Dan Rather Calls Matt Lauer and Charlie Rose's Sexual Harassment Allegations a 'Reckoning'
Dan Rather says it’s a “new day” in the workplace.
The 86-year-old newsman joined Samantha Bee on Monday’s Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen and was asked about his colleagues, Charlie Rose and Matt Lauer, both being accused of sexual misconduct late last year.
“What’s going on is a reckoning,” he told Cohen, admitting that he was “surprised” to hear of the allegations. “It’s a new day. It needs to be a new day.”
Rather added, “Going forward, it’s going to be different. One, men are going to be much more accountable then they’ve ever been before. Two, men are going to be asked to stand up, take a stand, change the whole environment — because it’s gone on way too long.”
What Rather — who hosted CBS Evening News from 1981 to 2005 — was “not surprised” by was how quickly Rose was fired — or as he calls it, “dismantled” — from his jobs at CBS and PBS, and feels that the 76-year-old TV personality must have felt like he was losing his “identity.”
“Don’t miss understand me,” Rather continued, “I’m not making him into a victim. The victims were the women.”
Meanwhile, Ann Curry has been speaking out about Lauer — who she worked with on the Today show — after he was fired over allegations of inappropriate sexual behavior.
“I think that we’re not really done fixing the problem. We are a long way from fixing the problem,” the 61-year-old journalist told Stephen Colbert on Monday’s Late Show. “It’s more than a conversation. It’s about action and it’s about not just telling people they can’t do certain things. It’s about changing the dynamic, the power balance within companies so that women are not seen as people who could never rise to the top. Once we figure that out, we might have a chance to figure this out.”
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