Dan Rather to call it quits as CBS anchor

Veteran newsman Dan Rather, embroiled in a recent journalism scandal about President George W. Bush’s service in the National Guard dur...

Veteran newsman Dan Rather, embroiled in a recent journalism scandal about President George W. Bush’s service in the National Guard during the Vietnam War, will resign in March as CBS’ top news anchor, the network said on Tuesday.

CBS, a unit of Viacom, said Rather will remain as a correspondent for the news magazine show 60 Minutes and other assignments.

‘‘I have decided to leave the CBS Evening News on March 9,2005,’’ Rather said in a statement issued by CBS.

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‘‘I have been lucky and blessed over these years to have what is, to me, the best job in the world and to have it at CBS News,’’ he added.

Rather said he began talks in the summer with his bosses about when would be an appropriate time to step down and decided to wait until after the recent election, which saw Bush elected for a second term.

Rather has been anchor for CBS’s main evening news show since 1981 and won the hearts of many with his colorful language and quirky turns of phrase. He succeeded Walter Cronkite, dubbed ‘‘the most trusted man in America’’ for his perceived objectivity.

But in an enormous blow to its credibility, CBS News in September said it had been deliberately misled over the authenticity of documents it aired in a story challenging Bush’s military service. “Based on what we now know, CBS News cannot prove that the documents are authentic, which is the only acceptable journalistic standard to justify using them in a report,” CBS News said in a statement at that time.