AXS TV (formerly HDNet) “Dan Rather Reports” anchor Dan Rather is reviewing HBO’s series “The Newsroom” for Gawker (“The Newsroom” was just picked up by HBO for a second season). Rather likes the series, and his experience as anchor of the “CBS Evening News” certainly lends itself well to the job.

Take Rather’s review from the second episode:

Loved it when the executive producer, MacKenzie Hale (played by Emily Mortimer) implores her big-ratings anchorman, Will McAvoy (Jeff Daniels), to “Be the leader. Be the moral center of the show. Be the integrity.”

This echoed almost exactly what the best of the executive producers I worked with at The CBS Evening News said to me…

A debate among newsroom personnel about how to cover new Arizona immigration laws and who is going to tell the anchorman he blew it: well done. Every anchor is an “ass” at least some of the time in some ways. This writer no exception.

Rather tells us about what it’s really like to make it in TV news biz, after the jump.