Ed Bark

Milestones for two Texas news icons this week: Bob Schieffer signs off tonight as the interim anchor of the CBS Evening News. And, Friday, the network pays tribute to longtime anchor Dan Rather, who's starting anew at Dallas' HDNet.

By ED BARK / The Dallas Morning News

His anticipated short chapter at CBS Evening News turned out to be far closer to a full-length novel. Its happy ending comes tonight, when Bob Schieffer steps down after nearly 18 months as acting anchor.

"It's been the greatest adventure, I think, of my life," the Fort Worth native says in a telephone interview. "I had no idea this was going to happen. And then to have it happen as it did and come out well. ... I still don't believe it. I got here at a pretty tough time for CBS News."

John Paul Filo / CBS

Outgoing anchor Bob Schieffer wore a purple tie to honor his alma mater, TCU. He acknowledges what Katie Couric wears will draw more attention.

Mr. Schieffer replaced embattled Dan Rather on March 10 of last year for what was supposed to be a wink, blink and nod. But the search for a permanent anchor kept stretching out like a cheap T-shirt.

CBS clearly had zeroed in on Katie Couric after newly appointed news president Sean McManus found in-house candidates wanting and others not of sufficient star quality. But it took extra time and money to pry her from NBC's Today.

So Mr. Schieffer stayed the course while the third-place Evening News ' ratings steadily inched upward. Last week, the gap between CBS and ABC's second-place World News With Charles Gibson was just 190,000 viewers. The NBC Nightly News With Brian Williams still led the pack with 1.08 million more viewers than Mr. Schieffer's newscast.

"I don't mind saying it. Expectations are going to be the difficult part for her," Mr. Schieffer said of Ms. Couric's debut on Tuesday. "To be quite honest, there were no expectations for me. When the ratings went up just a little bit, people said, 'Wow.'

"She's literally going to have to jump over the moon or somebody is going to say she isn't doing as well as they thought she would. And that's unfair to her. I think she's going to attract an enormous audience on the first night, and then it will dial back."

Her opening-night wardrobe will be among the many points of interest. Male anchors generally aren't at the mercy of such scrutiny. As Mr. Schieffer notes, "I don't even know if Walter Cronkite knew what tie he had on as he sat down to do the news. But television is television, and people are going to ask those questions."

Mr. Schieffer wore a purple tie on his first night in honor of alma mater Texas Christian University, whose journalism school is named after him. So what might he do for an encore tonight?

"I was actually thinking of asking Katie if I could borrow one of her outfits," he says, laughing. "Maybe behind that desk nobody would know. I could wear a little skirt."

Ms. Couric will appear on tonight's Evening News as a reporter. Her assignment is a farewell story on Mr. Schieffer, who says the uptick in the program's ratings dovetails with its improved quality.

"It came out well for the right reasons. We just put on a better newscast," he says in the telephone interview. "We decided to make the correspondents the stars, and we did that."

He cites Lara Logan, Byron Pitts and Lee Cowan as underused younger reporters who flourished in more visible roles. All have spent considerable time talking to Mr. Schieffer on-camera after finishing their dispatches.

"Most people didn't really know who they were," he says. "My feeling is that the first step toward credibility is familiarity."

Mr. Schieffer, a cancer survivor, turns 70 on Feb. 25. He'll continue to host Sunday morning's Face the Nation from Washington, D.C., while acting as a commentator on Wednesday editions of the Evening News. Analysis on major Washington stories also is part of his post-anchor regimen, but he otherwise won't regularly cover the nation's capital. A previously planned retirement at age 70 likely will be pushed back at the network's request.

"My plan, as of today, is to stay until the [presidential] inauguration in 2009," he says. "I'm 95 percent sure that's what I want to do."

Mr. Rather, his old CBS News colleague, is primed to explore new horizons at Mark Cuban's Dallas-based HDNet. His new weekly news program tentatively will premiere in October.

"I think everybody was surprised, but Dan is a great reporter," Mr. Schieffer says. "I think he still has some good stories in him. It doesn't matter anymore if something doesn't have a great circulation. If you make news now, it gets picked up by everybody."

E-mail ebark@dallasnews.com

CBS Evening News: 5:30 p.m. Thursday, CBS (Channel 11). 30 mins.

By MANUEL MENDOZA / The Dallas Morning News

As CBS looks back on the career of Dan Rather in a prime-time special on Friday, the veteran newsman already is on assignment in Alaska and elsewhere for his new employer, Dallas-based HDNet.

The former CBS Evening News anchor launches Dan Rather Reports for Mark Cuban's high-definition channel in October. The show is described as "an uncensored hourlong program emphasizing accuracy, fairness and guts."

Damien Dovarganes / AP

Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban welcomes Dan Rather to Mr. Cuban's HDNet cable channel at the Cable Television Critics Association press tour in July.

Mr. Rather and executive producer Wayne Nelson, who also worked at the Evening News and 60 Minutes, are gathering material for the show, according to an e-mail from Mr. Cuban.

Alaska was one of the stops, according to the office of Mr. Rather's agent, but other details and interviews were not available.

The special, Dan Rather: A Reporter Remembers, airs at 8 p.m. Friday, when a lot of viewers will be on Labor Day weekend vacations. It features a new interview with the 74-year-old Wharton, Texas, native as well as material from a retrospective that aired after he left the anchor post under a cloud in March 2005, 24 years after taking over for Walter Cronkite.

Documents supporting a report that questioned President Bush's National Guard service had not been fully authenticated, putting Mr. Rather on the outs at CBS. He tried to continue working at 60 Minutes after stepping down, but found his efforts were not welcome. Earlier this summer, he signed a three-year deal with fledgling HDNet.

"This is a big change for me," Mr. Rather told The Dallas Morning News last month. "I'm both humbled and honored to have this opportunity at this stage."

E-mail mmendoza@dallasnews.com

Dan Rather: A Reporter Remembers: 8 p.m. Friday, CBS (Channel 11). 1 hr.