Wednesday night, UT faculty members and students filled an auditorium and two overflow rooms to listen to legendary American journalist Dan Rather. Rather shared his views on reporting and how journalists belong to something bigger than themselves.
“News is what people, the public, need to know, that someone in power doesn’t want them to know,” said Rather.
Watch the conversation with Dan Rather here.
The event was a celebration of the launch of a new digital humanities project: Dan Rather: American Journalist.
The Briscoe Center for American History and the Moody College of Communication co-sponsored the launch of the website that documents Rather’s career and the evolution of broadcast news during the past half century.
Christelle Le Faucheur, the Dan Rather Legacy project manager, gave background on the project and demonstrated the layout of the website, which features over 2,000 digitized documents, 300 excerpts from 12 oral history interviews, and 500 video clips.
Le Faucheur said the website offers a variety of advice for future journalists, answering questions such as “How do I put a broadcast together when I am 100 miles away from New York?”
News is what people, the public, need to know, that someone in power doesn’t want them to know. – Dan Rather
The demonstration was followed by a discussion with current and former CBS producers about their experiences of working with Rather, and it ended with a discussion with Rather on the future of journalism.
Explore the website here.
At the event, the audience was given the opportunity to ask Rather questions. With the constant change in technology, the audience expressed concern about the impact of new technology on journalism.
“The internet has almost unfathomable potential to educate, to illuminate, to inform and to be of value,” said Rather. “But again, it can only do that to the extent that we use it for those purposes.”
The Dan Rather: American Journalist website is now live and available for use to the public.
Watch the conversation with CBS producers here.
