History on the run [antikvár]

PREFACEThe English poet Matthew Arnold once said that journalism is "literature in a hurry." I'm not so sure about it being literature, but, to paraphrase Arnold, I am sure that journalism is history on the run.This book is by no means a definitive history of the period covered. It is simply my own recollections of what I saw and reported, mostly from Washington, especially during the chaotic 1960s, and, with the advantage of hindsight, more sober reflections on the people and events I've covered. These pages are also a salute to those trenchcoated commandos, the correspondents, who risk life, limb, and personal well-being in pursuit of the news. And finally, this is the story of how I paid my journalistic dues. This book reflects all of these things, and, in a very personal sense, it has been a way of sharing my joumalistic life with my wife Lorraine.My major theme is what it was like to be in Washington between 1951 and 1969. As such, it may provide some insight into the kinds of demands and pressures a foreign correspondent faces day after day, as well as a glimpse into some of the private moments of reporters and the world leaders-and would-be leaders-they keep an eye on.I've been lucky in having worked in just about every aspect of the news business, from selling papers on a Toronto streetcorner to reporting, editing, managing, and anchoring the news for cbc Television and Radio. In addition to my work in broadcast journalism, I've worked for news agencies, weekly and daily newspapers, newsletters, and magazines. My career has taken me around the world many times on assignments to Africa, South and Central America, the Far East, Europe, and all over Canada and the United States on the trail of wars, revolutions, political crises, scandals, and scams. But in retrospect what is particularly important to me is the small part I've been able to play in the development and expansion of the television news.News was something of an afterthought in the early days of television. And the foreign correspondents were among the first honest-to-God news-gathering reporters the cbc had. In the early 1950s, when television first arrived in Canada, people like Tom Earle did some reporting out of Ottawa, but there was little elsewhere except for the correspondents' work. Prior to that, except during the war years, cbc Radio largely regurgitated news from the agencies like British United