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Dan Rather Thinks We Need Patriotism, Not Nationalism

Dan RatherCredit...Andrew T. Warman for The New York Times

You’ve embraced new media with a vengeance. You’re on Twitter, you have a very popular Facebook page — what do you like most about new media? Why do you think you’ve taken to it so well? Even I can be dumb as dirt about a lot of things, but at least I realized fairly early on that the internet is the most fundamental new technology since the steam engine, so I just had to get involved with it.

Do you think that being an early target of internet fact-finding, after the controversy over your reporting on George W. Bush’s military service, gives you a perspective on using new media now that other people might not have? I realized a long time ago that some days in journalism go badly.

A lot of people are talking about a crisis in journalism — whether it’s having to do with continuing to have a bumpy transition from the old media to the new, or the specific challenges that journalists face in an era when people say there are “alternative facts.” Do you think journalism is in trouble? I think journalism is in crisis, but journalism is always in one crisis or another. The crisis now centers on trying to make the transition from old media to new media — and then the second-most-important part of it is the changing dynamics of journalism as a business. What’s happened is that nobody — well, with very few exceptions — has come up with a new business model that can sustain the most important kinds of journalism, like investigative reporting and first-class international coverage. To be a journalist is to be in a tradition, not a profession.

What does that mean? There’s a long history of understanding that journalism is, at its best, a really important part of the checks and balances built into our democratic system. When individual journalists fall under extreme pressure to meet a deadline every nanosecond, it’s easy to forget about the basic tradition: to do quality journalism that can make a difference. I’m not suggesting that I’ve solved how to deal with all of this, but I do think that it’s very important for the news-consuming public to understand, when we talk of crisis, what the crisis is.

A lot of people argue that one guideline for journalism should be objectivity, but your recent work is very opinionated. Is that still journalism? I certainly hope it is. I do news analysis and commentary. I don’t always succeed, but I try to avoid an actual editorial that proposes a course of action. I spend a good deal of my time trying as best I can to find out what the most powerful people — whatever their persuasion is — want to keep hidden. Whatever you want to call that, well, that’s what I’m trying to do.

After James Comey testified about Russian interference in the 2016 election, you wrote a Facebook post that began, “If you are a praying person, today is a day to pray for the future of your country.” You’ve been reporting the news for a long time — how scared should people be? I don’t believe in being scared. I’m an optimist by experience and by nature, and I’m optimistic about the country. But I’m very worried about some of the things that are happening now. In my humble opinion — and I do mean humble — we need some grit and resolve, hope, healing. We need patriotism, but we have to understand the difference between patriotism and nationalism.

You’re famous for doing really tough interviews — what are your interviewing tips that other people might be able to use? The first three keys to doing a good interview are homework, homework and homework. And to be a good listener. The bulk of your questions should be based on what you hear from the interview subject. I do every interview trying to concentrate on having clear eyes, an inquiring mind and an open heart. That’s a paraphrase of what the coach in “Friday Night Lights” told his players.

Interview has been condensed and edited.

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A version of this article appears in print on  , Page 54 of the Sunday Magazine with the headline: Dan Rather Thinks We Need Patriotism, Not Nationalism. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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