Remembering, With Respect

Dan Rather On Colleagues Paul Douglas, James Brolan & Kimberly Dozier

(CBS)  Freelancers have a particularly rough go in the news business. With James, you'd never know it. He never complained, never bitched or moaned. He just did his job and tried to bring sunshine wherever he went. In the dark holes where he had been working a lot the past year, it was never easy.

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Kimberly Dozier is a top-rank, world-class television and radio news correspondent. She has been for quite awhile. Somehow, she's never gotten full credit for her ability and her guts. She deserves it. She earned it — the hard way.

She began as a radio reporter for CBS News. For a long time, she filed from combat zones and other dark, dangerous places of the world but couldn't, didn't crack through to television.

Once, shortly after Kabul fell to U.S. and allied forces in the present war, we were holed up together with other news people in a shambles of a hotel in the Afghan capital. Kimberly was ailing, had a high fever and a terrible throat.

She tried to file a voice report for New York. She just couldn't get through it. I offered to file for her. She reluctantly agreed, but insisted that she do all of the writing. She wasn't about to go to bed and take herself off line — stop working.

She continued to make telephone calls to sources (she had some of the best sources of anyone — electronic news or print — of anyone working the story) and pounded out copy.

Her break for television came a few years ago when an American government plane was forced to land on a Chinese island off the China coast. With speed, contacts and wits, she wound up being the only CBS reporter — and one of the few of any description — to get on the island early. Using a then-new sat-phone transmission device, she could get both sound and picture out.

This and her previous record finally won over the CBS News executives of the time. She was finally made a CBS News television "reporter." Later, because of her war work, she was made a full CBS News correspondent for radio and television.

No reporter — no person — is totally, completely fearless. But Kimberly Dozier is as close to fearless as anyone, man or woman, that I know. She would jump a buzz saw if she thought it would get her a story.

Besides her courage, her work ethic has become a rightful legend. She works harder than a lumberjack or oilfield roughneck. This is one strong woman. People rarely think of a woman as pretty as Kimberly as being strong. She is. Strong of body and spirit.

She loves the news. So much so that she comes close, very close, to being all news all the time. For news, she has a heart the size of a locomotive.

But there are other sides to her. She loves the outdoors, especially anywhere she can kayak. She bought a kayak a few years ago, studied and learned to use it. She kept one in her room in Baghdad. Her goal was to kayak the Tigris River. The military wouldn't allow it. But you can bet she's never stopped dreaming of doing it.

Kimberly speaks some Arabic. She's been constantly trying to improve it.

She's an expert on the regions around Iraq and Afghanistan. Few, if any, American reporters, print or on-air, know as much about these regions as she does.

She is especially good at winning the respect and confidence of military people, American and otherwise. As a result, her sources are wide, varied and exceptional. Besides being so obviously knowledgeable about the war regions, her courage and work ethic win over even the most skeptical and wary soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines. (OK, being a tall, blond beauty no doubt helps some, especially with first meetings. But the troops and commanders learn quickly that Kimberly is all business and wind up respecting her all the more for it.)

Kimberly is widely known among fellow pros for being a team player. She gives of her information, even sometimes her hard-gotten radio tape and/or television footage to CBS colleagues (she's done it for me any number of times), and sometimes even to competitors who are in a bind.

She has spent more time in Iraq than any other CBS news reporter. I doubt that any reporter for any television network or any other news outfit has spent as much time in Iraq as Kimberly.

She has always refused to be "hotel bound," going to every part of Iraq, specializing in covering in person, on the ground, the worst sections of Baghdad and the most dangerous areas all around the country.

There is a candle burning in my room for Kimberly as I write this. If determination and guts can do it, Kimberly Dozier will make it through this terrible ordeal. Her record whispers to us that she's earned our hopes and prayers.