Nancy Collins, a reporter for The Washington Post, caught the peripatetic Dan Rather when he touched base at CBS headquarters in New York. Actually, it's a good thing we sent her to interview a fellow journalist: When neither of the tape recorders Collins was carrying proved functional, Rather gladly lent her his.

Q 1

PLAYBOY: What advice would you give a young person who wanted to go into broadcast journalism?

Dan Rather: Don't! Forget it. It's too crowded. Even if through some miracle you were able to get a break in the business, the pay is low, the hours are long, there are a lot of headaches--and it'll ruin your personal life.

Q 2

PLAYBOY: But come on, Dan, be honest. What about the glory, the recognition?

Dan Rather: There's damn little. Oh, of course, for those who make it to the top in this business, there's probably too much glory. But even if you want glory and think that television is the place to get it, then you're still wrong, because glory comes faster and easier in any one of a dozen other professions than it does in this one. The reality for most people in this business is standing in the rain outside the police station for $115 a week.

Q 3

PLAYBOY: What do you have that other TV personalities/reporters don't?

Dan Rather: A lot of luck. Listen, there are any number of people out there--pride won't let me say very many people--who are better than I am on a story. I try to get the best out of myself, but in television terms, there are at least 15 people with CBS who are as good as I am.

Q 4

PLAYBOY: Under what circumstances would you kill a juicy, sexy story if it concerned the private life of a Government official?

Dan Rather: If in my judgment it affected his performance as a public official or needed to be taken into account when judging his performance as a public official, then I'd report it. If in my judgment it didn't, then I wouldn't be interested.

Q 5

PLAYBOY: But don't you think that the way a person handles his private life is an indication of how he might handle his professional decisions?

Dan Rather: It can tell you something, but not always. And there is a point beyond which reporting on someone's personal life is unfair and none of our damn business. Take drinking, for example. If a Senator is consistently drunk on the floor of the Senate, then it's obviously a story and shouldn't be concealed. That's germane to his performance. But if he's off at Cape Cod for two weeks and he's at a party and gets really bombed, I wouldn't report that.