September 1, 2004

Chatting with Dan Rather

Kid Reporter Danny asks the veteran anchor about media coverage of the convention

By Danny Stricker

Dan Rather began his career in journalism in 1950 and has worked at CBS News since 1962. He has interviewed every U.S. President since Dwight D. Eisenhower (the nation's thirty-fourth President from 1953-1961). He has also observed the way political conventions have changed during the past 40 years. TFK Kid Reporter Danny asked him about his career, covering conventions and the traits of success.

TFK: You’ve been with CBS for 42 years and have been covering politics and political conventions. How have conventions changed during that time?
Dan Rather: Well, they’ve changed dramatically over that time. The biggest change has been that there are no longer important things decided during the convention.

Sometime not so long ago, as recently as about 30 years ago, maybe a little less...Presidents (and) Presidential candidates were actually nominated at the conventions, not before them. So were vice presidential candidates.

Platforms, such as what to do about constitutional rights, racism and war, were actually debated at the conventions so the biggest difference is this no longer occurs.

These conventions area now are very carefully scripted, very carefully orchestrated infomercials for their targets and nothing of importance really happens here anymore and the delegates don’t have the power that they once had.

Dan Rather talks about media coverage of political conventions.

TFK: Your network and others is not devoting a lot of time to the convention. Why is that?
Dan Rather: Because there’s virtually no news at these conventions. We are a news organization and we can get their time including prime time when there’s news, but right now all it is is a bunch of speeches...But I don’t want to joke too much about it.

The reason that the amount of time dedicated to the conventions has shrunk is because the Party has decided that they didn’t want anything important to happen here...and since there’s no news, we have reduced our coverage.

TFK: You’ve interviewed every president since Dwight Eisenhower. Who was your favorite?
Dan Rather: You know as a reporter, I don’t really have a favorite. I tend to like and respect the Presidents. I’ve never met a President that I didn’t like. Certainly never met one I didn’t respect. A few have, you know, let the country down at this point, but I don’t really have a favorite.

President Eisenhower was the first President I’d met and I’ve always had a special place for him because he was the first President I met. I talked to him, but I can’t really say I knew him. I popped him a couple questions and how are you, but I mean the President, it was an honor and always is.

TFK: What was the most memorable thing a President has said to you?
Dan Rather: What a good question. I’m not sure any President has ever said anything very memorable to me to tell you the truth. But President (Lyndon) Johnson, when he was talking about the war, once said he could not understand why the North Vietnamese didn’t accept his proposal for building a series of dams along the Vietnam River. I’ve often thought that that probably carried more information about how frustrated President Johnson was than we even knew at the time.

TFK: There are 15,000 reporters here at the convention. How do you make your convention coverage unique?
Rather: Boy I wish we could make it unique. You know the truth of the matter is it ‘s very hard with these modern political conventions drained of anything important happening here, which is necessary to make our coverage unique. If our coverage is in anyway unique -- I’m not sure it is -- it’s because we have the biggest corps of media experience people like Bob Schieffer...We have experienced reporters and I think that (qualifies) us to cover news if any news breaks out.

TFK: When you meet world leaders or leaders in the business world or big entertainment figures, what do you notice are characteristics of success?
Rather: One characteristic of success is character. That applies to Hollywood, movie stars, probably not as well, but about as well as it does to kid reporters. The first thing I do in an interview is try to lock eyes with the interview subject. A thing that I call the “face triangle”: eyes, nose, mouth.

TFK: You are the only reporter to interview former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein just before the Iraq war, what was that experience like?
Rather: When you have a world exclusive like that, you can expect that not everyone is going to love you for it. Being in the room with Saddam Hussein at that time, that circumstance, at that place, being at the palace in Baghdad with Saddam Hussein, you’re very much aware that it’s a challenge and even a little bit scary.

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