THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back. "RELIABLE SOURCES" is normally at this time, as our viewers obviously know. We are going to turn the program over now to the host, the "Washington Post's" Howard Kurtz --Howie.
KURTZ, CNN'S "RELIABLE SOURCES": Thanks, Wolf.
The nation has been glued to the tube since the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. And it's the anchors, the familiar faces who have long been coming into your living room, who had to report the tragic news and deal with the victims' families and the preparations for war and the president's speech and the nation's trauma.
In a very real sense, these anchors have been called upon to comfort the country, even as they struggle with their own feelings during marathon shifts on the air. And perhaps no one has been more visible than CBS' Dan Rather.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "CBS EVENING NEWS")
DAN RATHER, CBS EVENING NEWS ANCHOR: Terrorists on a mission of murder turned commercial airliners into missiles and crashed them into the World Trade Center here in New York and the Pentagon outside Washington.
"How doth the city sits solitary that was full of people," says the Prophet Jeremiah.
The nation is still stunned and struggling to recover from the murderous terror attacks in New York and Washington.
Again today, part of the tapestry of America is woven in sorrow and services for the dead.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "LATE NIGHT WITH DAVID LETTERMAN")
RATHER: You know, "America the Beautiful," who can sing now with the same meaning we had before of one stanza of that that goes, "So beautiful for patriots dreams that sees beyond the years. Thine alabaster cities gleam undimmed by human tears." We can never sing that song again that way.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: I spoke with Dan Rather a short time ago from the CBS studios in New York, and I asked him, is it hard to be on the air hour after hour, reporting these gruesome details, these horrible deaths and still control your emotions?
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RATHER: Most of the time that's true, but I want to make clear, Howie, it is nothing compared to what firemen, policemen and rescue workers and a lot of other people have to go through. But the answer to the question is yes, sometimes that's true.
KURTZ: Millions of people are watching, does an anchor have kind of a special responsibility to project a calm, reassuring image when the news is so tragic?
RATHER: Yes, with the caveat that that's not always possible to do. Because -- let me just speak for myself, I think I can do that -- I think I can demonstrate, I have done that. But I am not a robot. That being a good anchor, doing good journalism is important work, and I intensely want to do that work really well.
But one is also a human, a caring member of one's community and an American. And those are more important things. In something such as this, an extraordinary circumstance, I don't know of anyone who every second of every day can hold it in in every way. I certainly can't.
KURTZ: Did you find yourself struggling as the news got worse, the death toll rose, the buildings were collapsing? I mean, that's kind of really hard not to react just as a human as opposed to a professional anchor person.
RATHER: Well, did it get more difficult as the terrible news got worse and worse? Yes. What I tried to do, and I think what most people who do this line of work try to do when that sort of thing happens -- let me again just speak for myself. Because I remember when I was a younger reporter, much the same sort of wave of horror, sadness, anger and rage went over me as a much younger reporter then. I remember saying to myself in Dallas at the start of those four dark days, just, you know, "get focused, stay focused."
So what you try to do is get into a zone -- I think the tennis players and maybe baseball and football players -- what dancers call a zone. All you are focused on is your work, and you have a laser beam focus.
Now in television studio work, such as anchor work, it's somewhat easier than it is in the field, because after all you do look the camera right in the eye. I try to look at, you know, someone just past the camera. So my point is, it is a little easier to keep that kind of laser beam focus.
KURTZ: Since you brought it up, did the World Trade Center disaster, the Pentagon attack, did it remind you in some ways of what happened with Jack Kennedy in 1963?
RATHER: Yes, but I wouldn't want to go too far with those similarities, Howard. And I have thought some about this. Because this, the World Trade -- what happened to the World Trade Center, what happened at the Pentagon, what happened in southwest Pennsylvania, you know, these terrible things -- one knew from almost the first seconds, certainly from the first minutes, that there were a lot of people involved.
With the Kennedy assassination, we simply didn't know. Also with the Kennedy assassination, we had four dark days in Dallas, but there was a beginning, a middle and a predictable end to that story as it developed. With this story, it is just the ongoing, unrelenting quality of it.
KURTZ: And in those first hours and those first days, when the charges and the rumors were flying and mistakes were made. For example, five people were said to have been dug out of the World Trade Center rubble after two days, and it turned out to be a couple of firefighters who had fallen into a hole a couple of hours earlier. Did CBS, CNN, other news organizations, were they a little too quick on the trigger?
RATHER: Well, I can't speak for any other news organizations, because we were on the air all the time. But speaking for ourselves, I did say to myself, said to our people, I said to the audience in the beginning a couple things -- one, steady is a very important word. We wanted our coverage, and I think the record shows it was. We wanted to be steady and reliable, wanted to be accurate. But I know as a lifetime reporter that frequently the first things you hear are wrong. And yes, we make mistakes.
KURTZ: Sometimes you hear them from the senior government officials, and the information simply turns out to be wrong.
RATHER: Or you hear them from high-ranking police officers. And even though you check it out -- you know, you never met anyone who felt stronger that you trust your mother, but you cut the cards, which is another way of saying, whatever it is, you always check it out.
But it is difficult. And this is not by way of making excuse, because when it comes to mistakes, you know, I'm responsible, I'm accountable, I'm to blame for what we put on the air. But I think the audience has come to understand with this kind of coverage, where there is a deadline every nanosecond, it's impossible to be absolutely perfectly accurate every time.
Now what is necessary for us and what I've reminded ourselves that we need to do -- and perhaps we haven't done as much as we should, but I hope we have -- is to explain that to the public, and also when we are wrong, when we find out we are wrong, to very quickly say so with no excuses, don't try to dress it up or sidestep it. Listen, this is -- we made a mistake, this is how we made the mistake, this is why we made the mistake and move on.
But I do agree, Howard, that it is very, very important under these circumstances to work as hard as you can to be as absolutely accurate as you can.
KURTZ: OK. In the current environment, this rally around the president environment, does it seem to you, Dan Rather, that there was a danger at least that journalists would be reluctant to criticize the Bush administration and the Pentagon for fear of a public backlash?
RATHER: I think that's probably true, but I think what is more important -- and let me again just speak for myself -- that particularly in the early stages -- and I would continue to say these are the early stages -- that it is less a fear of backlash. Listen, I've had backlash -- man, have I ever had it -- and a lot of times justified.
I'm not afraid of backlash. What I want to do, I want to fulfill my role as a decent human member of the community and a decent and patriotic American. And therefore, I am willing to give the government, the president and the military the benefit of any doubt here in the beginning. I'm going to fulfill my role as a journalist, and that is ask the questions, when necessary ask the tough questions. But I have no excuse for, particularly when there is a national crisis such as this, as saying -- you know, the president says do your job, whatever you are and whomever you are, Mr. and Mrs. America.
I'm going to do my job as a journalist, but at the same time I will give them the benefit of the doubt, whenever possible in this kind of crisis, emergency situation. Not because I am concerned about any backlash. I'm not. But because I want to be a patriotic American without apology.
KURTZ: Well, speaking of patriotic Americans, there is a bubbling controversy in the business, as you probably know, about whether journalists on the air should wear these little lapel flags. And NBC's Tim Russert did it on "Meet the Press," ABC News has barred its people from doing that.
Does it seem to you that journalists who show the flag are being patriotic, or are they somehow kind of turning it to cheerleaders for team USA?
RATHER: It's an individual decision. I have no argument with anyone who does it. I don't intend to do it myself, but I understand those who do it. I want to make it explicitly clear that ...
KURTZ: Why would you not do it -- why would you not wear a flag yourself?
RATHER: It doesn't feel right to me. I have the flag burned in my heart, and I have ever since infancy. And I just don't feel the need to do it. It just doesn't feel right to me. And I try to be -- particularly in times such as these -- and I have tried to be in touch with my inner self, my true inner self, and I tried to listen. And my inner self says you don't need to do that. But I have absolutely no argument with anyone else who feels differently.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KURTZ: OK, we have to take a short break. More with our conversation with Dan Rather in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KURTZ: Welcome back, I'm Howard Kurtz, of CNN's "RELIABLE SOURCES," and we are continuing our conversation now with CBS anchor Dan Rather.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KURTZ: Dan, as you know, the networks, for years have been cutting back on foreign bureaus and coverage of international news, on the theory that seems to be shared by all news directors that Americans just don't care very much what goes on beyond their borders. In light of September 11, was that a big mistake?
RATHER: Absolutely. I never believed that the American public as a whole was not interested in international news. What I believed is that, number one, we didn't make it interesting enough. We didn't try and work hard enough to report to people why is it they should care about some stories.
And number two, it was used by almost everybody in electronic journalism -- I know of no exceptions -- as an excuse to cut back on foreign coverage -- what used to be called foreign coverage, now everybody insists on calling it international coverage -- as an excuse to cut back on it, because it is the most expensive kind of coverage to do.
But I never believed this idea that the public was not interested. We have a very heavy responsibility to answer the question of why we wrecked, in many ways, our overseas coverage. You know, some more than others. Some people, some very big news organizations virtually got out of the international news coverage business. But everybody cut back. And there was no excuse for it, and there is no excuse for it.
KURTZ: I suspect we'll see some people trying to rebuild some of those resources.
Let's talk a little bit about coverage of the president. You were a White House correspondent during Watergate, when Richard Nixon, the embattled President Nixon was the center of the media universe. During the Cold War, reporters were always stationed at the White House to report on Ronald Reagan, for example, how he might respond to something the Soviets might do. Will there be a lot more 24-hour focus on George Bush as a war president, now that these stakes seem so high as opposed to the days when he was, for example, you know, fighting over the lock box?
RATHER: Yes, absolutely, there will be. You know, ever since the Kennedy assassination -- I do think that was a watershed event in the terms that we are talking now about, as well as many others. Ever since then, there has been a tendency to over-cover, if anything, the presidency and the White House, manifesting itself now -- which, I don't know there certainly is hundreds if not thousands of people accredited to be White House correspondents. But there is going to be nothing but increase. With a war presidency, it's inevitable.
KURTZ: Do you think now that we are headed into an era of more serious and sober news, as opposed to you know, the devoting lots of air time to sharks and Tom and Nicole and stories of that kind, or, three months from now, six months from now, as this story ebbs and flows, will we slip back into covering mini-scandals and celebrities and some of the lighter fair in the news business?
RATHER: Well, it is a key question. I wish I had the answer to it, Howie. I hope, and I honestly do believe that for a long period now there will be rethink among American journalists, in particular those who have some television, about concentrating more on serious news.
But I've thought that any number of times before, for example, in the wake of the Gulf War, I thought there would be a re-emphasis on foreign coverage. There wasn't. I thought there would be a sort of return to our journalistic base camp of trying to report more about things that are important, perhaps at the expense of things that are interesting, like celebrity news.
And I was wrong then. So I am really reluctant to make a prediction. But I think, given the seriousness of what's happened here, that for at least the short and medium range future that there will be a re-emphasis on more serious news coverage. I certainly hope so.
KURTZ: It does have the feel of a major league wake up call. Given the very widespread and low opinion of the news business, particularly in the last 10 or 15 years, why do you think that in a recent Pew Research Poll, 89 percent gave positive marks for the media for their coverage of this tragedy over the last couple of weeks. Why the shift?
RATHER: I hope it's because the coverage was pretty good. Mind you, I think we deserved what we got in the preceding 10 or 15 years, and I do not exempt myself from that criticism. I think the public was right on point.
But when this story broke, I mean, what journalist could not say, man, this is really serious for my country, and for that matter, for the world, and I want to get out and do a really responsible job. And even those journalistic entities who had strayed very far from what I consider to be the best journalism pulled themselves together. So I think it must be that the public looked, and they listened, and even though we made mistakes, saw how hard we were trying and felt that we did a pretty good job.
And there may be a lesson in that for us, and I won't give you my full sermon about that, but you know, my experience over a lifetime in journalism, Howie, is that when you try to do integrity-filled journalism, the public will respond. There is always someone to tell you that's not the truth, there is always somebody to tell you that isn't true when someone runs a focus group or a poll, but that's been my experience.
KURTZ: OK, we have about 10 seconds for an abbreviated sermon. You've covered Vietnam, impeachment, the disputed election, a lot of hurricanes. Think this will end up being the biggest story of your career?
RATHER: Yes.
KURTZ: OK, can't ask for a briefer answer than that. Dan Rather, CBS News, thanks very much for joining us.
RATHER: Thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KURTZ: Veteran CBS News anchor Dan Rather talking to us about the challenges of covering this most difficult story, one that won't get any easier in the days and weeks ahead.
Wolf Blitzer and I will be back in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BLITZER: Howie Kurtz, the interview you just had with Dan Rather, some very compelling stuff. I could just see some of his critics taking notes when he said about the issue of the flag or ribbons on the lapel, Dan Rather saying "it doesn't feel right for me." I think he said it, something like that, twice. Is he going to be hammered by those traditional Rather haters out there for saying that?
KURTZ: Perhaps by a few of them, Wolf, but I think it is important to understand that journalists are just as patriotic as other people. They love their country, they feel very strongly about what's happened here, but many of them, Rather included, don't feel that they want to wave the red, white and blue on the air, that that's not part of their journalistic mission.
The other point I wanted to pick up on is, you know, this 89 percent approval rating for the media in this Pew Research Center Poll. I think that's going to fade very quickly, because I think we are heading for a collision, Wolf, between the Bush administration and the press -- White House, Justice Department, Pentagon reporters telling me it's getting very hard to get even basic information out of the government on this story.
And as you well remember from the Gulf War, when there is a fight between the government and the media in a time of war, the public overwhelmingly sides with the government.
BLITZER: I remember that very well. Howard Kurtz of CNN's "RELIABLE SOURCES" and the "Washington Post," thank you so much for joining us.
KURTZ: Thanks.
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