03:27 PM CDT on Monday, September 27, 2004

Associated Press

HOUSTON -- Dan Rather’s daily CBS radio broadcast is off the air where he grew up.

Houston CBS radio affiliate KPRC hasn’t been running it for the last couple weeks in reaction to his “60 Minutes” report questioning President Bush’s National Guard service.

AP

“I felt no anchor ... should ever be the story or bigger than the story,” Ken Charles, program director of the news-talk station, said Monday. “I thought it was appropriate to take him off the air.”

Rather last week apologized on behalf of CBS News because it could not authenticate documents used in the Sept. 8 story that suggested Bush got preferential treatment. The apology wasn’t sufficient to put Rather back on KPRC in the nation’s 11th-largest media market.

“For right now, I’m not convinced there’s any reason to put him back on the radio station,” said Charles, whose station lineup includes opinion-based talk shows of Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage. “Until CBS or somebody is able to do that, I feel like there’s no place for Dan Rather on KPRC.”

CBS spokesman Dana McClintock said he was unaware of the station’s action and declined to comment on it.

Rather was born in Wharton, about 50 miles southwest of Houston, grew up in Houston, went to Sam Houston State University north of the city and worked at Houston’s KHOU-TV before joining CBS in the early 1960s. President Bush’s parents, former President George H.W. Bush and Barbara Bush, also live in Houston.

At least one radio station, WNIS in Norfolk, Va., last week dumped all of CBS because of the story.

Charles said he’s received more than 300 e-mails about dropping Rather’s five-minute news-and-analysis program.

“It’s been overwhelming ... over over overwhelmingly supportive,” he said. “Four of them called my mother really bad names, which is unusual because I thought liberals were nicer.”