Going live with Dan Rather

If there were any hard questions for Dan Rather, the former anchor and managing editor for CBS Evening News, they would have to wait.

In the golden glare of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on Thursday night, a genial Rather outlined his views on what ails journalism and answered screened questions from a largely admiring audience at the Music Center Speaker Series’ first lecture of its second season. He was scheduled to speak again Friday night.

What journalism needs, Rather told the audience, is more: more backbone in questioning powerful leaders, more facts (and less speculation), more money and time from publishers, and more international coverage. Journalists, he said, must recognize that they have a duty and reconnect with their role in a system of checks and balances. “American journalism needs a spine transplant and we need it quickly,” he said.

Rather cited the movie “Good Night, and Good Luck,” observing that CBS news legend Edward R. Murrow was fearless but “couldn’t have done it without help from the top. Great journalism begins with a publisher who has guts.” The public should also make its voice heard by contacting leaders and publishers, he said.

But he sidestepped the topic of Memogate, the Internet-sparked challenge to the authenticity of documents used on “60 Minutes II” to support a 2004 segment on President Bush’s military service. Questions about the story eventually forced out a CBS News producer and three other executives before Rather himself resigned.

Looking sprightly and sounding less folksy than he has in recent appearances, Rather, 74, struck a tone between elder statesman and small-town Texas humorist.

In his current job as a “60 Minutes” correspondent, he has just returned from North Korea, a country that he said “has a bigger army than we have” and either has or rapidly will have nuclear weapons. He also noted it may be the only country without cats. “I’d like to know why,” he said slyly.

He appeared pleased when, in a question-and-answer period, members of the audience, who like CBS viewers in general tended to skew older, told him how much they had admired him during his 44-year career at CBS. A speaker series producer and a member of Rather’s entourage chose the questions from written submissions before the event began, said Dan Savage, managing director of SR Productions, which booked the event.

Obliquely referring to Rather’s troubles, one member asked what role bloggers had played in his career. “Their influence was less than perceived,” he said, equally obliquely. Some bloggers, he said, have found blogging to be “a good way to further a particular political agenda. It’s not a crime,” he said. But the public should recognize “there’s a new opportunity here to manipulate public opinion.”

Some in the audience wanted his opinion of Bush, to which he repeatedly responded that the president still has three more years to “turn around.”

Rather said he included himself among those who occasionally fell short of the journalistic ideal, citing many journalists’ fear of appearing unpatriotic during the lead-up to the Iraq War. Even during Watergate, there was a time when he knew a certain question needed to be asked, but, he said, “I wasn’t sure I was the one to ask it.”