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June 30, 2006
Flashback
I was on a panel yesterday before a journalism student group at Franklin Pierce College’s Manchester branch. The subject was press coverage of the New Hampshire presidential primary, and along with practical advice, we panelists peddled our campaign tales.
My favorite came from Kevin Landrigan, veteran political reporter for the Telegraph in Nashua. Here’s how it went:
As a young reporter for the Eagle Times in Claremont in 1980, Landrigan had a chance to ride on Ronald Reagan’s bus one morning. Reagan was trying to rescue his candidacy after George Bush I’s victory over him in the Iowa caucuses. The scuttlebutt Landrigan had heard from the national press corps suggested that Reagan was slow on the trigger and too old to be president. Landrigan prepared his questions diligently, but he worried that if what he had heard was true, Reagan would be particularly unresponsive at 7:30 a.m., the time of the interview.
Landrigan got on the bus and asked his questions. Reagan’s answers were crisp and on point. The interview went by faster than Landrigan had imagined. Before he knew it, Reagan was asking him questions: Where had he grown up? How long had he been a political reporter, and why had he chosen that career?
Kevin Landrigan’s story had many facets. It was about the education of a young reporter: See for yourself, don’t swallow the conventional wisdom. It was about Ronald Reagan: He made the adjectives used to minimize him – too old, too slow-witted – seem plain silly. And it was about the New Hampshire primary: This is where would-be presidents must connect with regular people – even 20-something reporters.
Postscript (another point of view)
Like my last blog entry, today’s Wall Street Journal editorial concerns the decision of the Journal, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times to publish the story of the government secretly accessing financial records.
Posted by Mike Pride at June 30, 2006 03:32 PM