Dan Rather said his dismissal from CBS News nearly two decades earlier “of course … was the lowest point” of his legendary journalism career as he returned to his former employer’s airwaves for the first time on Sunday.
“I gave CBS News everything I had,” the 92-year-old newsman said. “They had smarter, better, more talented people, but they didn’t have anybody who worked harder than I did.”
Rather’s remarks came during a contemplative interview on CBS Sunday Morning in advance of the release of a Netflix documentary about his life and work.
He spent 44 years at CBS – including 24 as anchor of its evening news program – but lost his place there after a doomed 2004 investigation into the military record of George W Bush, who was in the middle of successfully running for a second term as president.
Rather avoided official blame for the report that questioned Bush’s service in the national guard during the time of the Vietnam war. But he introduced the piece in his role as anchor and was inextricably linked to it.
CBS later said it could not vouch for the authenticity of some of the records on which the investigation depended, though many who worked on the story maintain it was true.
Nonetheless, Rather signed off on CBS’s airwaves as anchor for the last time on 9 March 2005. And he ultimately left the network after his contract expired a little more than a year later.
According to the Associated Press, in the Netflix documentary debuting on Wednesday, Rather believed he would survive the botched investigation into Bush’s military service and was shocked over his downfall at CBS.
But in the film he says that he sobered up to reality when his wife, Jean, told him, “You got into a fight with the president of the United States during his re-election campaign. What did you think was going to happen?”
Rather’s career in journalism continued after he left CBS, publishing investigations and conducting interviews for digital cable and satellite television network HDNet. He has written books, commented on presidential politics and fostered a younger audience on social media.
But he had not been back to CBS for years because of lingering ill will between him and the network’s former chief Leslie Moonves, who resigned in 2018 after several women accused him of sexual harassment, assault or abuse going back to the 1980s.
He was finally back at CBS days before the debut of Rather, Netflix’s biographical documentary chronicling his reporting on John F Kennedy’s assassination, Vietnam and Watergate through his anchor years and beyond, as the AP reported.
The AP noted that the documentary addresses odder chapters of Rather’s run as a journalist, including his assault in New York City by someone saying, “What’s the frequency, Kenneth,” before then going onstage with REM when the band performed a song named after that phrase.
“Without apology or explanation, I miss CBS,” Rather said in Sunday’s interview, which was filmed at his home in Texas. “I’ve missed it since the day I left there.”
Rather said he had not lost the instinct that made him realize he wanted to be a reporter decades ago.
“In the heart of every reporter worthy of their name … there’s a message that news, real news, is what somebody somewhere – particularly somebody in power – doesn’t want you to know,” Rather said. That’s news.”
He added: “I get up every morning, and as soon as my feet hit the ground, I say, ‘Where’s the story?’”
Asked if it mattered how big or small the audience was, Rather replied, “No.”
