Dan Rather's Autobiography

Dan Rather
(photo from Wikipedia)

In the days when TV was watched on a TV set, Dan Rather worked for CBS News as a journalist. He did his work the old-fashioned way: Rather built a story on a solid foundation of facts, he checked his facts, he really interviewed people, he went to the site of an incident, he told the story in a way that nearly any viewer could grasp. He understood how to put together a television news segment. The Texas-born Rather's career began in radio, which influenced his succinct delivery and ability to ad-lib. He also grew up the hard way, in a wrong-side-of-the-tracks Houston neighborhood. He was as far away from big-time internships and Ivy League pedigree as one could get.

Throughout his career, as Rather plainly states in his newly released autobiography Rather Outspoken, he remained dedicated to the public's need for the "truth." That concept can be a slippery one to embrace, as "truth" can often rely upon individual interpretation. Indeed, the conundrum of "interpretation" is at the heart of the current crisis in American journalism. Rather fought the good fight for high journalistic standards. He continues to do so today, via Mark Cuban's HDNet. However, even Rather concedes that HDNet is a long way from Black Rock.

I'm on the road a bit these days. While I wait for a flight, I sometimes watch TV at an airport gate. The news, or what passes for it, is inevitably on a screen. Almost everything I see, regardless of network, is dreadful. The experience makes me long for the time when CBS News was a worthy standard bearer of excellence. Those days have vanished, partly due, as Rather bitterly points out in his autobiography, to Viacom (and CBS) owner Sumner Redstone's greed and insensitivity to public service.

At least the 80-year-old, still vigorous Rather is trying to pass the torch via HDNet. His journalistic neighborhood, however, is a tough one. Conservatives have rolled over and played dead for a lurid amalgamation of fact and propaganda, of which Fox News is their soiled standard bearer. Many liberals have, to their shame, embraced the exploitative information plantation known as the Huffington Post or to preaching-to-the-choir talking heads. Major newspapers are in obvious decline, though their "brands" retain journalistic pedigree largely linked to their glorious past. Where will the next Dan Rather come from?