Extended interview: Dan Rather on CBS News Radio

0:01 [music] As a kid growing up in Texas, did you listen to CBS News Radio?

0:15 Yes, indeed.

0:16 Through there was the local station in Houston,

0:19 Texas was KTR, the so-called voice of the Golden Gulf Coast.

0:26 It was a the local radio station.

0:28 They were a CBS affiliate family for whatever reason gravitated to CBS early.

0:35 I think it's because CBS had a a going news

0:39 operation before almost before anybody else in terms of radio.

0:44 But yes, we heard you know Morrow Severide calling a wood so called Morrow Boys.

0:51 It would it corresponded my first memory.

0:53 I was born in 1931 and my memory isn't clear until I was about six,

1:01 seven, maybe eight years old.

1:03 But I I think in as early as five or six for whatever reason,

1:09 my father and mother were very interested in what was happening in Germany.

1:13 That was not the case with everybody.

1:16 followed the newspapers very carefully and they love radio because

1:20 radio had what my father called immediacy and in a phrase

1:25 that was later used when it comes to television radio

1:29 he's he view radio he and my mother view radio

1:33 as a kind of ma magic carpet they would take

1:36 you there they take you to the war it was not

1:39 always frontline reporting but you know it was far away places

1:43 with the s with strange sounding names You mentioned those giants,

1:48 Seide, um, Collingwood, Muro.

1:53 What set them apart?

1:55 Was it the writing?

1:56 Was it their voices?

1:58 Well, first of all, I do think it was their writing.

2:00 All of them could write well.

2:02 You didn't work for Burrow if you couldn't write well.

2:06 He what knew what good writing was, and he insisted on having good writing.

2:10 And this gave put him in conflict sometimes

2:13 with the people who ran the network who said for example

2:16 they didn't like they didn't think that some

2:20 of these correspondents had voices for radio you know they

2:24 had rather thin voices sever for example when he

2:28 first came to radio absolutely brilliant tremendously good writer

2:35 but he had a kind of an upscale thin

2:38 voice when he started and he also will speak slowly.

2:42 So over in what we call corporate, they would say,

2:46 "Where the hell does Merurl get these guys?

2:48 Surely he can find somebody that has a radio voice." But with Morrow,

2:54 the radio voice was far down the list

2:57 of what he considered to be the requirements.

2:59 Good writing was his number one the list.

3:04 Wow.

3:03 Writing was paramount.

3:04 So he overrode the corporate concerns.

3:09 Yes.

3:09 with Muro did and as he eventually convinced

3:14 the network chiefs that that was the case.

3:17 For example, Collingwood who was had been a road

3:20 scholar and was hired at a very young age.

3:24 Not only could he write very well, but Collingwood had a natural voice,

3:28 which you might say was more a voice for radio.

3:32 So, Collingwood became a favorite of William S.

3:35 Paley, who owned the network at that time.

3:38 Were you inspired by these newsmen from an early age?

3:43 I I certainly think it's fair to say I was inspired by them.

3:47 The biggest thing was I was intrigued by them

3:50 because as the war grew and eventually as America

3:56 got into the war corresponding with our entry

4:00 to the war I had rheumatic fever as a child.

4:04 It was at that time considered an incurable disease.

4:08 It was every mother's nightmare second only to polio.

4:12 So I was confined to bed.

4:14 I mean literally confined to bed as a result of the romatic fever.

4:20 So the radio became my constant companion.

4:24 And yes, I was inspired by what the Merl boys and Merl himself were doing,

4:29 but I also was very almost I would say riveted to radio

4:34 because it was my constant companion being in bed all the time.

4:38 Sometimes I was late.

4:40 I was listening the radio after my parents had gone to sleep

4:46 and frequently was listening to radio before they got up in the morning.

4:49 So it was a combination of being inspired

4:52 saying you know gosh these these guys are brilliant.

4:56 These men are absolutely brilliant.

4:58 How do they do that?

4:59 It was the intrigue of again they were far away.

5:05 They were doing a lot of action including dangerous work.

5:11 And how could you how as a young boy 10 11 12 years old could I not be

5:16 riveted to that especially given the fact that it

5:20 was radio was a 24-hour a day com companion?

5:25 You got your start in radio and then eventually you made your way to CBS.

5:30 When you came to CBS were you CBS radio or were you CBS television at first?

5:36 Well, at that time I came to CBS News first in 1962 and radio

5:43 and television were both still big inside the network and outside the network.

5:50 When I came in 1962, the television news revolution,

5:56 which began after the assassination of President Kennedy,

5:59 had not yet fully taken hold.

6:02 In 1962, most people still got most

6:06 of their news either from newspapers or from radio.

6:10 But television news was exploding and with stories

6:14 such as the civil rights movement of Dr.

6:17 Martin Lu Luther King.

6:19 Uh the building situation in Vietnam,

6:22 television during the 60s came to overwhelm both newspapers and radio

6:28 as the place where most people got most their news.

6:32 But when I first came to CBS News, it was still accepted that many many people,

6:39 perhaps most people still got at least the headlines of the news from radio.

6:46 I I I particularly like radio because I kind

6:48 of felt like whether it was true or not,

6:51 I felt like I knew what I was doing on radio.

6:54 With television, television news was still

6:57 at the stage that were it was all new.

7:01 Nobody knew what the hell they were doing.

7:03 We just making it up as we went along.

7:05 But with radio, with radio, you knew exactly what to do.

7:11 And I felt more confident with radio than I did with television.

7:15 But radio was still big in 1962.

7:18 One can say that after the assassination

7:20 of President Kennedy in November of 1963,

7:25 then television's descent was steep and hurriedly hurried and both

7:31 newspapers and radio uh didn't fade into the background,

7:36 but they certainly were behind television.

7:39 November 1963, CBS television viewers learned about

7:44 the assassination of President Kennedy from Walter Kankite,

7:48 but a whole lot of people were listening to the radio that day.

7:51 Is it right that you reported the assassination on the radio?

7:56 Yes.

7:57 Uh that's true that this had appeared after the president had been shot,

8:04 but before it was clear what was wrong with him.

8:08 And I had a virtually an open line to radio.

8:12 That is to the line stayed open most of the time.

8:16 And uh with the help of people at the local station,

8:20 we confirmed that President Kennedy was not only

8:24 had he been shot, but he was dead.

8:26 So I was relaying that to radio and I think it was Mort Dank,

8:32 but at least one of the editors there picked up on what he said.

8:36 you know, you're telling me that President Kennedy is dead.

8:40 I said, "Yes, they haven't announced it yet,

8:42 but yes." We didn't discuss whether it was

8:45 a good idea to put it on radio or not, but the next thing I knew,

8:49 they were playing the Star Spangle Banner and they

8:52 announced on CBS radio that President Kennedy was dead.

8:58 So, yes, you're right.

9:00 Walter Kronhite informed the nation on television and I informed

9:06 the CBS news radio division of the death of the president.

9:12 And just so I just so that we're clear, you said you were talking to the editor,

9:16 but it was was it your voice that reported his death on the radio?

9:22 No, I can't remember whose voice it was.

9:25 It might have been Dallas Townsen who was a big name in radio, but no,

9:31 it was a case of I was speaking to the radio

9:34 editor and then the editor related to, if you will,

9:40 the the broadcaster, the newscaster.

9:43 It all happened very suddenly.

9:45 And looking back on it, you can say, well,

9:48 maybe we weren't as careful as we should have been.

9:51 But you know when you do breaking news then as now

9:56 you have to make judgments when to go and when to hold.

10:00 Is this right that during the civil rights era in the 1960s you

10:04 would file reports as many as a dozen times a day for radio?

10:08 Is that right?

10:10 That's true.

10:11 For example, when uh the University of Mississippi,

10:16 an effort was being made to desegregate it, uh there was a series of riots,

10:23 including a nighttime riot in which some people were killed.

10:28 That story, we were on the air every hour on the hour for 8,

10:33 10, I think 12 hours.

10:36 Uh but radio had the then as now had a certain immediacy about it

10:44 that could not be matched by newspaper magazine

10:47 reporting or for that matter by television reporting.

10:52 For example, what happened at night on campus.

10:54 It was a night of rioting and and death and very dangerous situation.

11:01 that with television you have to have the pictures

11:04 and it's hard to take pictures in a riot at night.

11:07 We did take a few but you know you can't

11:10 turn on your lights for fear of getting shot at.

11:15 So radio really was in the lead I would

11:18 say in informing people during that time and other times.

11:23 How did all those years of work in radio prepare

11:26 you for the anchor chair of the CBS Evening News?

11:30 Well, first of all, I say with a smile,

11:33 there are any number of people who still believe that I

11:36 was never qualified to be anchor of the easy news.

11:41 But to be serious and try to answer your question,

11:44 I don't think there's any doubt that I would never have

11:48 become the anchor and managing editor of the CBS Evening News

11:53 had I not spent years working in radio because I wasn't

11:58 the best writer at CBS News and I could write pretty well,

12:04 but I could add live with the best of them.

12:06 that is work without a script because I had done while

12:11 I was doing news radio if you will radio stations I

12:16 did uh playby-play football basketball where you have no script and you're

12:22 constantly creating word pictures and you have to in the phrase

12:25 of the business hold air without a script so when I

12:30 came to CBS news having said yes I could write and write

12:34 pretty well But I was by no means the best writer there

12:40 and I had to work very hard to kind of improve myself.

12:44 But when it came to ad living and it was

12:46 something they came to recognized pretty soon I could hold air.

12:51 How should CBS News Radio be remembered?

12:56 CBS radio should be remembered for becoming a national institution.

13:04 very important to the development of news other than newspapers.

13:11 It for many many years was a part and I would

13:16 argue not a small part of what held the country together.

13:22 This is particularly true in times of great stress

13:26 at 911 or the Kennedy assassination to name two times.

13:33 Most people were looking for some someplace to go

13:36 for information they knew they could count on.

13:39 No opinion, facts, straight up, no chaser news.

13:45 And CBS News initiated the development of radio news back in the 30s.

13:54 Edward R.

13:54 Muro is the founding saint of radio news as we c

13:59 came to know it and CBS news was built in the MO

14:04 image and it became this national institution woven into the fabric

14:09 of the country in which people depended on it for news.

14:14 you know CBS radio I think a lot of people don't realize I think something

14:20 like seven six or seven 700 stations even in the later years were carried CBS

14:29 radio at its height maybe more than

14:31 that but it's really helped to create the dawn

14:36 of electronic journalism from out of CBS

14:40 news radio through CBS news television Thank you.

14:45 [music]