CBS fought very hard on this because it believed and believes that there's a principle at stake here. The principle is that Dan Rather doesn't work for the police, and that people that speak to Dan Rather understand that he's a journalist and not a police agent.
“One day, we were doing a serious scene and fast talking like we do and we could not stop laughing and the director had to stop the production. We had to go to our trailer and calm down and do it all again.”