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Along the lines of “How’d that get in the story?” I have to wonder about this morning’s Los Angeles Times piece about Carl Bernstein’s first visit to the Nixon Library.

It’s an interesting read, with Bernstein discussing the “kinship” he feels with the library and how visiting it was a “moving experience.”

Then, towards the end, came the strangest passage I’ve read in awhile:

Not all those in attendance at his speech were aware of Bernstein's iconic status.

Sayra Morales, 26, a journalism student at Fullerton College, said she attended for extra credit. She said she was unfamiliar with the details of Nixon's presidency, of Watergate, of Bernstein's role in history. She knows him as the author of the Clinton biography.

"I'm not big on politics," she said.

So we’ve a story about one of the most influential journalists of the past century. We’ve got an account of how he visits the library of the President that his journalism took down. And then we’ve got … a shrug from a young visitor who was only there for extra credit.

How does this get into the story? Is it a gratuitous slap at apathetic youth? (Or the journalism program at Fullerton College?) Is it an attempt to contextualize history? Was it a ploy to get to a certain word count? Couldn't the author of the piece have found someone who, I don't know, knew about the Nixon presidency or the Watergate investigation?

The ever-prolific Joe Strupp of Editor and Publisher today takes his column to commemorate Father’s Day, admit that he’s 41 years old, and note that he thinks – given this Sunday’s 35th anniversary of the Watergate burglary – that the Watergate story would be broken if it happened today. But there would be a few more hiccups.

Strupp writes that the constant news cycle would lead to mistakes, that a cell phone camera might have gotten a snapshot of Deep Throat in the garage, and that the pressures against keeping his identity secret would have been ratcheted up dramatically. But at the end of the day, he writes, the truth would come out.

Careful reviews and triple-checking of facts are often not done in time. During their award-winning reporting, much of it done over days and weeks, the Watergate reporters had their share of goofs and mistakes, but far fewer than the scoops and revelations that made such coverage valuable, and able to stand up to the scrutiny of those who regularly sought to criticize it.

Strupp is on far more than he’s off-base, but I have to take serious issue with this. On the commemorative DVD re-release of “All The President’s Men” a few years ago, Jonathan Alter observed “If Watergate happened today, for several reasons, it probably wouldn't be exposed … which is kind of scary."

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This week’s 10 plus 1 feature puts veteran CBS cameraman George Christian in the spotlight, a position unfamiliar to someone who has spent his career on the other side of the lens. But what a career is has been.



If you’ve ever wanted to ask a question of someone who was the network pool cameraman on Air Force One on 9/11 or was one of two individuals in the Oval Office the night President Nixon resigned or covered Gorbachev during Tianamen Square, well, here’s your chance. Those who work behind the scenes have some of the most unique and interesting experiences of anyone in the business, and some of the most distinct views.



You know the drill by now, we ask 10 questions of our weekly subject, then throw open the floor for your submissions. We’ll sort through them and pick one for George to answer, so put on your thinking caps and send us your questions.

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