Don’t Cry For Dan Rather

So the media is turning its glory-hogging CBS eye back on itself this week, mourning about the "loss" of Dan Rather.

No, Dan’s still alive and well for a man his age, but CBS has decided to cut him loose after decades of service.

Well it’s not like he was BUSY or anything. He wasn’t doing anything incredibly productive. He’s been pretty much on the sidelines after leaving the CBS Evening News. He was drawing a paycheck, he was doing occasional work for 60 Minutes, but we all know that it’s just not the same as telling America what HE thinks the news is.

But don’t mourn for the loss of Dan Rather’s career. And certainly don’t get upset at CBS for letting him go. Dan Rather did this to himself.

Dan Rather destroyed his own career over the whole Texas Air National Guard issue in 2004. He took a story that was questionable and he told millions of Americans that it was the truth, and he did it at a time that was politically advantageous to the Democratic Party. And then he sat in his pompous anchor chair and he told those same millions that the information that he got this from was true and anyone who said otherwise was a damned filthy liar.

Now when the story was being questioned in September of 2004, I challenged Dan Rather to put up or shut up. Obviously he refused. Turned out I was right and he was wrong. But he still managed to keep his job, even though his underlings got canned. That’s what "underlings" are supposed to do in the corporate world. They’re cannon fodder, and they got treated as such. Rather, meanwhile, was allowed to leave the anchor space gracefully, but he still managed to keep his behind-the-camera jobs.

Dilbert creator Scott Adams recently came up with a great definition for this… "minimalized". Executives don’t get "downsized", they get "minimalized". Their job gets reduced to a point where they have no control over anything anymore and all they’re doing is drawing a paycheck until they finally up and leave…or unless they convince another executive to jump off a building so he can take their position. Apparently Rather couldn’t even convince anyone to do that.

So, no, don’t blame CBS for finally doing what they should have done two years ago. It was time for Dan Rather to be put to pasture anyway. He was doing fine as long as he was reporting the news. It was when he started to dictate what that news would be - and putting himself in a corporate position to dictate what that news should be - that’s when he really jeopardized his career… and it finally caught up with him. And he’s STILL leaving on much better terms than any one of the people who lost their jobs or their livelihood from all the stories that he ever reported on.

No, don’t mourn a man like that. Envy him.