New York – Dan Rather was walking down 41st Street recently when a woman stopped him, grabbed his right hand and began pumping it. “Mr. Rather,” she said, “I just want you to know. We miss you.” It would have been the perfect plant to impress an accompanying reporter, if it wasn’t for one detail: Rather isn’t gone. It just seems that way.
He proved the point last week, when his criticism of “CBS Evening News” under Katie Couric instantly drew more attention than anything he’s done in seven months on his new HDNet news program.
The angry exchange between old colleagues began when Rather said CBS made a mistake with his old newscast by trying to “dumb it down, tart it up in hopes of attracting a younger audience.” The CBS Corp. boss, Leslie Moonves, suggested that was a sexist remark aimed at Couric.
An unapologetic Rather said his remark had nothing to do with gender and was consistent with his hard-news nature. Besides, CBS itself has leveled essentially the same criticism of Couric’s first weeks on the job.
“They seized on this to try to take the discussion away from what I was saying,” he said.
Besides feeling kicked when they’re down in the ratings, CBS News found the criticism galling to take from Rather. Many there blame Rather, who was forced out after a discredited story over President Bush’s military service, for leaving CBS a distant third in the ratings.
“Dan must be having some kind of crisis,” said Rick Kaplan, current “CBS Evening News” executive producer. “I don’t understand what would make him strike out at his old colleagues, especially when they supported him through thin and thinner.” With his weekly “Dan Rather Reports,” the newsman aims to re-create a CBS News he idealizes, rather than what he suggests it has become.
Seven months in operation, “Dan Rather Reports” is a meaty news show that has done stories on dangerous chemicals in trailers given to Hurricane Katrina victims, Mexican drug cartels and civil rights enforcement within the current U.S. Justice Department.
It’s a demanding regimen for a 76 year old. Rather commands a 21-person staff, but is the only on-air reporter.
“I love doing it,” he said. “I love the liberating quality of it. It’s been an absolute joy for me.” Kaplan said he’s seen it once. “It’s a nice little show,” he said. He compared it to “a poor man’s ‘West 57th Street,’ a reference to a defunct CBS newsmagazine.
Rather’s closest model is a longer-dead CBS News program, the Edward R. Murrow-hosted “See It Now.” He specifically rejects any comparison to “60 Minutes,” where he was essentially put on ice for the last several months of his employment at CBS News.
Mark Cuban, the billionaire Dallas Mavericks owner who founded the network designed around quality high-definition programming, said Rather has helped HDNet immeasurably.
“It’s far exceeded my expectations,” Cuban said. “There isn’t a show on TV that compares to it. It’s been amazing.”
Rather insists he’s put the unpleasant end to his CBS News career in the “distant past,” although the bitter skirmish with Moonves suggests it’s a lot closer than he’s letting on.
