Dan Rather has always denied accusations of bias over the years. In this section he defends himself and other journalists from such charges..

"Now respectfully, when you start talking about a liberal agenda and all the, quote, 'liberal bias' in the media, I quite frankly, and I say this respectfully but candidly to you, I don't know what you're talking about."
--Dan Rather to talk radio host Mike Rosen of KOA Denver, November 28, 1995.

"The Republicans tended to get up close and personal ('Rather is a liberal,' or somesuch ad hominem attack)."
--Dan Rather in his 1994 book, The Camera Never Blinks Twice.

"As far as your labeling of me as a liberal, I'm not sure where you (or anyone else) get such ideas, since I've never discussed my politics in public or private except to say that I voted for Eisenhower twice. I suspect that such labels -- in my case as well as others' -- are less the product of what I've said than of what others have said about me."
--Dan Rather, responding to a May 16, 1995 article in the Rochester Post-Bulletin which accused him of being liberally biased.

"It wasn't a question of Republican or Democratic ideology: I've crossed the highest-ranking officials of every major political party since the day I started as a reporter, and I'm proud to say I've never been anybody's lapdog or anybody's attack dog. On my best days, I'm a watch dog, calling out when there's something going on."
--Dan Rather in his 1994 book, The Camera Never Blinks Twice.

Dan Rather's Interview on Larry King Live, March 11, 1996:
RATHER: "I don't do editorials. And about that perhaps you and I will just -- I hope in good humor -- agree to disagree that we don't do editorializing. And I'm either famous or infamous, depending on your point of view, saying we don't editorialize; we don't want to editorialize, in no way, shape, or form...."
KING: "Over all these fifteen years, how do you react to the constant, especially far right-wing, criticism that the news on CBS is mainstream biased?"
RATHER: "Well, I don't quite know what mainstream is."
KING: "I don't know what it means either, but they say it. I'm just quoting 'em."
RATHER: "Oh, no. I understand. Well, my answer to that is basically a good Texas phrase, which is bullfeathers...I think the fact that if someone survives for four or five years at or near the top in network television, you can just about bet they are pretty good at keeping independence in their reporting. What happens is a lot of people don't want independence. They want the news reported the way they want it for their own special political agendas or ideological reasons."

The media critic for the Washington Post, Howard Kurtz, asked Rather why the networks blamed the anti-abortion movement for an abortion doctor's murder:
"[B]ut when a left-wing environmental group claimed credit for burning down a ski resort in Vail, Colorado, there was little suggestion that environmental activists might have contributed to such violence."
   "The anchor (Mr. Rather) called CBS's coverage 'fair and accurate,' saying the network 'gave voice' to people blaming the anti-gay and anti-abortion movements, 'and also gave voice to those who said, "Don't paint us all with this brush."' The circumstances surrounding the Vail fire, says Rather, were less clear."
--Howard Kurtz in the Washington Post, November 2, 1998.

"It's a myth that most American journalists in Vietnam didn't like the military, weren't pulling for America to win, and as a consequence 'the media lost the war.' Some Americans, including some who fought valiantly in Vietnam, genuinely believe that myth. But others have viciously spread the myth for their own self-serving, often very partisan political purposes. The worst among these people were never in Vietnam,"
--Dan Rather in his syndicated column, July 15, 1998. This article was included in Deadlines and Datelines.

BILL PRESS: Dan, I make no bones about it, I'm a liberal, unreconstructed, you know, old-fashioned, proud of it liberal. Are you?
RATHER: No. If I were, I would say so and I would be proud of it, but I'm not.
PRESS: Why is it that you are the epitome of the left-wing liberal media in the mind of every conservative I've ever talked to? What did you do to get that reputation?
RATHER: I remained an independent reporter who would not report the news the way they wanted it or -- from the left or the right. I'm a lifetime reporter. All I ever dreamed of was being a journalist, and the definition of journalist to me was the guy who's an honest broker of information. Now, what happens so often in politics -- and he [Republican co-host Mike Murphy] knows it better than most -- if someone doesn't do what you want them to do, then what you try do is hang a sign around their neck that'd be hurtful to them. I do subscribe to the idea of: "Play no favorites and pull no punches." I will not report the news the way anybody says to me, "You better do it this way or pay the price."
--Dan Rather and Bill Press on CNN's Crossfire, June 24, 1999.

Rather spoke to reporters at a CBS News Los Angeles press conference; one journalist told Rather that some people say he was biased against George Bush:
"Who says that? Who are the 'some people?' It's really very important... There's nothing more important to a news organization than its reputation. There's nothing more important to a working reporter than his reputation..."
--Dan Rather quoted in the Houston Chronicle, July 18, 1992.

"[A]lmost nobody wants your opinion. People want facts, not opinions, from reporters."
--Dan Rather in the Introduction to his 1999 book, Deadlines and Datelines.

"I had a very bad broadcast last Monday, or Tuesday. I was really awful. I mean terrible. If it had been a game, the coach would have pulled me. My point is that nobody--nobody--nobody said anything. When you do this kind of work, most people don't criticize you. No matter what they may be thinking. If anybody does criticize me, well, I sort of brush them away. Even if I know within myself that it's true."
--Dan Rather, quoted in Esquire, October 1990.

GERALDO RIVERA: What I can't figure out is why you rub the Right so wrong. What--what is it about you that generates such ferocious criticism from one side of the American political spectrum?
DAN RATHER: Well, I'm not sure I know the answer to that, Geraldo, and I ask myself from time to time. But I think part of it is that, you know, let's face it, I've been really lucky and God has smiled on me that I've been at or near the center of some great stories and controversial stories. You can't cover the civil rights movement in the early '60s and the assassination of President Kennedy, the Vietnam War, the resignation of the only president we've ever had to resign, one who resigned as an unindicted co-conspirator in a widespread criminal conspiracy--you just can't handle that kind of hot lead and not have some people get mad at you. The old saying, 'It goes with the territory.'
There have been times in my career when what other people perceive to be the left has been angry. I didn't get along with Lyndon Johnson all the time during his presidency. But, you know, I wouldn't trade it for anything. And whenever somebody takes off on me, I usually try to stop and say, "Well, is the criticism valid or not?" A lot of times, it isn't. I think the tag, you know, somehow or other, "He's a bomb-throwing Bolshevik from the left side" that's attached to me is put there by people who they subscribe to the idea, "Either you report the news the--the way we want you to report it, or we're going to tag some--what we think negative sign on you." There are people in the world that way, that--you know, part of growing up is to recognize not everybody's going to love you. And believe you me, I recognize that.
RIVERA: They sure don't.
--Dan Rather and Geraldo Rivera on Rivera Live, May 21, 2001.

TIM RUSSERT: How do you handle the whole discussion when you're asked about media bias? You guys on the national media are all a bunch of liberals.
DAN RATHER: Well, it depends on who it's coming from. And if there's an orchestrated campaign--and this is--it's existed for a long time, particularly aimed at CBS--not only at CBS. I'm not saying we're the only ones. But, look, we have a history. And history goes--Senator Joe McCarthy, intense and early and long coverage of the civil rights movement, Vietnam War, Watergate, right on through Iran-contra. And there are people who have their own partisan political and ideological agendas who take the view Dan Rather, CBS, or Tim Russert, NBC, you--you report the news the way I want it reported, or if you don't do that, I'm going to accuse you of bias and I'm going to hang a negative sign around you, liberal or worse.
Now I'm a lifetime reporter; I've certainly made my mistakes. How do I answer this? By saying, folks, look at the record. I've made my errors, but the record shows that I have been independent, sometimes fiercely so. I believe in pulling no punches, playing no favorites. I want to be accurate; I want to be fair. But nobody, and I mean nobody, is gonna tell me how to report the news.
Now on specific things, when people have criticisms, and when I think they are not part of this orchestrated campaign for some partisan political or very partisan ideological purpose, I listen to complaints, and frequently the people have a point.
--Dan Rather and Tim Russert on CNBC, June 23, 2001.

A caller into CBS's Late Late Show with Tom Snyder asked guest Dan Rather about liberal media bias:
"It's one of the great political myths, about press bias. Most reporters are interested in a story. Most reporters don't know whether they're Republican or Democrat, and vote every which way. Now, a lot of politicians would like you to believe otherwise, but that's the truth of the matter. I've worked around journalism all of my life, Tom Snyder has as well, and I think he'll agree with this, that most reporters, when you get to know them, would fall in the general category of kind of common-sense moderates. And also, let me say that I don't think that 'liberal' or 'conservative' means very much any more, except to those kind of inside-the-Beltway people who want to use it for their own partisan political advantage. I don't think it holds up."

"There is a lot of loose talk...about bias, real and imagined.... Dan Rather's main, true bias is that he believes in honest, straight reporting, and he believes in his country."
--Dan Rather, speaking at the 1985 Annual Affiliates Meeting, quoted in the Los Angeles Times, May 23, 1985.

"Even though, during the Korean War, I volunteered first for the Army Reserves and then the Marines, I am somehow labeled an antimilitary agitator. I believe the label was first applied when I reported what I saw in Vietnam."
--Dan Rather in his 1994 book, The Camera Never Blinks Twice.

"I do believe in what's become an archaic word for journalists, objectivity. You know my job is to be accurate, be fair, and in so far as it's humanly possible, to keep my feelings out of every story...I do agree that one test of a reporter is how often he or she is able to keep their emotions out of what they are doing and keep their own biases and agendas out of it."
--Dan Rather to Tim Russert on CNBC, September 20, 1997.

I hate "to be tagged by someone else's label. I try really hard not to do that with other people, particularly people who are in public service and politics."
--Dan Rather to Mike Rosen of KOA Denver, November 28, 1995.

CBS Reporter Bernard Goldberg denounced the bias in his network's news coverage in the Wall Street Journal:
"There are lots of reasons fewer people are watching network news, and one of them, I'm more convinced than ever, is that our viewers simply don't trust us. And for good reason. The old argument that the networks and other 'media elites' have a liberal bias is so blatantly true that it's hardly worth discussing anymore. No, we don't sit around in dark corners and plan strategies on how we're going to slant the news. We don't have to. It comes naturally to most reporters."
--Bernard Goldberg in the Wall Street Journal, February 13, 1996.
Note: He was kept off the air for months. CBS issued a statement: "Dan Rather disagrees with Mr. Goldberg's opinion...and its expression."

Rather responded to Goldberg's accusation:
"I think the public understands that those people [accusing the media of bias] are trying to create such a perception because they're trying to force you to report the news the way they want you to report it. I am not going to do it. I will put up billboard space on 42nd Street. I will wear a sandwich board. I will do whatever is necessary to say I am not going to be cowed by anybody's special political agenda, inside, outside, upside, downside."
--Dan Rather in the New York Post, March 6, 1996.

After retiring from CBS News, Goldberg wrote another essay, reprising some of the same themes as well as relaying how Rather was angered at Goldberg for submitting his first piece to the Wall Street Journal:

"The problem is that Mr. Rather and the other evening stars think that liberal bias means just one thing: going hard on Republicans and easy on Democrats. But real media bias comes not so much from what party they attack. Liberal bias is the result of how they see the world.

"Consider this: In 1996 after I wrote about liberal bias on this very page, Dan was furious and during a phone conversation he indicated that picking The Wall Street Journal to air my views was especially appalling given the conservative views of the paper's editorial page. 'What do you consider the New York Times?' I asked him, since he had written op-eds for that paper. 'Middle of the road,' he said.

"I couldn't believe he was serious. The Times is a newspaper that has taken the liberal side of every important social issue of our time, which is fine with me. But if you see the New York Times editorial page as middle of the road, one thing is clear: You don't have a clue.
--Bernard Goldberg in the Wall Street Journal, May 24, 2001.

Dan Rather came under criticism after it was revealed by the Washington Post that he had given a keynote speech at a fund-raiser for Texas Democrats:
GERALDO RIVERA: Let me just read you this news account, April 5th, USA Today: "Conservatives and pundits had a field day at Dan Rather's expense Wednesday after the CBS anchor apologized for being the star attraction at a recent Democratic fundraiser in Texas that raised 20 grand." Was that one of the worst mistakes you've made at least recently?
DAN RATHER: Well, it certainly was one of the dumbest mistakes I ever made. But as you know, Geraldo--you and I have known each other for a long time--I can be dumb as a sack full of hammers about a lot of things. And what I really hated about that, it was a dumb mistake. There's no defense, and those who want to criticize me for that, I'd have to say I think that's valid criticism. It was a--the proverbial honest mistake, but it was a--such a dumb mistake, and I did apologize for it and I should have.
RIVERA: Did you do it because your daughter was involved at the local political level?
RATHER: No. I--you know, I have to take responsibility for it. On the one--
RIVERA: You're a big guy to take responsibility.
RATHER: Well, absolutely. You have to up and--you know, and face the furnace and take the heat, and I do. My daughter is very active in environmental protection in Texas. She speaks up for Republicans who love the environment as well as Democrats, but it wasn't her fault. It was my fault. You know, I should have known better. I did know better. But what can I say other than it was just one of the dumbest things I've done anytime lately? And if you look at my career, I've done a lot of dumb things.
RIVERA: Oh, well, I think you've done a lot of amazing, amazing things. You've accomplished so much. My favorite newsman. Here is it, he's written another one, sure to be a best-seller, The American Dream, Dan Rather. Thank you for being on the show.
--Dan Rather and Geraldo Rivera on Rivera Live, May 21, 2001.

Senator Jesse Helms called Dan Rather a symbol of the effete eastern media. Rather responded:
"My job is to be accurate and fair, an honest broker of information. Period. It is a job that automatically puts me down in places Senator Helms dislikes. In the early 1960s I was the point man of CBS News on many of the most controversial civil rights stories. During the Watergate scandals, it was my job as White House correspondent to ask President Nixon questions that he didn't want to be asked. These are 'crimes' that many big- money political contributors don't forgive or forget, and Senator Helms likes to remind them of me because he gets money from them."
--Dan Rather in his book I Remember, 1991.

Rather defended himself one day after his on-air attack of George Bush:
"Now, a personal word, if I may, about last night's interview with Vice President Bush.... CBS did not mislead the vice president about the subject of the interview."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, January 26, 1988.
See also Attack on Bush.

At the end of a speech, Rather answered questions from the audience:
QUESTIONER: Bob Zelnick claimed in this [Wall Street Journal] column that he had--he was a correspondent for ABC--he claimed that he had been given permission by ABC to write a book about Al Gore and then the permission was revoked after he had already written the book, but before he published it. And that, ABC's position was that you can't write a book about him and expect to have any credibility.... And his view was that he was fired basically because he was a moderately conservative journalist and that there was a double standard there. And I'm just interested in your reaction.
RATHER: Well, first of all, I don't the facts of this case. And that is not intended to be a dodge I simply don't know. I did read the article I know that this--I just don't know the facts. I know him. I know, if not all, most of the decision-makers at ABC News and my view is they're all good people. I just don't know the facts. i do, I write magazine articles, I write a newspaper column--yes, from time to time, try to write books. Usually, I can't say without exception, but usually, that's done with the permission of the president CBS News. I don't know that that's a policy but it is a practice. But I simply don't know the facts of that case.
I would address, myself, and I have no desire to get in an argument with a colleague who is a very good reporter, I don't know what the situation is at ABC News, I can only speak at CBS News. But the idea that there's some internal prejudice against reporters who have, quote, a "conservative" point of view and that there's an internal bias toward reporters who have, quote, a "liberal" point of view is untrue at CBS News and it's demonstrably untrue. I shall not bore you and I shall not have those in the back of the room honking like a flight of geese as they go to sleep as I tick off the examples. But widely believed it may be, but true it is not.
Most of the time, yes, we make our mistakes, but most of the time, what the boss wants to know is can you report, can you write, do you do it accurately, do you do it fairly, and do you, insofar as it's humanly possible squeeze out--insofar as it's humanly possible--squeeze out your, you know, your own prejudices. That's what they want to know.
--Dan Rather speaking at Harvard University, receiving a Goldsmith journalism award, March 12, 1998.

HOWARD KURTZ: Dan Rather, do you think the first mistake, the early call of Florida for Vice President Gore, could have had some impact on the race in the sense that lots of people still voting in states to the west, western time zones--
DAN RATHER: No--
KURTZ: --And they're hearing you and others say, well, "First Gore has won Florida. Then Gore has won Michigan. Gore has won Pennsylvania. It looks like an awfully good night for Al Gore."
RATHER For a long time, I thought that there might be that effect. But there have been study after study. And there is no empirical evidence, and I say no, zero, empirical evidence that it affects that vote.
But, again, Howie, I know you slid past it before. But I'm going to come back. This is my story. This is my song. There's a solution to this. And it's a uniform poll closing time. It makes good copy for newspapers, and for that matter television programs to whoop up on us pretty well. And we deserve it on the basis of what we did the other night.
But there's a solution at hand. Go to a uniform poll closing time, you don't have this problem.
--Howard Kurtz and Dan Rather on CNN's Reliable Sources, November 11, 2000.

On Election Night of 2000, Dan Rather and CBS had erroneously called Florida for Al Gore before the polls had closed in the state, leading some Republicans to say they did so deliberately:
"CBS News President Andrew Heyward today made public changes planned for future Election Night reporting. Among them, CBS News will not make known estimated results in states with multiple poll closing times until all the polls are closed. This is the result of a five-week internal investigation and review of the last Election Night. Heyward also re-emphasized that documented evidence shows that, contrary to the opinions of Republican congressmembers, there is no basis for accusations of bias."
--Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News, January 4, 2001.

"I walk out every day trying to have a big ‘I’ for independence stamped right in the middle of my forehead. I try to play no favorites, pull no punches."
--Dan Rather at a TV critics meeting in Los Angeles, July 1992.

"I, frankly, have lost my bearings about what is liberal and what is conservative. For example, conservatives, not too long ago, were people who wanted to conserve the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights. Now I'm asked to believe that some people who call themselves conservatives, who are in office, want five or six constitutional amendments. And not long ago a conservative was one who didn't want to run a strong deficit."
--Dan Rather at a public dialogue with Jeff Greenfield at the YMHA community center in New York, May 1985.

"[T]hose of us in the mainstream media are trained to set our opinions aside as far as humanly possible."
--Dan Rather in The Humanist, November/December 1990.

"Would I be a journalist everyone could trust if ever time politicians or, God help us, sociologists told us how to do our job I said, 'Oh yes, master, we'll do just as you say'?"
--Dan Rather, quoted in the Washington Post.

"I was taught early on that one of the fundamentals of being a good journalist is to play no favorites, pull no punches, and -- insofar as humanly possible -- have no fear of the results."
--Dan Rather in The Humanist, November/December 1990.

During the Clinton years, many conservatives accused Dan Rather and his CBS colleagues of devoting less time to investigative reports than they had during past Republican presidencies. Fox News Channel talk show host Bill O'Reilly pressed Rather on the allegations:
BILL O'REILLY: The perception on the Right, as I mentioned in the lead, is that you guys are left-wing at CBS, and you always deny it. However, I've been tracking you for the past three years, and your treatment of President Clinton -- and I've got a number of very specific questions about it.
DAN RATHER: I'll try to answer them.
O'REILLY: Number one, why doesn't the CBS News do any investigative reporting?
RATHER: We do more investigative reporting than any of the so-called big three.
O'REILLY: Then why didn't you do any investigative reporting on campaign finance or Clinton's situations, the Chinese espionage, Janet Reno, Chuck LaBella, all of that?
RATHER: Well, first of all, we did do quite a bit on campaign finance. We did do quite a bit on the Chinese situation. Janet Reno.
O'REILLY: Are these investigative reports?
RATHER: Yes, I take your -- I think your definition of investigative reports would pretty closely match mine, that is, not just a run-of-the- mill
O'REILLY: Right, you broke news.
RATHER: Yes.
O'REILLY: Did you?
RATHER: Yes, I think we--
O'REILLY: What?
RATHER: broke news. I don't know whether we broke news or not, but investigative reports, by anybody's standard, on those two things, campaign finance and the Chinese situation. Janet Reno, seems to me we reported on Janet Reno as much or more than anybody else in the business.
O'REILLY: Can you give me one story you broke on the campaign finance?
RATHER: Yes, I think I can. I think that when the -- I'm drawing a blank on the man's name, the Hong Kong businessman -- we were early into that story
O'REILLY: Riady?
RATHER: Riady.
O'REILLY: All right, he's the Indonesian guy.
RATHER: Indonesian guy
O'REILLY: All right? And he's the guy that was funneling the Chinese money over to here.
RATHER: Yes, early onto that. Jim Stewart broke several stories about the Riady case, and we tried very hard to interview Mr. Riady, recognizing that something didn't smell right about that story. Now, I can't -- won't say to you that we nailed that story, we didn't. But we did do investigative reports on it, Bill.
O'REILLY: All right. If that's the case, then, and I know Stewart, and he's an aggressive guy, he's
RATHER: Good reporter.
O'REILLY: Even wrote a lot of books for The Wall Street Journal. When you interviewed Clinton himself in 1999, we have a transcript of the interview, you didn't ask him anything about the campaign finance stuff.
RATHER: Fair enough. Listen, that -- if, if, if you consider that fair criticism, I have no argument with it. Look, I'm not a perfect interviewer. But
O'REILLY: But it seems to me that with the president, Clinton, in that regard, when it was one after another after another, that NBC, CNN, ABC, and CBS were almost passive in the face of
RATHER: I don't think that's right.
O'REILLY: Well, the [New York] Times broke all the stories.
RATHER: Bill, you
O'REILLY: On the newspaper end, the New York -- Jeff Gerth and those guys.
RATHER: Well, they broke a lot.
O'REILLY: Right.
RATHER: And he won a Pulitzer Prize, as he should have.
O'REILLY: But I'm -- we went through and say, where did, where did the big four, where did they break any stories? You know, we had Johnny Chung on this program exclusively. We had Chuck LaBella first interview on this one. Why are they coming on this one and not talking to you guys?
RATHER: Well, I don't know the answer to that question, Bill. I compliment you if you had them exclusively and had them first. Tip of the stetson to you. But this much I want clearly understood. We don't do it perfectly, we do it as well as we can do it. I think this is legitimate criticism if you've gone through and say, Look, you didn't do this and you should have done that. I accept that criticism.
But what is not true is that there's an inner bias with us that goes easy on the Clinton and hard on somebody on the Republican side. The record does not show that. What the record shows, for my lifetime career, is that I'm -- I try to blow out lights on both sides of the street.
--Dan Rather on the O'Reilly Factor, May 15, 2001. print_file('footer'); ?>