Rise and plummet of Charlie Rose
As details of accusers unfold, what journalist will be remembered for is now in question.
Swallowed up in the baggy academic robes of Georgetown University, Charlie Rose stood before the school’s graduating class of 2015, shifting into the final moments of a commencement speech on lessons learned from one of the most celebrated careers in broadcast journalism.
“Think ahead to the end of your life,” he told the graduates. “And think about what you would like to be remembered for at the end of your life. It’s not honor. It’s not prestige. It is character. It is integrity. It is truth. It is doing the right thing. It’s hard to imagine or think about that when you’re 22. It’s easy when you’re 73.”
Two years later, exactly what Rose will be remembered for is now an open question.
On Monday, The Washington Post reported on a string of sexual assault allegations against the 75-year-old television host, including unwanted advances, groping, lewd phone calls and other improprieties. Eight women — former employees on Rose’s eponymous talk show and aspiring journalists — told The Post about their experiences with him, as well as their fears that speaking out against the famed host could ruin their careers.
Having ascended so high, to the status of “journalistic icon,” he now faces the possibility of a rapid descent.
CBS News and PBS cut ties to Rose on Tuesday, less than 24 hours after the allegations became public.
The loftiness of Rose’s career can be measured in part by his many honors, some of which could now be at risk: honorary degrees from Duke, Georgetown and Montclair State, to name a few; a Peabody Award and Emmy Award; the Walter Cronkite Excellence in Journalism Award; the Vincent Scully Prize; the Fred Friendly First Amendment Award; his induction as a “knight” in the French Legion of Honor.
There was considerable irony in his apology after Monday’s story broke.
On Nov. 10, while interviewing New York Times columnist David Brooks in the wake of reports of sexual predation by Senate candidate Roy Moore of Alabama and Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, Brooks had said he was struck by the nature of the mea culpas coming from many of the accused.
“The first thing they say,” Brooks noted, “is ‘I had no idea the women were thinking this way.’ ”
If Rose was listening closely, it was not reflected when it was his turn to apologize.
“It is essential that these women know I hear them and that I deeply apologize for my inappropriate behavior,” Rose told The Post. “I am greatly embarrassed. I have behaved insensitively at times, and I accept responsibility for that, although I do not believe that all of these allegations are accurate.
“I always felt that I was pursuing shared feelings, even though I now realize I was mistaken.”
Brooks had described that sort of expression in harsh terms.
It reflects, he said, “an inability to put your mind in the mind of the person you’re pushing yourself all over. It’s sort of a moral, and a humanist blindness, to another person’s experience,” Brooks said.
Rose responded: “It’s a significant societal change for sure.”
Brooks agreed, adding that, in the past, he said, such stories of sexual harassment caused just “a little ruckus.” Now, he said, “we’re going to code red.”
Rose is the latest in a series of high-profile personalities toppled by similar allegations. Unlike Fox News personality Bill O’Reilly or comedian Louis C.K., Rose was not known for cultivating controversy or exuding an edgy personality. If anything, the broadcaster’s career had been marked by onscreen gentility and middle-ofthe-road calm.
The rise of Charlie Rose began with a little boy reading biographies of powerful figures by candlelight in the North Carolina bedroom he shared with his grandmother.
By his own account, Rose never set out to be a talk-show host or television journalist. “There was no great plan,” Rose told New York Magazine in 1992. “I wasn’t smart enough to have a plan.”
Rose, born in a town of fewer than 100, grew up as an only child in rural Henderson, N.C. His father owned an agriculture supply store near the train depot, Fortune reported in 2009. Although he kindled ideas about leaving his home state, Rose went to Duke University, just an hour’s drive from Henderson. He initially enrolled in pre-med then jumped to history after a summer interning for then-Sen. B. Everett Jordan, a North Carolina Democrat. “I became a political junkie in a serious way that summer,” Rose told New York Magazine.