Has This All Happened Before?
Friday I
finished my first book for the 2019 Read Harder Challenge – Lesley Stahl’s Reporting Live. I bought the
book several years ago in a used bookstore, and the challenge gave me the
perfect opportunity to finally read it.
The book, published in 1999, meets the challenge to "read a book by a
journalist or about journalism."
The book covers the first two decades of Stahl’s career at CBS. It begins in 1972 when she, Connie Chung, and Bernard Shaw were hired to work in CBS’s Washington DC Bureau as part of affirmative action. Before that, Stahl was an on-air reporter at Channel 5 in Boston.
Stahl worked out of the DC bureau for a couple years as a beat reporter. One of her main assignments during that time was covering the legal proceedings surrounding the Watergate investigation. She was ultimately selected to be a CBS White House Correspondent and covered the Carter, Reagan, and Bush (Senior) administrations.
The book has
five sections centered around her time covering the presidents: Nixon and Watergate; Jimmy and Rosalynn
Carter; Ronald and Nancy Reagan; Nancy and Ronnie; and George and Barbara
Bush.
About a quarter of the way through the book, I felt a strong interest in writing a blog post about the book. Aside from being able to answer the question "Who is the President of the United States?" like most school-age kids, I didn't really know anything about these presidents.
While I gravitate towards nonfiction, I don't read a lot of political nonfiction. Over the years though I have read a few. Ones that come to mind include David McCollough’s John Adams and Mornings on Horseback, which is about President Theodore Roosevelt. I’ve also read Doris Kearns Goodwin’s No Ordinary Times, which is about Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt during WWII, Chris Matthew's Hardball: How Politics is Played Told by One Who Knows the Game, and Peggy Noonan’s What I Saw at the Revolution. And I just read David Axelrod's Believer last year.
As I was reading Stahl's book, her descriptions and stories sounded awfully familiar.
1. “Most of the candidates were refusing to get specific about the issues. And if they were pressed, they often fought back with media bashing. Media bashing was the thing to do….”
2. “Another issue the president decided to run on was ‘reverse discrimination.’ He took up the cause of white men who complained they were facing racial and gender bias because of the programs, designed to benefit minorities and women.”
3. “He had altered perceptions of himself by realizing that in the age of television, politics is Kabuki, a theatre of visual illusions.”
4. “[The President] named antienvironmentalists to run the environmental programs and foes of civil rights to run those programs.”
5. “He was bolstered by an improving economy that he took total credit for – which is, after all, a president’s prerogative.”
6. "[The President] spent 345 days of his presidency at (his private residence)."
7. “The…Commission Report was a thunderbolt. It concluded that [the President’s] team of advisers had lied constantly to Congress and the public.”
8. “…The White House announced that the president had asked for the resignation of his entire 12-member Cabinet.”
9. “No wonder I had come to a stage where I doubted almost everything White House officials said. …I had grown weary of what officials told me on the record. There was some general assumption that “off the record” was where truth lived, and therefore “on the record” was the opposite.”
See what I mean?
So here is the breakdown.
2. Referring to Reagan's reelection campaign in 1983-84.
3. Referring to Bush's success at changing the narrative about himself during the '88 race.
4. Referring to Reagan at the start of his first term.
5. Referring to Reagan during his reelection race against Walter Mondale.
6. Referring to Reagan and how many days he spent at his California Ranch during his two-term presidency.
7. Referring to the Tower Commission Report that investigated the Iran-Contra scandal during Reagan's second term.
8. Referring to the Carter Administration -- in the end half the cabinet did resign.
9. Referring to the Bush Administration.
Her book was insightful, interesting, and enormously informative. Stahl shares a unique perspective of these four White Houses. She also writes about the arrival of cable news and its impacts on reporting and network news organizations. She also shares openly about the challenges she faced and insecurities she worked through as a female journalists in the early 70s and 80s.
It's a very good book that surprisingly helped put the current political climate into some perspective. I only included nine examples above but believe me there were MANY more.
The book covers the first two decades of Stahl’s career at CBS. It begins in 1972 when she, Connie Chung, and Bernard Shaw were hired to work in CBS’s Washington DC Bureau as part of affirmative action. Before that, Stahl was an on-air reporter at Channel 5 in Boston.
Stahl worked out of the DC bureau for a couple years as a beat reporter. One of her main assignments during that time was covering the legal proceedings surrounding the Watergate investigation. She was ultimately selected to be a CBS White House Correspondent and covered the Carter, Reagan, and Bush (Senior) administrations.
 |
| From book's photo insert: CBS 1974 election coverage team, Carter media availability, family meeting Reagan, and the Bushes on Face the Nation. |
About a quarter of the way through the book, I felt a strong interest in writing a blog post about the book. Aside from being able to answer the question "Who is the President of the United States?" like most school-age kids, I didn't really know anything about these presidents.
While I gravitate towards nonfiction, I don't read a lot of political nonfiction. Over the years though I have read a few. Ones that come to mind include David McCollough’s John Adams and Mornings on Horseback, which is about President Theodore Roosevelt. I’ve also read Doris Kearns Goodwin’s No Ordinary Times, which is about Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt during WWII, Chris Matthew's Hardball: How Politics is Played Told by One Who Knows the Game, and Peggy Noonan’s What I Saw at the Revolution. And I just read David Axelrod's Believer last year.
As I was reading Stahl's book, her descriptions and stories sounded awfully familiar.
I thought it would be fun to share a few. I'm not going to tell you who they are about initially but I'll tell you afterwards. These are direct quotes from the book.
1. “Most of the candidates were refusing to get specific about the issues. And if they were pressed, they often fought back with media bashing. Media bashing was the thing to do….”
2. “Another issue the president decided to run on was ‘reverse discrimination.’ He took up the cause of white men who complained they were facing racial and gender bias because of the programs, designed to benefit minorities and women.”
3. “He had altered perceptions of himself by realizing that in the age of television, politics is Kabuki, a theatre of visual illusions.”
4. “[The President] named antienvironmentalists to run the environmental programs and foes of civil rights to run those programs.”
5. “He was bolstered by an improving economy that he took total credit for – which is, after all, a president’s prerogative.”
6. "[The President] spent 345 days of his presidency at (his private residence)."
7. “The…Commission Report was a thunderbolt. It concluded that [the President’s] team of advisers had lied constantly to Congress and the public.”
8. “…The White House announced that the president had asked for the resignation of his entire 12-member Cabinet.”
9. “No wonder I had come to a stage where I doubted almost everything White House officials said. …I had grown weary of what officials told me on the record. There was some general assumption that “off the record” was where truth lived, and therefore “on the record” was the opposite.”
See what I mean?
So here is the breakdown.
1. Referring to the 1988 Presidential Race between Bush and Dukakis.
2. Referring to Reagan's reelection campaign in 1983-84.
3. Referring to Bush's success at changing the narrative about himself during the '88 race.
4. Referring to Reagan at the start of his first term.
5. Referring to Reagan during his reelection race against Walter Mondale.
6. Referring to Reagan and how many days he spent at his California Ranch during his two-term presidency.
7. Referring to the Tower Commission Report that investigated the Iran-Contra scandal during Reagan's second term.
8. Referring to the Carter Administration -- in the end half the cabinet did resign.
9. Referring to the Bush Administration.
Unless you are a historian or a student of history, you probably don't spend much time thinking about what happened last year, let alone what happened three to four decades ago. Reading Stahl's book was strangely comforting. It made me feel like -- maybe a version of all this has happened before. Maybe there is truth to the saying -- there is nothing new under the sun.
Her book was insightful, interesting, and enormously informative. Stahl shares a unique perspective of these four White Houses. She also writes about the arrival of cable news and its impacts on reporting and network news organizations. She also shares openly about the challenges she faced and insecurities she worked through as a female journalists in the early 70s and 80s.
It's a very good book that surprisingly helped put the current political climate into some perspective. I only included nine examples above but believe me there were MANY more.
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