Carl Bernstein Invokes Newsrooms, Looking Back to His Beginning


Carl Bernstein’s new book “Chasing History” is his second memoir. his first, “Loyalties” It appeared more than thirty years ago, in 1989.

“Loyalty” was about growing up in an idealistic and radical family—his father, a union organizer, was a Communist Party member in the 1940s—under constant surveillance and harassment from the FBI.

The new one is subtitled “A Child in the Newsroom”. It’s about how he fell in love with journalism. As a teenager, he was hired as the copycat kid on The Evening Star, a casual afternoon in Washington DC.

This was the moment your future forked. He felt he had been given a ticket to the rest of his life. The “majestic chaos” and “purposeful confusion” of a good newspaper impressed Bernstein at a primitive level.

He found a different family on The Star. His own parents were distant figures in their idealism. He discovered “less complex, less complex” people in the paper. He barely graduated from high school and dropped out of college.

Journalism required different mental habits.

Bernstein writes, “a refuge in journalism, particularly The Star’s path: to advance without judgment or predisposition to a concept of truth in all its complexity, wherever facts and context and rigorous inquiry take it. I like that place. And it gives me comfort and purpose.”

When I learned that a Bernstein journalism memoir had derailed a few months ago, I marked it as a must-read.

His Watergate report with Bob Woodward in The Washington Post overthrew a presidency and inspired a generation of thieves. He has been portrayed in the movies by Dustin Hoffman and, less proudly, by Jack Nicholson. He was a snob; He had flying hair.

His lively celibacy is well documented. He left his beloved Nora Ephron, who presents a version of their short marriage in her novel. “Painful burning sensation in the chest.” It has been a big beast of the media world for five years.

Each time he returns, he is forced to live through the “Mole Day” nightmare about being asked if the last rage is “worse than Watergate”. At the age of 77, he enters his anecdotes. Who wouldn’t want to read his feel for all this stuff and watch his dashcam footage?

This is not “Chasing History”. The book tells the story of his journalistic apprenticeship from 1960 to 1965, from The Evening Star, Pepsi, to The Washington Post’s Coca-Cola. He was in his youth and early 20s. It ends long before we reach The Post and see Woodward or Ephron.

The result is a loving, serious, sepia-toned book in the color of old clippings. Pretty good. No problem. Better than sticking a sharp stick in the eye. It’s just… long and clumsy and somewhat thought-out. If my salary wasn’t based on leaving a clean plate, I might not have finished it.

Credit…Jonathan Becker

A lot happened in the world in the early 1960s, “In Search of History” reminds us that: Russians in Space; Bay of Pigs; Cuban missile crisis; March in Washington; the murder of John F. Kennedy; The Beatles’ goal in the United States; the Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner murders in Mississippi; Selma-Montgomery march.

Even though his role was mostly to take dictation from reporters in the field, Bernstein was excited to feel part of these events through osmosis, as those in a newsroom do. He describes these historical events in detail, as if he had written little about them before.

It evokes newsrooms circa 1960: books and newspapers, metal desks, dirty Royal typewriters, the “hailstorm” of typing, incoming bulletins, the printing press roaring on the floor.

He made himself useful. He learned by following the gray-haired old men—mostly men—around him. He learned to put out fires, talk to cops, get good grades, carry shotgun rolls for payphones.

He is good at finding friendships. While wearing a cream-colored suit that Bernstein loved so much, a co-worker was brilliantly surprised by a co-worker who said that staff had to “wash” all used carbon paper.

Star’s cast included great characters like columnist Mary McGrory. Bernstein found his own crowd of young people, among them journalist Lance Morrow. This cohort rented a rambling home together.

“Working for The Star was like being part of a group of actors at a repertory company,” he writes, “we were all immersed in the same project, we were all wrapped up in stories, in work.” He continues: “We were smart, we never had enough money, and we often drank too much.”

His enthusiasm was contagious. If it was a dog, its head would always be outside the car window.

Bernstein attended the University of Maryland, but rarely went to class. There is some doubt as I watch him try to avoid being drafted. He eventually joined an Army Reserve unit.

It still bothers the writer that The Star admitted he had talent and energy but didn’t hire him as a reporter because he didn’t have a college degree. This was a time when journalism, long seen as a semi-blue-collar job, was occupied by elegant young men from the Ivy League.

“My view was that by graduating from horticultural school you might be better prepared than graduating from Yale or Princeton,” Bernstein writes. “At least you can write your gardening column that way.”

I was once a baby reporter, and journalistic memories are my salty peanuts. “In Search of History” lacks the dry wit of Russell Baker’s “The Good Times” and the cunning of Mencken’s “Newspaper Days.” It doesn’t have the grim appeal of Pete Hamill’s “A Drinking Life”, the multifaceted combativeness of Michael Moore’s “Here Comes Trouble” or the sparkle of Molly Ivins’ memories, to name a few.

Had it reached 175 pages, “Chasing History” could have been a minor classic. Bernstein shows journalism for what it is – a humble call that can be noble.

His heart shines when he remembers his early days on the job, but he can’t make ours shine with his. If at 370 pages this book exceeded the welcome, boy was it good.



Source link

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *