Students from the UBC j-school worked with Mr. "What's the frequency, Kenneth?" on a doc about Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. They liked him.
The idea for A Safe Place to Shoot Up (it starts just over 17 minutes into the newscast) came from the advanced TV class at the UBC Graduate School of Journalism. Hoping to introduce his second-year masters students to the real world of working journalism, associate professor (and long-time 60 Minutes producer) Peter Klein developed a course in which students would spend a semester producing an item for Dan Rather Reports. The students were each asked to come up with a story idea for the show.
Ten pitches were whittled down to three, and those were presented to Rather and his producers. They chose to tell the story of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. The students then got to work - doing research, lining up interviews, writing questions for Rather to ask.
"A number of them have said it was the highlight of their journalism education experience," says Klein. "I think initially there was that star quality, anticipating working with a star journalist ... [but] there was a wonderful rapport between them and I think they lost that sort of starry-eyed thing really quickly."
To the students, "Mr. Rather" became "Dan" and eventually they felt comfortable making suggestions to the highly experienced reporter. "He was really like the farthest from a prima donna - really easy going," Klein says.
Rather also had a bit to say about his ongoing tussle with CBS News:
Rather, 76, is a veteran journalist who has covered events ranging from wars and elections to the John F. Kennedy assassination. He joined HDNet in 2006, a year after his bitter departure from long-time employer CBS.
Rather is now suing CBS, arguing the network and its executives made him a scapegoat for a questionable story that aired about President George W. Bush's military service. He is expecting a ruling to be made soon - possibly this week - in CBS's move to have the case dismissed. At the same time, the legal discovery process is continuing.
"I have no illusions about this," Rather says. "I knew going into it that it would be a long, hard, expensive road [with] odds against.