Biography
Daniel Irvin Rather Jr. (; born October 31, 1931) is an American journalist, commentator, and former national evening news anchor. He began his career in Texas, becoming a national name after his reporting saved thousands of lives during Hurricane Carla in September 1961. Rather spontaneously created the first radar weather report by overlaying a transparent map over a radar image of Hurricane Carla. In his first national broadcast, he helped initiate the successful evacuation of 350,000 people. He reported on some of the most significant events of the modern age, such as the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Gulf War, 9/11, the Iraq War, and the war on terror.
Rather also famously reported from Dallas in November 1963 at the time that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Based on such impactful reporting, he was promoted at CBS News, where he served as White House correspondent beginning in 1964. He served as foreign correspondent in London and Vietnam over the next two years before returning to the White House correspondent position. He covered the presidency of Richard Nixon, including Nixon's trip to China, the Watergate scandal, and the president's resignation.
In 1981, Rather was promoted to news anchor for the CBS Evening News, a role he occupied for 24 years. Along with Peter Jennings at ABC News and Tom Brokaw at NBC News, he was one of the "Big Three" nightly news anchors in the U.S. from the 1980s through the early 2000s. He frequently contributed to CBS's weekly news magazine, 60 Minutes.
Rather left the anchor desk in 2005 following the Killian documents controversy, in which he presented unauthenticated documents in a news report on President George W. Bush's Vietnam War–era service in the National Guard. He continued to work with CBS until 2006, when he was abruptly fired.In September 2007, Rather filed a $70 million lawsuit against CBS and its former parent company Viacom. Rather accused the network and its ownership and management of making him a "scapegoat" in the Killian story. An intermediate New York state appeals court dismissed the lawsuit in September 2009, and the New York Court of Appeals refused to reinstate it in January 2010.On the cable channel AXS TV (then called HDNet), Rather hosted Dan Rather Reports, a 60 Minutes–style investigative news program, from 2006 to 2013. He also hosts several other projects for AXS TV, including Dan Rather Presents, which provides in-depth reporting on broad topics such as mental health care or adoption, and The Big Interview with Dan Rather, in which he conducts long-form interviews with musicians and other entertainers. In January 2018, he began hosting an online newscast called The News with Dan Rather on The Young Turks YouTube channel. Since 2021, he has been writing the newsletter "Steady" on the Substack platform.
Filmography
all 61
self 56
Movies 32
TV Shows 29
Producer 1
Narrator 1
Shaking It Up: The Life and Times of Liz Carpenter (2024)
Rather (2023)
Meat Loaf - A Celebration Of Life (2023)
Cuomo (2022)
Raise Hell: The Life & Times of Molly Ivins (2019)
Mike Wallace Is Here (2019)
Woodstock: Three Days That Defined a Generation (2019)
Watergate (2018)
Fail State (2018)
1968: The Year That Changed America (2018)
Explained (2018)
Howard (2018)
The Top Ten Revealed (2018)
The Nineties (2017)
The Putin Interviews (2017)
Soundtracks: Songs That Defined History (2017)
Lombardi's Redskins (2016)
Harry Benson: Shoot First (2016)
Chelsea (2016)
I Voted? (2016)
The Timeline (2015)
Traficant: The Congressman of Crimetown (2015)
The Seventies (2015)
StarTalk with Neil deGrasse Tyson (2015)
Nixon by Nixon: In His Own Words (2014)
The Sixties (2014)
All About Ann: Governor Richards of the Lone Star State (2014)
The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon (2014)
The Assassination of President Kennedy (2013)
JFK: One PM Central Standard Time (2013)
Newsflash: Stories That Stopped the World (2013)
The Big Interview With Dan Rather (2013)
Newsreaders (2013)
Ghosts of Ole Miss (2012)
Gloria: In Her Own Words (2011)
Piers Morgan Live (2011)
The War You Don't See (2010)
The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers (2009)
Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen (2009)
Mile High: How to Win... and Lose... the White House (2009)
Charlie Wilson's War (2007)
Dirty Sexy Money (2007)
Star Wars: The Legacy Revealed (2007)
Buying the War (2007)
Everything's Cool (2007)
Dan Rather Reports (2006)
This Film Is Not Yet Rated (2006)
WMD: Weapons of Mass Deception (2004)
Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)
Barbecue: A Texas Love Story (2004)
Real Time with Bill Maher (2003)
The Daily Show (1996)
Peter Allen: The Boy From Oz (1995)
Commercial Entertainment Product (1992)
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (1992)
Charlie Rose (1991)
The Simpsons (1989)
48 Hours (1988)
Larry King Live (1985)
CBS Evening News with Norah O'Donnell (1941)
Bill Moyers Journal
Ratings
Information
Known ForActing
GenderMale
Birthday1931-10-31 (92 years old)
Birth PlaceWharton, United States of America
CitizenshipsUnited States of America
Also Known AsDan Irvin Rather Jr.
AwardsNews & Documentary Emmy Award, News and Documentary Emmy Award, Television Hall of Fame, Radio Television Digital News Association, Academy of Achievement, Peabody Awards, Trustees Award, Four Freedoms Award – Freedom of Speech
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