I respect and empathize with reporters and editors who must compete in today’s environment. And I know full well that when I’ve been covering campaigns, which I still do, I’ve made my mistakes and have been far from perfect.

Rather is expressing professional solidarity with working journalists under modern competitive pressures—shrinking newsrooms, faster cycles, and heightened scrutiny—while also offering a candid acknowledgment of fallibility. By noting that he still covers campaigns and has “made my mistakes,” he frames errors not as moral failings but as an occupational hazard in high-stakes political reporting. The statement functions as both empathy and self-accountability: it defends the difficulty of the craft without excusing lapses, and it implicitly argues for humility and transparency as journalistic virtues. Coming from a prominent broadcast journalist, the admission also gestures toward the public’s demand for perfection and the reality that reporting is iterative and corrigible.