No Future for Old Anchormen

In the parlance he used so colorfully on the air, Dan Rather's future at CBS has been thin as November ice, his spirit beaten like a rented mule.

The departure of Rather from the network where he has worked for 44 years was made official Tuesday.

And, to further cite a Ratherism, we don't know whether to wind a watch or bark at the moon.

The veteran newsman — who reported on JFK's death, called out Richard Nixon, sparred with two generations of Bushes and kept the country company for all manner of disasters, including 9/11 — endured an ignominious end at a network where he represented the last line of the old Murrow, Sevareid and Cronkite days. Rather was unable to come to terms with the CBS, which seldom used him for the kind of newsmagazine duties he sought after stepping down last year from TV's longest stint as evening news anchorman.

Truth be told, there's no second act for TV anchormen.

Edward R. Murrow went to work for the U.S. Information Agency after he retired from the network in 1961, dying four years later at 57. Walter Cronkite agreed to retire at 65 and continues, decades later, to regret it; his promised post-anchor duties at CBS hosting news specials never happened, either.

Among the other longtime anchors who retired in recent years, only Tom Brokaw continues to regularly file reports — but they're just as apt to appear on cable as on his old network, NBC. Ted Koppel severed ties with ABC after he left “Nightline” and took a job with the Discovery Channel.
A slot at a cable network seems likely for Rather, too, though if he takes the offer from Mark Cuban to host a public affairs show on HDNet, it will be for an even more obscure outlet than his colleagues.

The truth is, the very things that make an anchor successful — familiarity, trust, being the face of the network — make him a liability when his time at the desk ends.
With the former giant hovering around, new anchors often can't find footing on their own. Audiences get confused.

It would have been an even greater stretch had Rather, 74, been haunting CBS News headquarters once Katie Couric sweeps in this fall to anchor the evening news in a way quite different from Rather and Bob Schieffer, who has been filling in (and raising rating points).

In announcing the departure, CBS News President Sean McManus cited the pantheon:

“Of all the famous names associated with CBS News, the biggest and brightest on the marquee are Murrow, Cronkite and Rather,” he said. “With the utmost respect, we mark the extraordinary and singular role Dan has played in writing the script of not only CBS News, but of broadcast journalism.”

Had they really felt so strongly about Rather, they would have found a place for him at the network after an early retirement from the anchor desk as part of the fallout of an election-year “60 Minutes” report that was classic case of true but not accurate. (The typography of a memo was found to be wrong; less was said about its content.) Conservatives had him for lunch. CBS seemed happy to use the opportunity to cut him loose.

Couric is expected to tear up the old “Evening News” set when she rolls in this fall. So why have Rather's craggy face of experience around in the already elder-skewing evening news audience in the sunny (and decidedly perkier!) face of the CBS future?

Rather, who said in a statement he's tired of sitting in an empty office with no assignments, has spent time repeatedly viewing the George Clooney movie “Good Night, and Good Luck” in theaters, most recently alone, as if refusing to relinquish its vision of CBS's storied news past.

To underscore the lingering bad feelings in the departure, Rather declined to add his own comment to the official network announcement of his departure, which he called “CBS's final acknowledgement, after a protracted struggle, that they have not lived up to their obligation to allow me to do substantive work there.”

In a statement he released on his own, Rather said, “it just isn't in me to sit around doing nothing. So I will do the work I love elsewhere, and I look forward to sharing details about that soon.”