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Dan Rather, former anchor of the “CBS Evening News” and special correspondent for HD Net, where he is the managing editor of “Dan Rather Reports,” sounded the death knell for the traditional evening news broadcast.
“The evening news is what the Mafia would call a walking corpse,” said Rather. “It’s pretty much dead, but it doesn’t realize it yet.”
On Feb. 24 Rather joined Steve Scully, the political editor for the C-SPAN networks, and participating students from George Mason University, Purdue University, the University of Denver and Georgetown University.
Rather gave several reasons for the decline of the old media: corporatization of news and the subsequent lack of competition; the politicization and manipulation of the news by media savvy politicians; and the lack of guts exhibited by individual journalists themselves.
“American journalism needs a spine transplant,” said Rather. “We’ve lost some of our courage.”
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Tucker Carlson, founder and editor-in-chief of the “Daily Caller,” heartily agreed.
“The best journalism is tough, and it pays no regard to authority and doesn’t suck up to power,” said Carlson. “The essential problem in American journalism is the unwillingness to take on figures in authority.”
Rather took a minute to define the news.
“News is something that is important that people need to know, that somewhere, somebody — particularly somebody in power — doesn’t want them to know,” said Rather. “All the rest is pretty much just advertising.”
Both Rather and Carlson are veteran journalists. News matters to them. It makes a difference. Journalism gives them a sense of contributing to something greater than themselves. When asked what makes a good reporter, Rather was specific.
“I’d say three things,” said Rather, “curiosity, a kind of relentless determination and the ability to write well and quickly.”
Rather has reported on a number of traumatic events — the American Civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam War, President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, Watergate and 9/11. When an event like this happens professionals feel the same emotions as everyone else.
“As a professional, as a pro, you have to seal out all your emotions and focus on the job at hand,” said Rather. “It’s later that you go through the emotional trauma that other people are going through as it’s happening.”
We have progressed from the radio age to the television age to the age of the Internet. According to Carlson, the biggest problem with online media is a lack of money. This affects national news coverage.
“For example, there’s never been a greater need for digging deep, exposing corruption, finding out what those in power don’t want you to know,” said Rather. “Investigative journalism is extremely expensive. It’s a danger to the country because the new business model has not been invented, much less put online.”
Lack of money also affects international news.
“At the very time we need more international news, we’re getting less and less,” said Rather. “Bureaus have closed all over the world. We have news packagers, not news gatherers.”
Carlson says the challenge today is finding young, intelligent, unbiased reporters with a passion for news to join a profession that offers big salaries only to a select few.
Produced by C-SPAN, the distance learning course is a unique opportunity for students to interview guests via video conference. The course airs on C-SPAN on Fridays at 5 p.m. and also streams online (http://www.c-span.org/Distance_Learning/).
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