The New Face of TV News

Dan Rather becomes CBS's $8 million man, as network journalism booms

For nearly three months he met regularly and secretly with top executives at each of the three commercial networks, hearing their offers, learning their plans. The process involved quiet breakfasts in obscure restaurants, drinks and dinner in one suitor's apartment and marathon conversations in hotel rooms. "I find myself in a long final glide path," he said last week. "Three runways are stretched out before me. All three are beautiful. I could land on any one and be extremely happy."

Dan Rather, 48, the intrepid newshound of CBS's 60 Minutes, had three offers he couldn't refuse. ABC, NBC and his own CBS each sought to make him its evening-news anchorman. Each asked him to help shape its newscast. And each, before the bidding was over, had offered a staggering reward if he would just sign up: $8 million spread over five years.

Two self-imposed deadlines for making a decision came and went. Lists of pros and cons littered Rather's Manhattan apartment. Before leaving for work last Wednesday he promised his wife Jean that he would make up his mind that day. At 60 Minutes' offices on West 57th Street, Rather consulted with Mike Wallace, Morley Safer and other CBS colleagues, then he met with NBC News President William Small. Late that night Jean Rather finally turned to him in their living room. "You were going to make a decision today," she said evenly. "You have 17 minutes left." At long last Rather was ready: "I am going to go with my gut. I'm going to go with CBS."

With those words he finally settled the question that had titillated the television world for years: Who would succeed Walter Cronkite, the best-known and most respected broadcast journalist of his era? Some time next year Cronkite's program will be rechristened the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather, and like Cronkite, he will have the title of managing editor. Uncle Walter, 63, who chose to stay out of the selection process for his successor, plans to continue as anchor at least through the presidential inauguration next January. "I've inaugurated every President since Harry Truman," he said last week. "I want to do one more." After that he is planning to stay on at CBS doing documentaries, special assignments and a new science show, Universe.

The clear loser in all this is Roger Mudd, 52, who has been understudying Cronkite for the anchor role for almost a decade. But some CBS executives noted that Mudd, though an experienced Washington correspondent, has never worked overseas, is not the compliant sort of company man that CBS appreciates, and is thought by some at the network to appear a bit too stolid on the screen. Still, Mudd was so sure he had the job that he recently refused to fill in one week for Cronkite; he wanted to go skiing instead. "I think he overestimated his hand," says one colleague. Said Mudd, who may well leave the network: "The management of CBS and CBS News has made its decision on Walter Cronkite's successor, according to its current values and standards. From the beginning, I have regarded myself as a news reporter, not as a newsmaker or a celebrity."