Word: anchorman
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...anchorman has ever aroused such passion. For conservatives who remember his days as President Nixon's nemesis, Rather is the very embodiment of what they perceive as the media's liberal bias. When Senator Jesse Helms, the right-wing Republican from North Carolina, launched a campaign in 1985 to take over CBS, he urged supporters with pointed glee to buy up CBS stock and "become Dan Rather's boss." Many TV news traditionalists are no fonder of Rather: he is too high-pitched, too image conscious, too well paid...
Rather's behavior as an anchorman too has sometimes seemed inexplicable. In an interview during last summer's Iran-contra hearings, he peppered former CIA Chief William Colby with questions about the rumor -- taken seriously by almost no one else -- that the late CIA director William Casey was not really dead. In August, when former ABC Newsman Charles Glass escaped from terrorists holding him hostage in Lebanon, Rather sounded a jarring note of skepticism, referring to Glass as a "young American who says he was a hostage." ABC Nightline Anchor Ted Koppel called the characterization "beneath contempt...
Rather later spent six years as a correspondent on 60 Minutes; his pugnacious style fitted well in the show that invented confrontation journalism. But Rather's sights were set higher. As retirement approached for Evening News veteran Anchorman Walter Cronkite, Rather and Roger Mudd emerged as the two chief contenders to replace him. Though close to the same age, the pair seemed to represent different eras of TV journalism. Mudd was cerebral and low-key, the well-connected Washington insider. Rather was the brash, high-profile network terrier -- and an undeniable star. Sometimes too much the star. For one well...
...could have been just another conversation between two familiar talking heads turned into a collision with a resonance far out of proportion to the intense nine minutes of airtime. Their contretemps was not just a conflict between men but between two institutions, two symbols: the Vice President and the anchorman, the loyal emissary of the Reagan establishment taking on the embodiment of the East Coast liberal press...
...would focus on his presidential campaign. Eager to combat his wimpy image, Bush came to shove, denouncing Rather's tactics and counterattacking by recalling the evening last September when Rather stalked away from his anchor duties and left the network blank for more than six minutes. The tightly coiled anchorman, a combustible character in the coolest of mediums, seemed almost to spring out of his chair, unsettling his audience with high-voltage intensity. It was video High Noon: Bush had shot down the legendary media gunslinger from Black Rock. It was the new George Bush. Not Bush the perpetual stand...