With the curtain about to rise on the Katie Couric era at CBS News, it has closed for Dan Rather.
The network confirmed this week it was cutting ties with Rather, a tie to the CBS News glory years who spent nearly a quarter-century as its public face until things went sour over a story about the president’s military service.
In terse statements, Rather and the network said they couldn’t agree on what came next for him at CBS. But CBS News president Sean McManus’ decision seems designed to start fresh at a news organization where the tough Texan cast a long shadow.
“I have enormous respect for what Dan has brought to CBS News and what he has meant to CBS News, but I had to make the tough decision of what direction in which to go, and this is what I chose,” McManus said.
Rather, 74, has no intention of retiring. He is weighing an offer to do a weekly show at the tiny HDNet, a high-definition network offered on some cable and satellite systems.
“It just isn’t in me to sit around doing nothing,” he said. “So I will do the work I love elsewhere.”
For more than two decades, Rather, NBC’s Tom Brokaw and the late Peter Jennings of ABC dominated television as the faces of the evening news and whenever big stories broke. The habit of anchors traveling to the scene of news stories is largely Rather’s legacy.
Yet CBS was last in the news ratings and without a transition plan even before the ill-fated September 2004 story about President Bush’s military service. Rather narrated the report, in the midst of the presidential campaign, which CBS later concluded after much criticism it could not substantiate.
Six months later, on March 9, 2005, he signed off for the last time after 24 years as the “CBS Evening News” anchor. Rather contributed eight stories to “60 Minutes” this past season, but he complained it wasn’t enough work to satisfy him. He said CBS offered him a new contract with no assignments.
His exit, Rather said, represents CBS’ acknowledgment that “after a protracted struggle … they had not lived up to their obligation to allow me to do substantive work there.”
McManus, who took over last fall as CBS News president, wouldn’t discuss in an interview with The Associated Press the specifics of what CBS offered. He’s been trying to push “60 Minutes” into a new era, with Couric and CNN’s Anderson Cooper to begin doing stories in the fall.
“Basically, there wasn’t a situation that we could come up with where there was enough meaningful work for Dan to do at CBS News that made sense for both him and us,” he said, noting the decision wasn’t financial. CBS’ send-off to Rather includes a primetime special on his career that will air this fall.
A former CBS News correspondent, Bill McLaughlin, said Rather should have had the wisdom to fade out gracefully after the Bush story.
“There comes a moment for all of us to leave the professional stage, whatever it may be, and knowing that requires courage and wisdom,” said McLaughlin, who teaches broadcast journalism at Quinnipiac University. “Dan is like some once-great major leaguer who ends up playing in the minors instead of facing reality.”
Rather may have been thinking of his predecessor in declining an ill-defined job.
After retiring as anchor, Cronkite maintained an office at CBS headquarters, but he complained bitterly of having little to do and having retired too soon.
