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Dan Rather
Broadcast Journalist
The responsibility is to be accurate and fair. The twin pillars on which good -- never mind great -- reporting, are built: accuracy and fairness. They work together. I pause to say this because I don't want to be misinterpreted. If one aspires to daily journalism, which was always my aspiration, and it's still my first love -- I do a lot of different kinds of reporting, including trying to write books now, but daily journalism is my biggest -- speed is also important. You have to be able to think fast, write fast. But that does remind me, speaking of writing, the bedrock of the craft is writing. Anything in journalism, that's where it begins. And that's pretty much what it's about. That's the bedrock of the craft. A lot of people who aspire to jobs, or careers, lifetimes in radio or television, tend to overlook that fact, and it is a fact. The best producers in television, almost without exception, are good writers.
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Dan Rather
Broadcast Journalist
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.
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Dan Rather
Broadcast Journalist
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.
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Lloyd Richards
Tony Award-Winning Director
Lloyd Richards: I don't work for the critics. The critics are something that happens to the work. If I try to guess what the critics might like I know my producers do that all the time. I've been a producer, and I am a producer, but I do the things I like. I do the things that really affect me. I do the things that mean something to me, where something of me is being articulated through the work. I say what I have to say. Now that may be accepted, it may not be accepted. I say it the best I can, and if they don't accept it, okay.
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Lloyd Richards
Tony Award-Winning Director
Lloyd Richards: The arts are a reflection of our society, of its concerns, of its aspirations, of its possibilities. In every respect, it is also a challenge to our society. Those are its roles, and sometimes those roles become crusty. It was Ed Steinmetz who said a good writer is as a second government in his own country which is why the government generally supports mediocrity rather than real talent. What is he saying? He is saying that the role of the arts is to challenge, is to question. It is not simply to pat on the back and support and wave. There are many, many responsibilities that it has, one of which is to question our society as it exists, and lead it to the possibility of making other choices. Sometimes, it isn't to say that every artist is correct in his projection, but at least the challenge is there. Answer it again. There are times when you step on a toe, and if that toe is as influential as a few toes were, then you may have a bumpy time. But that does not change the role of the arts. And any true artist will not be changed by it.
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Sally Ride
First American Woman in Space
I decided that it was worth my time to try to have some impact on that, and try to, first, help change the culture and make the culture realize that the girls are out there, that if we want scientists and engineers in the future, we should be cultivating the girls as much as the boys, and that we needed to be able to give girls in middle school, high school and college the same opportunities that we give to boys. So I have put in a lot of time creating programs for girls, particularly in middle school, to just keep them engaged and introduce them to role models, show them that whether they want to be a rocket scientist or a geochemist or a microbiologist, that there are women who are now actively involved in those careers and who love what they do. I think it's slowly but surely having an impact.
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