Is Dan Rather Still Alive? Former American evening news anchor and journalist Dan Rather. Despite having begun in Texas, Dan’s work gained national prominence after reporting during Hurricane Carla in September 1961 helped save thousands of lives.
Dan produced the first-ever radar weather report through a transparent map overlaid on a radar image of Hurricane Carla. The successful evacuation of 350,000 people was initiated in part by his first national broadcast.
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Is Dan Rather Still Alive?
Dan Rather is very much still with us. His shows on AXS TV and his Youtube newscast are still available for viewers to enjoy. The seasoned reporter is healthy and has a new book out. Rather’s hit show, The Big Interview with Dan Rather, is in its eighth season.
Although he was forced to stay inside his New York City apartment during the height of the pandemic and observe a quarantine, Rather has returned to whole duty on his shows.
He only recently started using Twitter, but he’s already been frequently tweeting. Surprisingly, he enjoys using Twitter to share his thoughts on what’s going on in the country. In addition, he uses Twitter to have livelier exchanges with his followers.
I appreciate all the well wishes. Not only am I still here, I am also still working. If you haven’t checked out my Steady newsletter, you can find it here: https://t.co/vM2FzdCr4O
— Dan Rather (@DanRather) October 16, 2022
Who Is Dan Rather?
Journalist and ex-CBS news anchor Dan Rather was born in the United States on October 31st, 1931. While Rather’s parents were from Wharton County, he spent his childhood in Houston, where he attended and eventually graduated from John H. Reagan High School.
While earning his journalism degree at Sam Houston State University, Rather served as the student newspaper editor and a radio host covering Bearkat football games. After starting his career at CBS in Houston at KHOU-TV, he moved to New York and continued working for CBS.
He has earned a solid reputation for providing balanced and accurate reporting on breaking stories in his many years as a local newsreader. Instead left C.B.S. to launch his news programs, “Dan Rather Reports” and “The Big Interview with Dan Rather,” respectively, after his retirement.
For his work in journalism, he has been recognized for the publication of multiple books and the receipt of numerous awards. This is where we will have the birthday party for the star newsreader.
Early Career As A Journalist
In 1950, Rather joined the Associated Press as a reporter in Huntsville, Texas. Afterward, he worked as a journalist for the Houston Chronicle, as well as for United Press (1950–1952) and several Texas radio stations (1954–1955). Instead wrote an article about heroin around 1955.
He took the drug under the supervision of the Houston Police Department and described the experience as “a special kind of hell.” He called games for four years while attending college at the University of Houston. Instead was the Houston Buffs’ play-by-play radio announcer for the 1959 Texas League baseball season.
Instead, ‘s television career began in 1959 when he was hired as a reporter by KTRK-TV, the ABC affiliate in Houston. A short time later, he was elevated to the director of news at KHOU-TV, the Houston affiliate of CBS. Instead reported for KHOU-TV from the National Weather Center in Galveston during Hurricane Carla in September 1961.
Among his many accomplishments is broadcasting the first-ever hurricane radar image. To illustrate Hurricane Carla’s scope, he proposed superimposing a see-through map on top of the radar display. More than 350,000 people left the area, making it the largest evacuation in history.
Thousands of lives may have been spared because of their efforts, especially in comparison to the death toll caused by the previous hurricane (estimated at between 6,000 and 12,000. New York and nationwide stations carried Rather’s live coverage of Carla.
Also instrumental in Rather’s early development was Ray Miller, the news director at KPRC-TV (the NBC affiliate in Houston). Instead left Houston for New York on February 28th, 1962, to begin a six-month trial at CBS. The East Coast was not a natural fit for Rather.
Some of his first assignments at CBS included reporting on the crash of American Airlines Flight 1 in Jamaica Bay and the suffocation of children at a hospital in Binghamton, New York.
Instead was promoted to head up CBS’s Southwest bureau in Dallas shortly after. He was tasked with covering stories in the South, Southwest, Mexico, and Central America from his base in New Orleans in August of 1963.
