The Legacy of Watergate

I just finished Jon Marshall's outstanding book, Watergate's Legacy and the Press: The Investigative Impulse. The book provides a concise history of the the Watergate investigation by the Washington Post.  It also gives an overview of earlier investigative reporting, particularly the muckraking era.  But probably it's greatest contribution is in examining the history of investigative reporting after Watergate. The book is part of the excellent series by Northwestern University Press, Visions of the American Press.

Favorite newspaper mottos

After visiting the Newseum, I started thinking about my favorite newspaper mottos. Let's start with one from that historic paper down the road from Washington:

Baltimore Sun: "The Sun Shines for All"
New York Times: "All the News that's Fit to Print"
Chicago Tribune: "World's Greatest Newspaper"
Atlanta Journal: "Covers Dixie Like the Dew"
Tombstone Epitaph: "No Tombstone is Complete Without its Epitaph"
Aspen Daily News: "If you Don't want it Printed, Don't Let it Happen"

And the longest motto, but maybe the best:
Mason Valley News (Yerington, Nev.): "The Only Newspaper in the World that Gives a Damn about Yerrington"

Newseum visit worth the wait

I finally got the chance recently to visit the Newseum in Washington, D.C.  I toured the old Newseum in Arlington, Va., but after visiting the impressive new venue I can't believe it too me so long to get there.  I loved the historic newspaper front pages.  It was also good to see the exhibit of Civil War journalism.

End of Road for Car Talk

The Car Talk brothers announced this week that they will stop doing new shows this fall.  After 35 years on radio, Tom and Ray Magliozzi said they are ready to move on.  Fortunately, Car Talk will continue to broadcast old shows starting in October.

Car Talk debuted in 1977 on WBUR in Boston when the Magliozzi brothers were asked to field calls seeking automotive advice.  After 10 years, the show was picked up by National Public Radio.  Today, the show is broadcast on 660 stations and heard by an estimated 3.3 million listeners weekly. It is NPR's top-rated weekend show.

Car Talk is the kind of quirky, off-beat show that could have only been broadcast on public radio. It's one more example of why we need public radio and why it needs our support.

Inventor of remote control dies

Eugene J. Polley, the man who invented the wireless remote control and changed the way we watched television, died last week.

Polley was an engineer at Zenith when the company was one of the leading TV manufacturers. In 1950 the company developed a remote control that attached to the set by a cord.  Five years later, Polley came up with the idea of a wireless device that sent light beams to receptors on the set to change channels and turn the set on and off. 

With a price tag of $100, the Flash-Matic, as it was known, initially was a luxury device for most consumers.  And since there were only three TV networks, there was no great need for the luxury.  But with the explosion of cable channels starting in the 1980s, the remote soon became ubiquitous. We have Eugene Polley to thank for that.

Penn State wins national championship

Penn State's College of Communications won its first-ever national championship in the overall intercollegiate writing-broadcasting-photojournalism-multimedia standings in the Hearst Journalism Awards Program.

Penn State finished first in writing; fourth in photojournalism; seventh in multimedia; and eighth in broadcasting. The college captured seven individual top-10 student finishes in writing; two top-10 individual finishes in photojournalism; one top-10 individual finish in radio; and one individual top-10 finish in multimedia.

The annual Hearst Journalism Awards Program in writing, broadcasting, photojournalism and multimedia is open to students from the country’s 108 nationally accredited mass communication programs.  Now in its 52nd year, the competion draws more than 1,000 student entries each year. 

Congratulations to all the talented students who made this a historic year for the college.

Pictorial correspondents of the Civil War

The current issue of National Geographic has an interesting article about Civil War sketch artists. The article is written by Harry Katz, who with co-author Vincent Virga, has published a new book, Civil War Sketch Book: Drawings from the Battlefront.  I have written about sketch artists in my book, Civil War Journalism, which will be published later this year.  As Katz notes, the stories of the dedicated sketch artists, which included the likes of Alfred Waud (pictured above), Edwin Forbes, Henry Lovie, and Winslow Homer, have largely gone overlooked. Fortunately, that is changing.