This biography is courtesy of www. danratherjournalist.org/aboutdan/biography Born in Wharton, Texas, on October 31, 1931, the son of Daniel Sr. (a ditchdigger and pipelayer) and Vera (a homemaker), Dan Rather moved with his family to Houston Heights. Rather attended Love Elementary School and Hamilton Middle School, and he graduated in 1950 from John H. Reagan High School in Houston. The first in his family to go to college, Rather earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism in 1953 from Sam Houston State College in Huntsville, Texas, under Professor Hugh Cunningham. The latter got him a job at the local radio station, KSAM, from 1950 to 1953, where Rather rapidly learned the ropes, from writing news to announcing play-by-play of local athletic events, honing his ad libbing skills, which proved invaluable later in his career. Between 1951 and 1953, Rather wrote close to a hundred pieces for the university’s paper, The Houstonian, as a staff writer and later editor. In addition, he worked as an Associated Press reporter and later
a reporter for United Press International (1950–52). In 1954, Rather enlisted in the United States Marine Corps but was soon discharged because he had rheumatic fever as a child. Rather then worked at KTRH radio in Houston and the Houston Chronicle, his first job as a fulltime reporter. He also continued doing play-by-play sports, which led to his first television job with KTRK-Houston in 1959, doing a weekly “Coaches Show” for the University of Houston. He became news director of KTRH in 1956 and a reporter for KTRK-TV Houston in 1959, before joining the CBS affiliate KHOU in 1960 as news director. By this time he had married Jean Goebel, whom he met when she was hired as a secretary at KTRH, and they had two children. Hired by CBS News, Rather spent six weeks in New York before being sent back to the South in 1962 as chief of the Southwest bureau in Dallas and then, in August 1963, as chief of the Southern bureau in New Orleans. During that time, he reported extensively on racial conflicts in the South and the fight for civil rights, covering the Freedom Rides from Jackson, Mississippi, to Charlotte,
North Carolina, and James Meredith’s entry into the University of Mississippi. He also interviewed major civil rights figures, from Martin Luther King Jr. and Medgar Evers to Vivian Malone and James Hood. As chief of the Southern bureau, Rather was part of a team of journalists covering President Kennedy’s visit to Dallas. He was on the ground when the shooting took place and was one of the first journalists to confirm the president’s death. One of only two journalists to see the Zapruder film in Dallas, Rather was the first to describe it on television. In the late 1960s, Rather worked as a foreign and war correspondent in places such as London, Greece, India, and China, as well as Vietnam, where he succeeded Morley Safer as chief Vietnam correspondent for CBS News. Rather has been reporting about and commenting on U.S political affairs since his first columns as the editor of the Houstonian in 1952. He traveled with his first president, Dwight Eisenhower, in 1960 as the news director at KHOU in Houston. As a White House correspondent from 1964 to 1975, he closely followed the Johnson and Nixon administrations and reported extensively on the Watergate scandal. He was an essential part of several CBS News Special Reports, including “The Senate and the Watergate Affair” on March 13, 1973, and “Watergate and the President” on August 16, 1973. In 1974, Rather joined the legendary CBS Reports, where he fronted a dozen reports including some on drinking water, the hunting industry in the U.S., cancer research, and his first of many interviews with Fidel Castro. He was also part of an ambitious four-night special entitled “The American Assassins,” which earned a Peabody Award. From 1975 to 1981, he worked with Mike Wallace, Morley Safer, and Don
Hewitt at 60 Minutes, which became the top-rated program on Sunday nights in the fall of 1978. Like his colleagues, Rather did a mix of stories: investigative pieces on social, political, and economic abuses, and frauds (moving companies, the pesticide Phosvel, therapists who sexually exploit their patients, brown lung disease) and high-profile interviews (George Wallace, John Connally, Barbara Jordan, Leon Jaworski, Jesse Jackson, Fidel Castro). He also did his share of “fluff ” pieces (the disco craze, backgammon, pinball machines) and introduced viewers to a wide range of important topics (a maximum security federal penitentiary, the overconsumption of sugar, carcinogens in hair coloring products, the plight of disabled workers and of handicapped children, neo-nazi movements, etc.). Eager to pursue his passion for investigative and ground reporting, Rather continued to participate in a series of news magazines after becoming anchor, including 48 Hours (1988–), CBS Reports (from 1993 on) and 60 Minutes II (1999–2005), where he unveiled major stories including the abuses at Abu Ghraib and an interview with the daughter of Strom Thurmond. In 1981, he replaced Walter Cronkite as the anchor of the most successful and highly regarded evening news in America. Rather was the anchor and managing editor of CBS Evening News for twenty-four years, the longest tenure in television history. As such, he was not only the face of CBS, but stood for quality and reliable television news. He was repeatedly voted best anchor and was regarded, in 1984, as one of the most influential men in America. Known for asking real, tough questions, Rather has and continues to conduct in-depth interviews with hundreds of world leaders and newsmakers ranging from Rosalynn Carter and Jesse Jackson to Saddam Hussein.
Rather also strives to give voice to everyday people, from the victims of Katrina and the returning soldiers to migrant workers and truck drivers. Rather has received virtually every honor and award in broadcast journalism, including numerous Emmy Awards and Peabody Awards, citations from critical, scholarly, professional, and charitable organizations, and various honorary degrees from universities. He has received a Lifetime Achievement Emmy Award in 2005, the prestigious National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Trustees Award in 2013, and a lifetime achievement award at the Banff World Media Festival in 2014. In 2012, he published his latest memoir, Rather Outspoken and What Unites Us: Reflections on Patriotism came out in the fall of 2017. Rather also contributed to CBS News Radio with a weekly broadcast of news and analysis, Rather Reporting, heard on more than three hundred stations across the country from 1981 to 2004. He wrote an eponymous weekly King Features Syndicate column that ran in about fifty newspapers between 1998 and 2009, participated in numerous discussion panels, and gave hundreds of speeches around the globe. His “ratherisms,” the “verbal oddities” and Texas/ Southern/made-up expressions he uses most often during election nights, became the topic of articles and have been collected by all sides. Rather became a very public person as a reporter. Colleagues and friends often comment on how, on a personal side, he never lost his connection to his family and Texas and remained a Southern gentleman. In the course of his long career, Rather has attracted both critics and admirers and was embroiled in his share of controversies, but he continues to work hard to be a reporter and an honest broker of information.
The Houstonian would like to provide clarification on a byline printed in this week’s issue. On page 6 (Arts & Entertainment), the story “Reynolds Interns with Rather in New York” reads Tyler Josefsen, Editor-in-Chief in the byline. This byline should read Sharon Raissi, Associate Editor. The interview with Reynolds was conducted by Josefsen, but the the story was written in-full by Raissi.