Award Recipients

Dan Rather 1997 Paul White Award Recipient

INTEGRITY AND RESPONSIBILITY: AN INTERVIEW WITH DAN RATHER

By Loren Tobia for August 1997 Communicator

One of the joys of being the past chairman of RTNDA is the opportunity to nominate someone for the Paul White Award. This year's winner is CBS Anchor and Managing Editor Dan Rather, whose selection was approved unanimously by the board. Rather will be recognized as the winner of the Paul White Award at RTNDA97 in New Orleans. The award is given to recognize his lifetime contributions to the field of electronic journalism.

When I informed Rather of the award by telephone, I could tell he was moved, searching for words to express his true feelings. When we got together in late May at his office in New York, he had put his thoughts together.

"I am truly honored and humbled by this recognition. I appreciate it. I aspire to be the best, but I don't kid myself; I don't achieve it very often. I am excited for many reasons. Look, I am not the best anchor, but I am the only anchor person of the big three, or let's say the big four, that has been a news director in radio and television. I know how hard it is to run a newsroom. I know what the pressures are--the pressures for ratings, the pressures of the budget, the pressures to cover everything you want to cover. Having done it, I have a better appreciation for those who do it day in and day out. When I was a radio news director and a television news director, it was in a different era, with all that entails….The pressures are much different now than when I was a news director. I have a great respect for those who are fighting the good fight in the trenches every day.

"I also appreciate this award because I consider radio and television news directors my peers--in many ways the best of my peers because they are asked to do more with less. And when you look at the list of people who have won the Paul White Award, that list is so impressive. The people who have made the selection of past winners have approached it with care and a sense of history and tradition.

"The other reason this is special is because it is named for Paul White. Paul White was a CBS person. He was among the founders of electronic journalism. He was a leader--mark well I didn't say a manager, although he could and did manage. There is a difference between leadership and management, as anyone who runs a newsroom knows well."

One of Rather's most memorable speeches was delivered at the 1993 RTNDA convention in Miami. In remarks titled "Call It Courage," Rather referred to the famous Edward R. Murrow speech to RTNDA in which Murrow warned about "this weapon called television." Rather asked those of us in the audience to consider if we had improved since the time of Murrow's remarks and suggested there were things we might do in the future. Four years later as I sat in Rather's office just off the set of the evening news, I asked him how we as an industry were doing.

"Still not well, but compared with the time I made those remarks, marginally better. Maybe because I want so badly for it to be better, but I believe it is true. Remember back to that speech, I did not exempt myself from the criticisms about the craft I love so deeply. And I also chose carefully where I gave the talk. It was intended not to be a speech but a dialogue with my peers. At the time, I was warned not to give the talk. Fortunately, it was with my peers, and they did understand.

"My concern at the time was the pressure we all have--the pressure that is greater at local stations. Those pressures completely overwhelm the best of television news. Most people get into--and stay in--news because they think of it as a public service. You get in the swampy jungle, and you find yourself fighting to survive. It is so easy to forget why you got in. I've been through this; I go through this even now sometimes. My concern was that being overwhelmed increases the pressure. I wanted to remind myself, and in some respects others, that we were in the greatest danger that electronic journalism has been in: being overwhelmed by entertainment values. That was the major thrust. How are we today? We are still in great peril, moment to moment on the razor's edge. We must fight this. It is something worth fighting for--news integrity. I think there has been a little bit of improvement. Where I think I see it now is that from time to time a news director or someone will speak out-- saying, 'I want to stay in this job…but there are some things I will not do.' A little more of this is happening. I do think there is a collective recognition that if we don't take a little bit of a stand--if we don't run up the banner that news is not entertainment--although it can be interesting and entertaining with a different set of core values--then we are turning it over and giving it up. Look what happened in Chicago [at WMAQ-TV with Carol Marin and Jerry Springer]. I don't profess to know all the intricate details, but someone said, 'This has gone too far. I know this station. I know this market, and this is wrong.' Whether they have gone too far or not, I am encouraged to know that someone stood up and said, 'I don't think this is right.'"

Rather's office is not what I expected. There are no award plaques, but there are some pictures of family and friends. On a coat rack hangs the jacket he wore when he covered the Vietnam War and the robe he used while reporting from Afghanistan. There are two computers on the credenza behind his desk. On his desk sits an old manual typewriter. There are two pictures that look down on Rather, both of Murrow. A sense of history and pride grabbed me as I sat there, across the way in a somewhat dark corner. So I asked Rather about his strong loyalties to CBS--why the "eye" network is different.

"Let me say that I know the Brokaws, Jennings and Pauleys of our world care as deeply as I do about the craft. But I do think CBS News is different. Those of us at CBS News, we have a longer history, a longer sense of tradition, and we feel it to such an extent that we are held to a higher standard. More is expected of CBS News. Although that banner may be tattered--and in many ways it is--one could argue that whether these things are true or not, the one thing that cannot be disputed is that you are still held to a higher standard. When you walk into this building you feel in a positive way the weight of the history, the weight of the tradition and the people responsible for it. When I fault myself--which is often because I have made a lot of mistakes--I have faulted myself because I didn't make the effort to lead, to keep our standards as high as possible in today's competitive environment. Sometimes I haven't worked hard enough or smart enough. I fault myself a lot. It isn't a matter of not caring enough; I have tried, but there have been times when I know I didn't try hard enough."

Rather's biggest example is very telling. "We went through the worst period of CBS News history roughly from 1986 to 1996…a 10-year period that was bad by anyone's estimation. And during that period I had a leadership responsibility that I tried to at least meet....We tried to do more with less, but when I look back on it I don't think I did enough. You reach a point when you say, 'I want to stay here, I want to fight the fight,' but is it better to do it from inside and to change what one can change and resist what one can resist? Or is it better to go outside and take another direction? There was the day 300 people walked out that front door. We knew what we were doing. We knew it would impact the coverage. I thought about it long and hard--what my response should be. After a time I did speak out, yes, at some risk to myself. But as the days and years rolled on I tried to speak out for improvements. Our army had shrunk, and we tried to get more out of each person...but I digress as I sometimes do. Let's just say I've had my failings."

While having a great respect for history, Rather also keeps tabs on the changing times in the industry. We discussed the new ways people are getting their news and his thoughts and concerns about those changes.

"I am genuinely excited about the prospects of such new developments as the Internet. There are challenges and opportunities galore. But there are dangers also. News on the Internet, a lot of it is not checked. A lot of it is not accurate. The nature of 'interactive' is that one can just put up anything they want. What is on the Internet may be in the process of changing the definition of news. I hope it doesn't. People who define news anywhere near the way I define news, and for me, that means news of integrity, news that is accurate and fair. It must have context and perspective. We have something to offer that can complement the Internet. Here's the point: I know the theory that network news is a dinosaur. That is an overused and overworked phrase. In this enormously growing marketplace, the one way to survive is to be different. CBS News is different. We have a higher standard. We will survive on this new information highway. There will always be a place for news of integrity.

Spend any amount of time with Dan Rather, and you feel his passion. He loves his job, his craft and his network. He lives with constant public scrutiny and the ever-increasing speculation as to who will replace him at the anchor desk. I asked him what advice he will have for that individual when the day finally does come. His response: "Don't take any advice. [I'd tell them to] listen to that wee small voice inside them telling them this is the right thing to do. Anyone who walks down that hall will get advice, but not from me. I got a lot of advice, and among the many mistakes I have made was listening to it.

"These are precious jobs and I know it. You only get to hold one. If you had told me in the beginning I would hold this job for 16 years, I would have said you were smoking something. There's no way. But I have, and I feel lucky. I look back at the journeys I've traveled and what stands out to me is the opportunity missed to contribute, to do something significant. That is not advice, just my experience. I would hope that the next person's experience would be even better. What an honor it is to have all these challenges and responsibilities. How quickly the time goes."

--Loren Tobia is news director of KMTV in Omaha, NE. He is past chairman of RTNDA.