Dan Rather, born as Daniel Irvin Rather, Jr. is an important
news figure of the 20th and 21st century, albeit gained notoriety in 2004 following his news reports on the Presidential Election. Rather was mostly known for his work as news anchor for
CBS Evening News. He has recently started working on his own show, Dan Rather Reports, which is broadcast on the cable channel HDNet.
Rather's Early life was quite uneventful; the most dramatic incident in Rather's childhood was battling rheumatic fever, which, although didn't kill him, made him unfit for the Military. He was born on the 31st of October 1931 in a Texas suburb. His family subsequently moved to Houston, where Dan stayed until his graduation from High School in 1949. After he finished high school, he studied journalism in the Sam Houston State University where he was the editor of the University's newspaper, The Hustonian.
He, like Murray Fromson, began his career by writing for the Associated Press, and stayed a print journalist for nine years until he was selected to broadcast a baseball season through radio. Shortly after Rather gained recognition for his work casting baseball, he was hired by Houston's local KTRK-TV. Rather's breakthrough from the local TV station was the September 1961 live Hurricane report from Texas coast.
CBS executives saw Rather's impressive report and hired him as a correspondent in 1962. His career had a few spikes, mainly attributed to his Texan vocabulary, and he slowly reached the peak of his career when he became news anchor of
CBS's Evening News in 1981, and stayed in the respectable position for a whopping twenty four years.
Dan Rather is among the modern media critics. He started his show purely because of the disappointment in the modern media. He was quite the humorous journalist, as it could be seen after he was mugged. The villain said, "Kenneth, what is the frequency?", and the famous phrase has become a living legend, quoted by numerous other journalists and used in the famous R.E.M. song "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" which he himself once sang live with the band. He is also one of the most quoted journalists of today, Rather's metaphorical (and arguably, very funny) quotes even have a specific name - they're called "Ratherisms". For illustrative purposes, here's a Ratherism, which was said by Rather himself during the 2000 election, "It's the American way: if you don't vote, you don't get to whine."
Nowadays, Dan Rather is fighting for the preservation of high-class journalism. He thinks that journalism should be at least partially financed by the country, because if it won't, even more of the
news will be shaped by select few oligarchs. He has also spoken in front of large audiences about the occurring journalism crisis and is a frequent critic of the bigger
news corporations. Altogether, Dan Rather has been with us since television gained popularity, and will remain an iconic newsman in the memory of two generations.
