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BIOGRAPHY Early life Rather was born in Wharton, Texas , the son of Daniel Irvin Rather Sr. and his wife, the former Byrl Veda Page. After moving to Houston, Texas , Rather attended Love Elementary School, Hamilton Middle School, and Reagan High School . In 1953, he received a Bachelor's Degree in Journalism from Sam Houston State University where he was editor of the school newspaper, ''The Houstonian''. Also at Sam Houston, he was a member of the Caballeros, which was the founding organization of the currently active Epsilon Psi chapter of the Sigma Chi fraternity. Though, never going through an official I-Week program he was an influential voice to the process. After obtaining his bachelor's, he briefly attended South Texas College Of Law , which later awarded him an honorary JD in 1990. Start of his career Rather began his career in 1950 as an Associated Press reporter in Huntsville, Texas . Later, he was a reporter for United Press International (1950–1952), several Texas radio stations, and the '' Houston Chronicle '' (1954–1955). In 1959, he entered television as a reporter for KTRK-TV in Houston . Rather was promoted to the director of news for KHOU -TV, the CBS affiliate in Houston . In 1960, Dan Rather auditioned for the voice of cartoon character Dudley Do-Right but was turned down by animator/director Jay Ward. In early September 1961 , Rather reported live from the Galveston Seawall as Hurricane Carla threatened the Texas coastline. This action, which has been imitated by countless other reporters, impressed the network executives at CBS , and they hired him as a CBS News Correspondent in 1962 . In his autobiography, Rather notes that back then TV stations didn't have their own radar systems, and of course nobody then had the modern computerized radar that combines the radar image with an outline map. So he took a camera crew to a National Weather Service radar station located on the top floor of the Post Office Building on 25th Street in Galveston , where a technician drew a rough outline of the Gulf Of Mexico on a sheet of plastic, and held that over the black and white radar display to give Rather's audience an idea of the storm's size and position of the storm's Eye . At CBS News The newsman has been the subject of controversy sporadically throughout his career. As he wrote in an autobiography, Rather was the first network television journalist to report that U.S. President John F. Kennedy died in the November 22 , 1963 Shooting in Dallas . He was also one of the first to see the Zapruder Film taken by an eyewitness to the passing Dallas motorcade and reported that JFK's head went "violently forward" when he was hit. It in fact went violently backwards, after jerking forward briefly. Later, he reported that some schoolchildren in Dallas had applauded when they were notified of the president's death. Administrators said, in fact, the thrust of the announcement was that school was to be dismissed early (making the students' delight more understandable). This story infuriated local journalists at then-CBS affiliate KRLD-TV (now KDFW-TV ), who temporarily threw the CBS News staff out of their workspace. Rather's reporting during the national mourning period following the Kennedy assassination and subsequent events brought him to the attention of CBS News management, which rewarded him in 1964 with the network's White House correspondent position. After serving as a foreign correspondent for CBS News, he drew the assignment as primary anchor for the CBS Sunday Night News, while serving as White House correspondent during the Richard Nixon presidency. His coverage of the Watergate investigation and Impeachment proceedings are renowned. After President Nixon's resignation, Rather took the assignment of chief correspondent for CBS News Special Reports. He later became a correspondent of the long-running Sunday night news show '' 60 Minutes ,'' just as the program was moved from a Sunday afternoon time-slot to Primetime . Success there brought Rather in line to succeed Walter Cronkite as main anchor and Managing Editor of ''The CBS Evening News .'' Rather assumed the position upon Cronkite's retirement, making his first broadcast on Cronkite, who ended his newscast with "That's the way it is", Rather searched to find a broadcast ending more suitable to his tastes. For one week during the mid-1980s, Rather tried ending his broadcasts with the word "courage" and was roundly ridiculed for it. He eventually found a wrap-up phrase more modest than Cronkite's and more relaxed than his own previous attempt; for nearly two decades, Rather ended the show with "That's part of our world tonight." While Rather had inherited Cronkite's ratings lead and held it for a few years, his ratings declined as his network competition changed. Simultaneously, CBS went through an institutional shift and was purchased by Laurence Tisch . When Rather took the helm at the CBS News anchor desk, the as the little people are let go. However, it is the warm-hearted, light-weight anchor played by William Hurt who shares an important biographical feature with the CBS newsman: Rather also began his news career in sports. For a short time from 1993 to 1995 , Rather co-anchored the evening news with Connie Chung . Chung had previously been a Washington correspondent for CBS News and anchored short news updates on the west coast. She was a popular news anchor in Los Angeles for a number of years before becoming weekend anchor of the '' NBC Nightly News ''. On joining the CBS Evening News, however, she worked to report "pop news" stories that didn't fit the style of the broadcast. In one incident she was on an airplane interviewing Tonya Harding , who was accused of being behind the plot to injure fellow Olympic ice skater Nancy Kerrigan . After the Oklahoma City Bombing , Chung somewhat indifferently asked firefighters working rescue duty, "Can the Oklahoma City Fire Department handle this?" Chung was offered a demotion to weekend anchor or morning news anchor and chose to leave the network, and Rather went back to doing the newscast alone. At the end of Rather's career, the ''CBS Evening News'' had fallen to a distant third place in network viewership. Although still garnering some 7 million viewers each evening, the broadcast was behind the '' 2005 . Other current notes In 2006 , Dan Rather donated $2 million to his alma mater, Sam Houston State University , the largest single monetary gift in the school's 127-year history. The University renamed its mass communications building after Rather in 1994 . The building houses ''The Houstonian'' and KSHU , which refers to the radio and television stations which are both run by students. In May , 2007 , Rather received a honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Siena College in Loudonville, New York for his lifetime contributions to journalism. Rather is also a Columnist whose work is distributed by King Features Syndicate . His daughter, Robin, is an Environmentalist and community activist in Austin, Texas . On May 28 , 2007 Rather compared historical events to events in the Star Wars films in the History Channel special, "Star Wars: The Legacy Revealed". JOURNALISTIC HISTORY AND INFLUENCE Nixon During the presidency of Richard Nixon , critics accused Rather of biased coverage. At a Houston news conference in March 1974 , Nixon fielded a question from Rather, still CBS's White House correspondent, who said, "Thank you, Mr. President. Dan Rather, of CBS News. Mr. President..." The room filled with jeers and applause, prompting Nixon to joke, "Are you running for something?" Rather replied "No, sir, Mr. President. Are you?" {Link without Title} CBS apparently considered firing Rather; its news president met with administration official John Ehrlichman to discuss the situation. According to NBC’s Tom Brokaw , the network considered hiring him, Brokaw, as its White House correspondent to replace Rather. But these plans were scrapped after word was leaked to the press. The controversy did little to dent Rather's overall tough coverage of the Watergate scandal, which helped to raise his profile. Afghanistan, Reagan, and George H.W. Bush During the Soviet Invasion Of Afghanistan , Rather was on camera wearing a traditional Mujahadeen headdress and garments while reporting from near the front lines. These reports helped Rather gain prominence with the Evening News audience (and the nickname "Gunga Dan"; Rather's reports were also spoofed by the comic strip '' Doonesbury ''). Rather's energy and spirit helped him out-compete Roger Mudd for the anchor spot on the Evening News. Mudd was a more senior correspondent and a frequent substitute anchor for Walter Cronkite on the Evening News, and he also anchored the Sunday evening broadcast. But it was Rather who traveled through Afghanistan when the news led there. A few years into his service as anchorman, Rather began wearing sweaters beneath his suit jacket to soften and warm his on-air perceptions by viewers. Later during the 1980s, Rather gained further renown for his forceful and skeptical reporting on the " saying, "I want to talk about why I want to be President, why those 41 percent of the people are supporting me. And I don't think it's fair to judge my whole career by a rehash on Iran . How would you like it if I judged your career by those seven minutes when you walked off the set in New York?" Rather did not respond. This incident was believed to have been a notable event in Bush's campaign to win the presidency in the 1988 Election . It also marked the beginning of Rather's ratings decline, a slump from which he never recovered. Bush never forgave him, and refused to grant Rather an interview after that tangle. His son, George W. Bush , followed suit and never granted Rather an interview during his presidency. Shortly after Iraq invaded Kuwait , the Rather secured an interview with Iraq i leader Saddam Hussein , which, among other things, captured the flavor of Saddam's bravado concerning the U.S. On February 24 , 2003 , Rather conducted another Interview With Hussein before the 2003 Invasion Of Iraq . In the interview, Hussein invited Rather to be the moderator of a live television debate between himself and George W. Bush. The debate never took place. ''The Wall Within'' On June 2 , 1988 , Rather hosted a CBS News special, ''The Wall Within''. In it, he interviewed six former servicemen, each of whom said he had witnessed horrible acts in Vietnam . Two of the men said that they had killed civilians, and two others said that they had seen friends die. Each talked about the effects the war had upon their lives — including Depression , Unemployment , Drug Use and Homelessness . In their book '''', authors B. G. Burkett and Glenna Whitley said they had obtained the service records of all six men, documenting where each was stationed during the Vietnam War. According to the records, the authors said, only one of the men was actually in Vietnam; he claimed to have been a 16-year-old Navy SEAL but, said Burkett and Whitley, the records listed him as an equipment repairer. Killian documents See Also: Killian documents On '', September 20 , 2004 The controversy has been referred to by some as "Memogate" and " Rathergate ." Following an independent investigation commissioned by CBS, CBS fired story producer Mary Mapes and asked three other producers connected with the story to resign. Rather's retirement was directly hastened by this incident, and many believe that he would otherwise have stepped down in March 2006, 25 years after beginning as anchor. The Burkett documents are popularly believed to be forgeries created by making hazy photocopies of computer-generated documents crafted using Microsoft Word 's default font settings, but no one has ever proved them to be so. Retirement from the ''Evening News''
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