Dan Rather is baseball in 2024: America’s pastime: This took forever. Rather a documentary about veteran journalist Dan Rather’s landmark career will stream on Netflix on April 24. #SetTheVCR. Man, that took forever.
I saw Rather at Tribeca back in July 2023. Directed by Frank Marshall, I’m surprised it took so long to find a streamer home.
Here’s my thoughts from my Tribeca Diary written on July 6, 2023 at 8:44 a.m. in New York City:
There’s an alarming revelation at the end of the Dan Rather documentary.
The documentary is now set in modern day, and Dan Rather is commended for his prolific Twitter updates.
And ignorant kids (a generation after he retired from TV) mindlessly follow him while not fully knowing who he is. I dunno who this old guy is but I agree with what he’s saying. This is what viewers are told. That’s wildly ignorant.
Discovering somebody who agrees with you or reflects your view of the world is not smart or even healthy. It’s not even beneficial; that’s like discovering Stephen King via Twitter…how could you be that dumb?
I can’t empathize with the narcissistic impulse to go online to find a mirror that reflects me and my corny beliefs. What an anti-intellectual impulse.
What Dan Rather stood for was doing The Work. Doing the necessary research, making connections between ideas, and identifying patterns. Talking to different people, listening to different people. That’s journalism…being curious Seeking disclosure, actively pursuing different threads of truth and accepting that most stories have more than 2 sides.
Instead of taking the time, the youths who close out the Rather documentary discuss liking a few of his tweets and pass it off as informed—which is a strange premise to call a win. I think the moment is aimed to be uplifting…see how Rather continues to transcend generations but instead it becomes a damning commentary on the scan and headline clickbait generation. For many of them, Rather’s tweet has become another shortcut. Using a microwave and passing it off as cooking. Yeah, I ain’t doing that or celebrating any of that junk.
Every time Stephen King gets into trouble on Twitter, I’m always grateful. I don’t require a well-known person to share my opinions or validate my worldview. I’m an adult. All I ask and all I seek are distinct individuals who’ve read widely, are comfortable disseminating original ideas and they truly treasure overlooked aspects. Start with what we don’t know rather than affirm a lazy narrative. Present all that to me. Then, I have the option to concur or disagree or follow a different path. Dan Rather did The Work. How could I be any different?
And that’s why the end of the Rather documentary, with this scene, is insulting. Especially when you factor in all that came before it. Watch the documentary…it’s a journalism coda. We’re terrible at “journalism” now but we had moments in the past where we used to be decent at it.
Sammy Verdict: The Rather documentary is what you expect and hope for. A tribute, recap and visual obit of an Anchorman “in a glass case of emotion!”
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Sammy Younan is the affable host of My Summer Lair: think NPR’s Fresh Air meets Kevin Smith: interviews & impressions on Pop Culture.
