Dan Rather had been officially booted by CBS. It was 2006 and he had not expected it to end the way it had. He started to have an identity crisis about who he was without CBS, if anything at all.
“In my head, ‘Dan Rather’ and ‘CBS News ‘ had been welded together for so long that they had become fused – DanRatherCBSNews. That was my name”(Rather 257), Rather was grateful for the opportunities he has had presented to him, but he thought his career was over at this point. His wife, Jean, was the positive energy that he needed to uplift his gloom. She sits him down, they drink, and talk about the highs in life and the many blessings they have. Jean reminds him of his great potential, and Dan feels inspired by this.
After days of contemplation, Rather finally comes up with an idea of how to spark up his career again. Since he still had much to talk about, he makes his own news outlet, Dan Rather Reports, where he can be his own employer. With the help of Mark Cuban, a business mogul and friend, he made this vision into a reality.
Rather was able to cover a vast range of cases, including one about underage sex trafficking in Portland, Oregon, which was his most downloaded episode of all. He also covered cases about Iran, the airplane manufacturer known as Boeing, and the abuse of power by priests. While these could be seen as outrageous topics to the vast majority of Americans, this was what Rather wanted: interesting and real news for the people.