producer Mary Mapes, were asked to resign by CBS management because of the scandal. It is unclear whether or not Rather's retirement was directly caused by this incident, although many believe that it was. Retirement from the Evening News Dan Rather receiving applause at the end of his final broadcast Rather retired as the anchorman and Managing Editor of the CBS Evening News in 2005. His last broadcast was Wednesday, March 9, 2005. He worked as the anchorman for 24 full years, the longest tenure of anyone in American television history—only Lloyd Robertson of Canada and Brian Henderson of Australia have served longer. He will continue working as a correspondent for "60 Minutes." Bob Schieffer, a fellow Texan and host of Face the Nation, took over Rather's position on an interim basis. Rather is still a reporter for "60 Minutes." Since retiring, he has been on a speaking tour across the United States. On Jan. 24, 2006, Rather spoke to a Seattle audience. Before the speaking engagement, he told a newspaper reporter, "In many ways on many days, (reporters) have sort of adopted the attitude of 'go along, get along,'" "What many of us need is a spine transplant," Rather added. "Whether it's City Hall, the Statehouse or the White House, part of our job is to speak truth to power."