Reporting from Washington The History of the Washington Press Corps

by Ritchie, Donald A.

• ISBN13: 9780195308921
• ISBN10: 0195308921
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-07-27
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Donald Ritchie offers a vibrant chronicle of news coverage in our nation's capital, from the early days of radio and print reporting and the heyday of the wire services to the brave new world of the Internet. Beginning with 1932, when a newly elected FDR energized the sleepy capital, Ritchie highlights the dramatic changes in journalism that have occurred in the last seven decades. We meet legendary columnists--including Walter Lippmann, Joseph Alsop, and Drew Pearson --as well as the great investigative reporters, from Paul Y. Anderson to the two green Washington Post reporters who launched the political story of the decade--Woodward and Bernstein. We read of the rise of radio news--fought tooth and nail by the print barons--and of such pioneers as Edward R. Murrow, H. V. Kaltenborn, and Elmer Davis. Ritchie also offers a vivid history of TV news, from the early days of Meet the Press , to Huntley and Brinkley and Walter Cronkite, to the cable revolution led by C-SPAN and CNN. In addition, he compares political news on the Internet to the alternative press of the '60s and '70s; describes how black reporters slowly broke into the white press corps (helped mightily by FDR's White House); discusses path-breaking woman reporters such as Sarah McClendon and Helen Thomas, and much more. From Walter Winchell to Matt Drudge, the people who cover Washington politics are among the most colorful and influential in American news. Reporting from Washington offers an unforgettable portrait of these figures as well as of the dramatic changes in American journalism in the twentieth century.

Author Biography

Donald Ritchie has been Associate Historian of the United States Senate for almost three decades. A past president of the Oral History Association, he is the author of Doing Oral History, American Journalists: Getting the Story, and Press Gallery: Congress and the Washington Correspondents. He is a popular public speaker and a frequent commentator on C-SPAN.

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
Prologue: Washington, D.C., 1932	1	(217)
1 The News Bureaus and the New Deal	7	(21)
2 Race, Rules, and Reporting	28	(19)
3 Radio Voices	47	(23)
4 The Friends of Joe McCarthy	70	(22)
5 News Center of the World	92	(19)
6 Flash: The Wire Services	111	(22)
7 The Business of Being Opinionated	133	(26)
8 Off the Women's Page	159	(24)
9 The Camera's Eye	183	(35)
10 Washington, Deceit	218	(23)
11 Company Town Papers	241	(29)
12 Anyone with a Modem	270	(20)
Epilogue: Washington, D.C., 2001	290	(13)
A Note on Sources	303	(6)
Notes	309	(66)
Index	375