Dan Rather Interview (page: 9 / 9) Broadcast Journalist	Print Interview

You are in a profession with absolute deadlines, speaking to millions of people who sometimes are hanging on your every word. How do you handle the stress of that situation?

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Dan Rather: I don't consider that I have a stressful job. I've had stressful jobs and this is not one of them. And I say this with humility. I have worked stripped to my waist in 100-degree temperature working for 12, 14 hours a day for below minimum wage with no benefits, thank you very much. That's stress! And I've worked a derrick floor with slippery equipment all around you, and back-breaking work that you can only do about four hours at a stretch. That's stress! This job, I don't have stress. But I think I know the spirit in which you asked the question. There is a responsibility of being as accurate, being as far as you can be, and there is the responsibility of people listening and watching, and depending on you to be trustworthy, and to deliver work of integrity. That's pressure. Maybe that's synonymous with stress. And sometimes you feel that pressure. It's the pressure to deliver for people who are depending on you. But the way it translates to me, it's also the pressure of that voice within you, and I have this voice, and it speaks to me continuously. "Listen, this is what you dreamed of doing, now you're able to do it, and you've been able to do it for a long time" What a tremendous lesson that is. So you have to do it to the best of your ability. Just pretty good is not good enough. I'm a perfectionist without apology. I've never achieved perfection but I'm always trying, always striving for perfection. I do think that I owe that to the audience, but I don't see any stress.

[ Key to Success ] Integrity

Journalism is a joy for me, and why wouldn't it be?

Get the Flash Player to see this video. I think the pressure is greatest when it's a big, breaking news story, an important story, and have a deadline every nanosecond, you're live, you don't have time to write it out. You don't have time to think it out most of the time. And if you're at the anchor desk, the way it works for me is you're sitting there at an anchor desk with a camera in front of you, a microphone in front of you, an ear piece in each ear. You have a director in one ear and a producer in the other ear with a constant flow of information. Where the job is to absorb this incoming information and continue to talk at the same time. You usually have people at your side who may get the information. Now it sounds crazy. In some ways it is crazy, but that's the job and you compartmentalize. One part of your head is listening to the director when you have to. Part of it is listening to the producer when you have to. Part of it is taking the card off your side if you have to and at the same time keeping your focus sharp enough to continue to talk and don't see yourself talking to millions of people. You see yourself talking to one person in their living room, who says, "Okay, the embassy in East Africa has been blown up. I want to know what's happening. I've tuned in to CBS. I've tuned in to Dan Rather and his team and I'm here in my living room. I want to know what's going on."

The pressure is that responsibility to deliver all of this information coming into you. If there's someone who says, "I just don't see how that works, how can you do that," I can only say, "It's not that hard. Like anything else, it comes from practice and experience and it's a whole lot easier than some things I've done." But you do feel the pressure. You also feel the pressure in one other way, which is maybe worth mentioning.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. There are people who take the position that they want you to report the news the way they want you to report it and if you don't report it the way they want you to report it, then they're going to make you pay a price. They're going to mentally, symbolically, hang a sign around you that you're something bad. And that pressure comes from a lot of directions and a lot of different ways. And I would say at the network level at least, resisting that pressure, having enough experience and enough sense to know the pressure is there, and to have the courage (and I think that is the word) to resist it when it's inappropriate, is a very special kind pressure, a unique kind of pressure that works on you, both your mind and heart, in rather insidious ways. And I found over the years that among the biggest challenges in my job is to resist that kind of pressure.

[ Key to Success ] Integrity

Inevitably, doing what you have done over so many years, there's going to be criticism and controversy. How do you handle that?

Dan Rather: When it comes to criticism I don't handle it very well. I don't know anybody who does. I have had enough experience over the years that at this age and stage I think I have it in reasonably good perspective. The kind of criticism that gives me the most difficulty is the kind of reasoned, well-intentioned criticism that I know is right. I say, "You know, I deserved that criticism." That's the toughest for me to handle, but you can't do this anywhere at or near the top and not get a lot of criticism. If you have any sense at all, you'll realize that a lot of the criticism is justified. What takes some thought is to separate criticism that has a special political, ideological, or some other special pleading from the rank and file viewers and listeners who register a criticism that you need to take seriously.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Controversy? You can't be any kind of reporter worthy of the name and avoid controversy completely. You can't be a good reporter and not be fairly regularly involved in some kind of controversy. And I don't think you can be a great reporter and avoid controversy very often, because one of the roles a good journalist plays is to tell the tough truths as well as the easy truths. And the tough truths will lead you to controversy, and even a search for the tough truths will cost you something. Please don't make this play or read as any complaint, it's trying to explain this goes with the territory if you're a journalist of integrity. That if you start out a journalist or if you reach a point in journalism where you say, "Listen, I'm just not going not touch anything that could possibly be controversial," then you ought to get out.

[ Key to Success ] Courage

What's most important to you and why?

Dan Rather: My family is important to me, and the longer I go, the more I know that's important to me. My friends are important to me and my country is important to me. Those are the really important things, and the longer I go the more I know that that's true, and the less reluctant I am to say it straightforwardly. Beyond those fundamental things, what's important to me is my work. I have a passion for my work. I love my work. And I wouldn't argue with anyone who put forth the case that maybe my work is too important to me, but I answer you honestly when I say my work is important to me.

Finally, what does the American Dream mean to you?

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Dan Rather: The American Dream to me is freedom. It begins with freedom. It's the freedom to dream. The American Dream is the freedom to dream. The American Dream is being free to pursue the life you want to pursue. Not what somebody else may have in mind for you. Now once you go beyond the fundamental fact of the American Dream is freedom, it's the freedom to be, to dream, to pursue whatever you want to pursue. It takes different forms. It begins with sweet liberty, dreams of freedom, but it continues with such things as work and wealth, dream to pursue a career, to dream to be a journalist, be one. It's also to dream of fame and fortune if that's what you want to do, to dream of service, to be of service to other people. The point is that what makes America a new thing in history is the dedication to both the idea and the ideal that we can have a constitutional republic based on the principle of democracy. It's multi-religious, multi-ethnic, there's tremendous diversity, at the same time have enough unity to ensure that to the maximum degree humanly possible everyone has the freedom to pursue their own dreams. That's the American Dream.

[ Key to Success ] The American Dream

I've got to go folks.

It was terrific. Thank you.

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