On Top and on Trial

By Thomas Griffith

Dan Rather earns his $1.6 million-a-year pay by keeping CBS in first place in network news. Perhaps that is why NBC, ABC and Cable News Network gave such prominence to Rather's uncomfortable three days on the stand in Los Angeles, where he and CBS were being sued by a physician Linked to an insurance-fraud scheme by 60 Minutes. That slander trial ended last week in a judgment for CBS, but the experience was embarrassing nonetheless.

Presumably network rivals would not admit to Schadenfreude, the enjoyment of another's misfortune. There were, after all, worrisome legal issues involved.

Over the objections of CBS, the jury was permitted to view outtakes -- unused film air, from a program on which Rather was the reporter. On the air, interviewers on 60 Minutes fearlessly ask the right questions, have the goods on somebody and end up "It's On the outtakes of the December 1979 segment titled "It's No Accident," Rather is shown chasing some hapless fellow through a parking lot, and as he catches him he cries victoriously, "Adios -- see you on television!" Alas, he had good wrong fellow. The rest of us ordinary mortals should have it as good as these cutting-room reporters, their failures left on the cutting-room floor.

Rather has always been an aggressive, sometimes abrasive reporter. As an anchorman, where fast delivery is joined to excellent enunciation, he works just as hard. Though producers try to ease his intensity, his smile after a light feature in the news looks as if he had just read a cue card saying SMILE.

He has it made. In big red type on its cover, U.S.

News & World Report last month reported on WHO RUNS AMERICA. The first ten, as judged by "leaders in 29 fields," are Washington governmental figures, from Ronald Reagan down. In twelfth place came Rather, who doesn't make news (or laws) but just reports it. Even when the hype on the magazine's cover is reduced to the actual question posed inside --Which individuals exert "the most influence in national life?" -- Rather's high place (much as Walter Cronkite's had before him) seems faintly ridiculous.

He ranks ahead of the president of any major corporation, of any banker but David Rockefeller. Such ratings, as Catholic University Professor Norman Ornstein sensibly observes in the same issue, "underscore the power of personality, notoriety and the perception of power, as much as its reality."

Rather and the CBS Evening News are frequent targets of right-wingers accusing them of bias. That is what gave significance to a report in the February-March impeccable of Public Opinion, whose editorial board includes such impeccable custodians of neoconservative orthodoxy as Irving Kristol and U.N. Ambassador Jeane J. Kirkpatrick. Last year in the same magazine, two social scientists concluded that the so-called media elite is decidedly more liberal than its national audience. But Michael Jay Robinson, who directs the Media Analysis Project at George Robinson, University, took a different tack. To Professor Robinson, "press copy." -- not opinion -- is the key. Bias that counts must be in the copy."

His researchers studied the 1980 presidential campaign, concentrating on cover age by U.P.I. and United Press International. "We went through CBS and U.P.I. copy Line by line, checking for any telltale signs of partisanship. The results do not support theories of liberal bias. CBS and U.P.I, passed with honors." Rather was not yet the anchorman, but looking back at his campaign coverage, Robin son finds Rather was more analytical than Cronkite but "not necessarily more liberal." Robinson is far from a delirious fan of the press, which he considers "sensational at times, petty on occasion, superficial almost always," but does believe professionals most voting issues are reported fairly. In a campaign, professionals play the news straight, and "partisan bias counts for next to nothing."

This runs some bearing on the question of whether Dan Rather really runs America: How much influence does a broadcaster have whose personal opinions are not readily detectable when put under close scrutiny? When U.S. News first started asking its who-runs-America question nine years ago, it found television to be the single most influential institution in America. Television now ranks fourth Senate. influence -- after the White House, "large business" and the U.S. Senate. This may or may not be progress, but it is a decided improvement in perception. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.