10 Plus 1: Mark Strassmann On Covering The Southeast And Beyond

(CBS)

What do you do at CBS News?

I'm a correspondent based in the CBS Atlanta bureau. Most of my time is spent covering the Southeast, but I'm a phone call away from going anywhere in the world.

Red State America, where I think all the network news organizations need to spend more time.

A local sheriff had been accused of sleeping with a teenage girl. Right before our interview in his living room, I heard him back in the kitchen crying, loudly telling his father he had done nothing wrong.

Another reporter later told me that right before his interview -- hours after mine -- his experience was identical -- the kitchen, the sobs, the shouted claims of innocence. It was all for show.

As a reporter in local news, a couple times I was asked to do a story that was nothing more than a valentine for one of the station's advertisers. I took Nancy Reagan's advice: just say no.

I would be playing center field for the Boston Red Sox.

Blogs can be an undeniable asset, but most of them read like a Christmas letter from some family I've never met. For specific stories, I'll read related blogs. I check in with general news blogs like the Drudge Report. A subscription site called News Blues tell me the latest on what's happening in the world of television news.

I just finished reading "Team of Rivals," Doris Kearns Goodwin's backstage pass into the Lincoln Administration. She profiles Lincoln's mastery over competing rivals and egos to serve a country in crisis. Lincoln had prodigious ambition but also real humility, a rare combination, and a striking self-confidence.

My 9-year-old daughter and I are also reading the Harry Potter series together. Really fun, imaginative stuff, especially seeing Hogwarts come alive through her eyes.

When I was in the sixth grade, my parents finally bought our very first television set. So my earliest news memory, in November 1963, came through the radio. I was 6 years old, and spent hours listening to coverage of the Kennedy assassination. For those of us living in Boston at the time, his death had special significance. I do have distinct memories of watching NASA's Apollo launches on CBS and hearing Walter Cronkite chronicle the space race.

Getting it first matters. Getting it right matters most.

Reporting is often a letter of introduction to intriguing people, almost all of them not celebrities. In Tampa, I profiled an inner-city woman named "Sister Gooding." In her blighted neighborhood, she took in one neglected kid after another. She made sure that they had a home, wore clean clothes and shoes that fit, got to school, and had half a chance in life. One Thanksgiving her patchwork family included 11 unrelated kids. She was an example of one strong caring personality, through force of will, making good things happen.

I got to know a couple Klansmen organizing rallies in Florida who were despicable people. Then there's this former mayor in Columbus, Ohio. Let's put it this way: if I owned a piano, his picture wouldn't be on it.

You started out, like many network correspondents, in local news. Do you think there's a difference in the quality of coverage between local news and national news outlets?

There's a huge difference, but that's no real surprise. The missions, resources, pressures and expectations of each are also very different. At all levels, I think you generally find talented people working hard every day to overcome long odds -- and succeeding.