Dan Rather on JFK, 9/11, CBS News, and more

"For anyone who loves a craft, loves news (reporting)... the bedrock requirement is to love the news, which I did."

Watch Dan Rather's full 2005 interview ; he discusses the craft of journalism and the many,  many historical milestones he covered both as a reporter and later, as anchor for the CBS Evening News (1980-2005).

In this excerpt, he recalls the events of September 11, 2001:

About the Interview: Dan Rather was interviewed for nearly eight hours (in two sessions) in New York, NY. He talks at length about growing up in Houston, Texas, and his early years as a radio and television journalist in the local market. He describes in detail his work at KHOU-TV, where his dramatic continuous coverage of “Hurricane Carla” garnered national recognition and brought him to the attention of CBS News. In addition, he explains the challenges and lessons he learned from covering monumental moments in the Civil Rights Movement and the assassination of President Kennedy, and why CBS News, due to logistics, did not broadcast live television's first on-air murder -- that of Lee Harvey Oswald.  He concludes with recollections on covering the war in Vietnam, the Nixon White House, and 9/11, and also speaks of his work on 60 Minutes and on succeeding Walter Cronkite as anchor of CBS Evening News.  The two-part interview was conducted by Don Carleton on April 7 and November 7, 2005.