Analysis: Dan Rather reporting

LOS ANGELES, March 7 (UPI) -- Dan Rather is heading for the exit at "CBS Evening News" in much the same way as he occupied the anchor chair there for the past 24 years: professing a dedication for old-fashioned adversarial journalism, yet unable to shake the perception that his career has been as much about him as it has been about the stories he covered.

Rather will deliver his last "Evening News" broadcast on March 9, 24 years to the day after he succeeded Walter Cronkite as CBS' lead anchor. He had planned on making it to his 25th anniversary but decided to leave the post early because of the controversy that surrounded his "60 Minutes Wednesday" report last fall on President George W. Bush's military service record.

Following an internal investigation the network decided to terminate four CBS News employees over the report on Bush's service in the National Guard during the Vietnam War, because the report relied in part on documents whose authenticity turned out to be questionable.

The Bush White House has frequently complained that journalism has become a high-stakes game of "gotcha" -- and that is more or less how it has worked out for the 73-year-old Rather. Even before he took over the "Evening News" -- since his days as CBS White House correspondent covering the Nixon administration -- Rather's involvement in covering stories has often proved to be a distraction from the stories themselves.

That, in and of itself, is not an unusual occupational challenge for network TV news reporters. Celebrity is as indispensable to their tool kit as sound news judgment.

At the same time, no other U.S. news anchor has managed to accumulate anywhere near the number of controversial moments that have punctuated Rather's on-air career.

An argument could be made that many -- perhaps most -- of those episodes have been minor or even trivial in nature. In some corners he is still taking heat for wearing cardigan sweaters on the air during the early years of his tenure at the anchor desk and for signing off his nightly newscast, for a time, with the word "courage."

The cumulative effect of it all has left Rather with some explaining to do.

He told the New York Daily News that the constant challenges to his credibility and professionalism have, on occasion, gotten to him.

"No rhinoceros has a hide so thick that some well-placed, hard-thrown, pointed spear can't get under it," he said.

Then, as if to preserve his bona fide as a hard-edged traditionalist, Rather stipulated that that sort of thing doesn't happen very often.

"And when it does, when I feel it, it's not for very long," he said.

Rather insisted he is not retiring -- just "changing jobs," with his main focus on reporting for "60 Minutes Wednesday." He sounded as though he expects to draw as much fire as ever from his critics.

"For better or worse, I'm a big-game hunter," he said. "And I'll continue to hunt big game."

It is generally accepted that Rather's relatively hasty exit from "CBS Evening News" is emblematic of a crisis within the network's news division. "Face the Nation" host Bob Schieffer will take over for Rather at the nightly anchor post while CBS Chairman and Chief Executive Leslie Moonves contemplates a longer-term solution to the problem of retooling network TV news to satisfy the demands and preferences of the current media-consumption market.

CBS in particular, and network news in general, have lived for decades in the shadow of TV news pioneer Edward R. Murrow and legendary anchorman Walter Cronkite. When Murrow and his team established what became the gold standard of network TV news, they had several advantages that Moonves will not enjoy.

For one, the early practitioners of TV news had no real legacy to live up to. For another, although it is true that there was intense competitive pressure when Murrow and his contemporaries were inventing the form, it has been decades since TV news divisions have had the luxury of operating more or less independently of the corporate bottom line.

Schieffer, who rose to prominence within CBS News during the days of Richard Nixon and Watergate, told the Los Angeles Times that he and his colleagues have little choice for now but to play the cards they're holding.

"Morale is not very good right now," he said. "But we're going to turn a page. We've simply got to move on."

Rather acknowledged that anchoring on TV can "degenerate" into an exercise in ego. But he told the Times he tried his best not to give in.

"It's not about me, it's about the news, and it's about CBS News," he said. "I have been ... their choice and I've been proud to do it, proud to be it ... the emblem, the symbol, if you will, of CBS News for quite a long time."

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