The Washington Reporters
The Washington Reporters

Author: Stephen Hess

Publisher: Brookings Institution Press

Published: 2010-12-01

Total Pages: 196

ISBN-13: 9780815719977

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In the vast literature on the way democratic governments work, the role of the press is often overlooked. Yet the press, no less than the formal branches of government, is a public policy institution and deserves to be included in explanations of the governmental process. In The Washington Reporters, Stephen Hess focuses on those who cover the U.S. government for the American commercial news media. His book is based on interviews with reporters and editors and on responses to questionnaires from nearly half of the over 1,200 American reporters in Washington. Analysis of these responses and comparison with the content and placement of over 2,000 of these reporters' news stories permit an unusual—and sometimes startling—perspective on Washington newswork. Mr. Hess demonstrates, for instance, how information in the news regularly comes from the legislative branch of the government, despite the greater number of stories on the presidency; and he shows that Washington news dominates the front pages of daily newspapers across the country, no matter how little may be going on in the nation's capital. The author concludes that "Washington news gathering fragments [media] power, while at the same time it shifts decisions on what is news and how it should be covered to the reporters." The import of this impression is that "reporters are not simply passing along information; they are choosing, within certain limits, what most people will know about government. The freedom given and assumed by these news workers affects the shape of national affairs."

Whatever Happened to the Washington Reporters, 1978-2012
Whatever Happened to the Washington Reporters, 1978-2012

Author: Stephen Hess

Publisher: Brookings Institution Press

Published: 2012-08-12

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13: 0815723881

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Whatever Happened to the Washington Reporters, 1978–2012, is the first book to comprehensively examine career patterns in American journalism. In 1978 Brookings Senior Fellow Stephen Hess surveyed 450 journalists who were covering national government for U.S. commercial news organizations. His study became the award-winning The Washington Reporters (Brookings, 1981), the first volume in his Newswork series. Now, a generation later, Hess and his team from Brookings and the George Washington University have tracked down 90 percent of the original group, interviewing 283, some as far afield as France, England, Italy, and Australia. What happened to the reporters within their organizations? Did they change jobs? Move from reporter to editor or producer? Jump from one type of medium to another—from print to TV? Did they remain in Washington or go somewhere else? Which ones left journalism? Why? Where did they go? A few of them have become quite famous, including television correspondents Ted Koppel, Sam Donaldson, Brit Hume, Carole Simpson, Judy Woodruff, and Marvin Kalb; some have become editors or publishers of the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, Miami Herald, or Baltimore Sun; some have had substantial careers outside of journalism. Most, however, did not become household names. The book is designed as a series of self-contained essays, each concentrating on one characteristic, such as age, gender, or place of employment, including newspapers, television networks, wire services, and niche publications. The reporters speak for themselves. When all of these lively portraits are analyzed—one by one—the results are surprisingly different from what journalists and sociologists in 1978 had predicted.

Reporting from Washington
Reporting from Washington

Author: Donald A. Ritchie

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2005-03-15

Total Pages: 429

ISBN-13: 0195346327

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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.

Covering Washington
Covering Washington

Author: Bill Gertz

Publisher: Center for Security Policy

Published: 2012-01-27

Total Pages: 63

ISBN-13: 9780985029203

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In Covering Washington, veteran national security reporter and author Bill Gertz presents a helpful and entertaining handbook for new journalists navigating the nation's capital. Peppering the book with anecdotes from his long career, Gertz dispenses the kind of wisdom you'd pick up if you were lucky enough to work alongside a journalist who's seen it all-in Washington and in capitals around the world. Covering Washington is a perfect companion for someone launching a career as a reporter.

Chasing History
Chasing History

Author: Carl Bernstein

Publisher: Henry Holt and Company

Published: 2022-01-11

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 1627791515

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A New York Times bestseller In this triumphant memoir, Carl Bernstein, the Pulitzer Prize-winning coauthor of All the President’s Men and pioneer of investigative journalism, recalls his beginnings as an audacious teenage newspaper reporter in the nation’s capital—a winning tale of scrapes, gumshoeing, and American bedlam. In 1960, Bernstein was just a sixteen-year-old at considerable risk of failing to graduate high school. Inquisitive, self-taught—and, yes, truant—Bernstein landed a job as a copyboy at the Evening Star, the afternoon paper in Washington. By nineteen, he was a reporter there. In Chasing History: A Kid in the Newsroom, Bernstein recalls the origins of his storied journalistic career as he chronicles the Kennedy era, the swelling civil rights movement, and a slew of grisly crimes. He spins a buoyant, frenetic account of educating himself in what Bob Woodward describes as “the genius of perpetual engagement.” Funny and exhilarating, poignant and frank, Chasing History is an extraordinary memoir of life on the cusp of adulthood for a determined young man with a dogged commitment to the truth.