Day: March 9, 2005

Rather’s goodbye video.
CBS News transcript.

NBC’s Brian Williams tribute.
ABC’s Peter Jennings tribute.

Courage.

My take? He wasn’t as classy as Brokaw, but…Dan didn’t do a bad job. I expected him to talk more about how he spent years being the consummate reporter, blah blah blah. No, he spent most of his time saluting others, and I think that’s OK. It doesn’t mean I give him a pass for any bias he’s shown in the past. It just means that he went out in a decent way. Now, he should do the right thing and disappear.

Via TVNewser:

“Dan Rather’s departure tonight as the anchor of the ‘CBS Evening News’ provides Viacom Inc. with the opportunity to remake a broadcast that has the lowest ratings in 24 years and garners 13 percent less for advertisements than competitor NBC,” Bloomberg reports. The CBS Evening News has lost 73,000 viewers in the past year. And Tradition Asiel Securities analyst Paul Kim estimates Viacom “reaps $200 million a year from news, about half as much as NBC News.”

h/t TVNewser:

“I want to get onto the next thing, flat out, full out, full throttle, do it as best I can do it. I believe my best work is ahead of me.” — Dan Rather, in an interview with ABC News today.

Heh.

The 129th Carnival of the Vanities is up over at Solomonia.