Dan Rather | $4 Million

Dan Rather is one of the last broadcast news journalists from the Big Three –ABC, CBS, and NBC—network news primacy. He’s one of the most highly-regarded journalists in the business who has received a number of Emmy and Peabody Awards, not to mention a variety of honorary degrees from different universities. In his more than seven decades in the business, this is not surprising at all.

Rather became a national name after he saved thousands of lives during his report about Hurricane Carla in 1961, creating the first radar weather report by overlaying a transparent map over the radar image that helped 350,000 people in evacuating. Rather, however, it is not shy of controversies. After working for CBS for 44 years, he ended up filing a lawsuit against the network and its executives. Despite that, he still received a hefty paycheck from the network—a reduced $4 million from the original $6 million.