Antibes, France:
The unceremonious departure from CBS News of Dan Rather even made news in “Nice Matinâ€, my local newspaper here in the south of France. Dan was not only one of America's most famous journalists. He was known around the world.
Rather gave 44 years to one of America's leading news organizations. He had covered most of the world's biggest stories and for 24 years was anchor of the Evening News.
Last year, he was dumped from the anchor chair by a CBS management team that had been embarrassed by a Rather report on a CBS news magazine that was critical of President Bush's military service at the time of the Vietnam War. Rather was shunted aside, given little to do, and finally pushed out the door.
His treatment by CBS management was shabby at best, but the news business in America is a dog-eat-dog business. It's all about ratings and the bottom line. What CBS management really wanted was not just someone who would not embarrass them. They wanted a younger face who would entice younger viewers and, they hoped, make them a lot more money. Rather will be replaced in September by a perky female anchor from a rival network's breakfast television show.
Dan Rather
Rather is not perky. He is a rough edged, boots-on-the-ground, journalist who believes that the best way to cover a story is to be on the spot. The real significance of his departure is that American broadcast news has lost another advocate of the importance of foreign news.
Rather was one of the big three evening news anchors who gave Americans a window on the world during the historic transition from the Cold War to the War on Terror. Like Peter Jennings of ABC News, who died of lung cancer last year, and NBC's Tom Brokaw, who gracefully retired, Rather had decades of experience and knew the meaning and importance of events beyond America's shores. All three former anchors bridled at the notion peddled by “consultants†that Americans are not interested in foreign news and would rather watch fluff and infotainment.
The new generation of evening news anchors have less influence, and despite the fact that America is fighting two wars in the Middle East and by one count has more than 700 military bases around the world, the viewpoint of the evening news shows is becoming increasingly insular. Most evenings, the only news they report from beyond America's shores is the daily carnage in Iraq. And even when other foreign events are mentioned, there is little context to help Americans understand them. The rest of the world is mostly meaningless background noise on American television news.
The population of the world's greatest imperial power knows less about the world than the rest of the world knows about America. Does that mean that other countries' news organizations are doing a better job of informing their audience?
BBC News24 channel in Britain
Certainly the British do it better. The British Broadcasting Corporation is arguably the world's best. By and large, the BBC broadcasts the news it deems to be important without fear or favor (unlike British newspapers, which run the entire gamut from good to bad, from serious broadsheets to trashy tabloids).
Elsewhere, the picture is mixed. Europeans get a large dose of foreign news on their television. And even in countries where freedom of the media is restricted, as in the Middle East, there is easy access to foreign news on satellite television.
By the way, here in France, television anchors are also well known personalities, though their fame does not reach beyond their country's borders. Unlike Dan Rather, most of them are in bed with the government – sometimes literally so. Marriages and affairs between television news anchors and prominent government ministers are not unusual. You certainly won't see reports on French television news that are highly critical of President Jacques Chirac, or that dig too deeply into his past.
Perhaps this country, where government scandals are common, could use a Dan Rather. But local broadcasters seem to have no more taste for tough, prickly anchors than the American networks do these days. None of them would be likely to hire him, even if he could speak French.
