It turns out that not only do I love gossip about today's journalists, but I also love it about the journalists of yesterday. Timothy Crouse's "The Boys on the Bus" is full of it, as this is a book in which he followed around the media on the 1972 presidential campaign. For example, for some reason, I delighted in learning that CBS reporters felt Walter Cronkite was such an air hog that they used to say CBS had "Walter-to-Walter coverage."1972 seems to be a pivotal year, because this book is full of people who would go onto more fame later. And some of the sections are particularly telling. After Memo-gate, this passage about Dan Rather shouldn't be too surprising:
He was famous in the trade for the times when he by-passed these formulas and "winged it" on a story. Rather would go with an item even if didn't have it completely nailed down with verifiable facts. If a rumor sounded solid to him, if he believed it in his gut or had gotten it from a man who struck him as honest, he would let it rip.I also like this quote from Brit Hume because it seems to sum up much of what Fox News claims to stand for. The Fox News anchor was then an assistant to columnist Jack Anderson:
"Those [reporters] on the plane ... claim that they're trying to be objective. They shouldn't try to be objective, they should try to be honest. And they're not being honest.... They report what one candidate said, then they go and report what the other candidate said with equal credibility. They never get around to finding out if the guy is telling the truth.... What they pass off as objectivity is just a mindless kind of neutrality."
The print journalists are well represented here as well with long sections on legendary journalists like David Broder, Woodward and Bernstein, Jack Germond, Robert Novak, and others.
In short, this is just a great book, and some of the issues from 1972 are still relevant today. You'll see a lot of Barack Obama's campaign in McGovern's campaign. Unlike Obama, McGovern never did figure out how to transform an outsider primary campaign into a successful general election campaign.
And journalism seemed a lot more, um, entertaining back then. Here's Crouse's description of the "Zoo Plane," the overflow plane for the press who weren't quite important enough to travel on George McGovern's plane:
The excitement of riding the Zoo Plane sprang from the fact that all rules had been totally suspended. As the plane took off on the first flight of the morning, half the reporters crowded into the galleys, mixing themselves Bloody Marys from the endless supplies of free booze.... As the FASTEN SEAT BELT signs still flashed their warning, other reporters worked their way up the aisle to fetch their own breakfasts and make more drinks....
There were drugs on the plane too, pot, hash, MDA, cocaine. And those who indulged in such stimulants swore that there was no greater thrill than standing in the cockpit as the plane came in for a landing, listening to the crackle of the radio, surrounded by green and orange dials, watching the bright blue lights of the runway rush up at the window as the powerful engines cut back.... Every night, the pilots played to an overflow crowd in the cockpit.
Ah, yes, the golden days of journalism.
