Rather’s Reality Check Keeps Him Anchored

In 1961, an ambitious young reporter from Texas came to the attention of CBS News when he was “up to his ass in water moccasins,” as Walter Cronkite once put it, reporting on Hurricane Carla for a Houston TV station. Thirty-four years later, there Dan Rather was again last fall, lashed to a tree, anchoring the “CBS Evening News” from Florida’s Hurricane Opal in 140 mph winds.

The Florida story looked almost like a “Saturday Night Live” parody of “Dan Rather reporting.” But it’s a great image for Rather’s 15th anniversary as anchor of the CBS newscast: He’s still standing.

Fifteen years after the hard-charging, controversial reporter succeeded voice-of-God anchor Walter Cronkite, Rather has survived wars, ratings battles and an ill-fated on-air marriage to Connie Chung.

“Some days I get up in the morning and sort of check myself,” Rather said recently, patting his shoulders to demonstrate, “not for wounds but just to say, ‘Am I still here?’ . . . Television is full of back-stabbing and ambushing--Jesse Helms [the conservative North Carolina senator who organized a petition campaign “to become Dan Rather’s boss”] isn’t the only one who’s tried to get my job. You have to stay alert and concentrate on what’s important: the news.”

Rather--who looks younger than his 64 years and has been in the anchor chair two years longer than Peter Jennings and Tom Brokaw--is practically on his way to elder-statesman status. His tightly wound personality and courtly language (it’s known as “Dan-ish” to CBS executives) were affectionately referred to by colleagues at a news-star-studded dinner here this week. And while he did not have a videotaped retrospective at the event, colleagues praised a CBS career that began with breaking the news of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination and continues today with on-scene reporting from Haiti, Bosnia and other hot spots around the world.

“It’s true I’ve sometimes been a lightning rod for criticism,” Rather reflected during an interview. “But I think even viewers who don’t particularly like me [on air] know that I care about the news. I think maybe that’s why I’ve lasted this long.”

Rather’s 15th anniversary comes at a time of renewed optimism at CBS News. After years of layoffs and budget cutbacks in the division under former CBS owner Laurence Tisch, the network has a new owner, Westinghouse, and a new CBS News president, Andrew Heyward, who has been gaining additional resources since taking the job two months ago.

“Andrew said to [CBS President] Peter Lund that we needed to make a strong statement with our presidential election coverage, which is one area we’ve been noted for,” Rather said. “We’ve been undermanned at CBS News since 1987, when 300 people walked out the door one day without their jobs.

“This time, we had a budget allocation and staff in the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries that surprised our competitors. And, alone among the broadcast networks, we were the only one to have a prime-time hour on the election the night of the New Hampshire primary.”

CBS recently spent well over $1 million, sources say, for a new set for the “CBS Evening News.” The newscast--which has been hurt by numerous affiliate switches and by CBS’ third-place ranking in prime-time entertainment--trails ABC and NBC in the competition for viewers. (For the period of Feb. 1-25, ABC’s “World News Tonight With Peter Jennings” averaged about 9.3 million homes a night, “NBC Nightly News With Tom Brokaw” averaged 8.4 million and CBS averaged 7.7 million.)

Under new executive producer Jeff Fager, who succeeded Heyward in the job, the “CBS Evening News” is emphasizing the work of reporters such as David Martin and Bob Simon.

“We currently trail in the ratings, but I believe we lead in the quality of our stories and our correspondents,” Rather said. “The hope is that when people comparison-shop among newscasts, they’ll be impressed with what they see at our counter.”

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One item that won’t be changing any time soon, CBS executives say, is Rather as the sole anchor. “We have no plans to bring in any co-anchor,” Heyward said. “Dan is one of the best assets of CBS News.”

“If they came to me with the idea of a co-anchor again some day in the future, I think I’d say, ‘Reality check,’ ” Rather said. “We’ve been there, done that--and I’d want to know how it would work.”

What obviously didn’t succeed was the pairing of Rather and Chung from June 1993 to May 1995, an attempt by management to bring younger audiences to the CBS newscast via Chung’s high popularity scores among viewers. The ratings didn’t jump and there were serious disagreements over which anchor got better assignments--culminating with Chung being sent to cover the bombing in Oklahoma City last year while Rather sat on the sidelines. That’s when he declared that something had to change.

“I agreed to it because [CBS executives] said it would allow me to get out of the studio on big stories,” Rather said of the partnership. “I thought it worked that first summer--I went to China and Japan--but after that, it never worked as well.”

Rather said that he had spoken to Chung recently, though he refused to discuss what they said. “Connie has a lot of talent,” he said. “I believe she’ll be working again reasonably soon.”

Rather, who makes an estimated $5 million a year, has a contract with CBS that runs to the year 2000. “Nobody’s a given in this business, but I plan to be here [until then],” he said. “I have no thoughts of retiring. I have some regrets about having been on the road so much when I was a correspondent. But my wife, Jean, knows this is my passion. I love this job, and we’re back in the hunt.”

CBS has no clear successor to Rather and may have to recruit a big star from outside when the time comes (Diane Sawyer is one name mentioned by industry observers). “60 Minutes” correspondent Ed Bradley is the favorite in-house candidate, but he has a “window” in his contract this summer that could lead to him leaving the network.

Asked to name possible successors, Rather listed Bradley, Lesley Stahl of “60 Minutes” and correspondents Anthony Mason, Vicki Maybrey and Richard Threlkeld, along with “CBS This Morning” co-anchors Harry Smith and Paula Zahn as “among the people here who could step in and do this job today.”

Would Rather like to stay after the year 2000?

“I’d love to,” he responded, “but that’s not going to happen. You can sooner expect a tall talking broccoli stick to offer to mow your lawn for free. Television is a young person’s game, and I’m living on borrowed time.”