When Watergate Was Appointment TV

Wasn't near the noise that overwhelms every conversation today. I can remember the break-in at Watergate being described as the" Watergate Affair", like it was a Sherlock Holmes mystery.

The Watergate hearings bored me as a Columbia sophomore home for the summer in El Paso. I had no doubt that Nixon was a crook worthy of impeachment--after all, hadn't he been part of the political establishment that sent thousands of young Americans to their deaths in a meaningless war? Why hadn't he and Johnson been tried for war crimes? It was a different story for my mother, a housewife who had watched soap operas until the Tet Offensive in 1968, when my father was stationed in Saigon. "How can I watch them any more when your father's life is at risk?" But Mom watched the hearings, rapt. She recounted what the Senators and witnesses said AS IF IT MATTERED. This smart, conservative but mostly apolitical woman gradually came to the conclusion that Nixon was guilty, an impression reinforced by the President's dour countenance. Watergate engaged her in politics for the first time. Times have changed. My cynicism about politics has not. Trump won't resign and these hearings won't make a damn bit of difference. There are no minds left to change in our polarized nation, and as long as the stock market continues its current upswing, the Republican party will continue abetting the most corrupt President our democracy ever has elected.

In 1973 the FCC had not yet abandoned the Fairness Doctrine. That was Ronald Reagan's response to the notorious Powell Memo, and his gift to the likes of Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes.

I was 12 years old when the Nixon impeachment was going on. I remember watching raptly the hearings, struggling to understand what Senator Sam Ervin was saying, so deep was his North Carolina drawl. I grew up in a Republican household. My parents immigrated into the United States with their parents after World War II, when Latvia was occupied by the Soviet Union. Latvians in the United States were pretty much automatically Republicans because of the perception that Franklin Roosevelt, a Democrat, had sold Latvia up the river to Stalin. I personally stopped being a Republican with the arrival of Ronald "trees cause more pollution than cars" Reagan and have never voted for a Republican since. But the main thing is that the Republicans back then looked at the evidence and, at the end of the day, sent Barry Goldwater to the White House to tell Nixon that the jig was up. It is certainly true that the Republithugs of the present day will never rise to the occasion in that way, and it also certainly true that they can do so because of the echo chamber in Faux News and the like. How sad for the nation!

I remember the Summer of Watergate well. I was a college student with a summer job cleaning rooms at the local Holiday Inn. I’d go into a room, turn on the TV and scrub, dust and change bedding to the sound of Sam Ervin saying, “Sir, I’m just a country lawyer, but...” totally hooked by what I was seeing and hearing. Years later, I saw an old Dick Cavett Show where he interviewed the members of the committee in the hearing room. In that interview, Howard Baker told Cavett that the committee members had many differences of philosophy and opinion, but the one thing they all agreed upon was their sworn responsibility to uphold the Constitution. (for you young ‘uns, Sen. Baker was a Republican.) Funny how I’m not hearing any of that from the current crop of GOP quislings.

It'll be a long time, if ever, that we'll return to that era of bipartisanship to save our democracy instead of partisanship to destroy it. The media shares its complicity in this, especially since its primary goal has been to sensationalize everything into a nonstop stream of Breaking News for the sake of lining its coffers with profits while one party describes everything it doesn't agree with as Fake News. Alas, a true reflection of how far and how quickly we've regressed as a culture and as a nation.

Amazing how time passes yet I remember as if it were yesterday. As a then 22-year old student in San José, I worked 3-11:30 pm cleaning elementary schools to pay my bills. I had all five "Educational TeeVees" in the school tuned to KQED channel 9 and managed to see it all because I worked like crazy until 8 pm so I could tune in -- Political Science come to life. I shall NEVER forget Barbara Jordon, the President we never had. And I shall be up Wednesday and Friday mornings and watching at 7 am (Pacific) ......

"What did the president know, and when did he know it? #ReadTheTranscript

The Senate hearings were indeed "strikingly white and male on all sides of the camera." But let us not forget Barbara Jordan's eloquence during the House proceedings. She talked of the US Constitution. "...when that document was completed on the seventeenth of September in 1787, I was not included in that "We, the people." I felt somehow for many years that George Washington and Alexander Hamilton just left me out by mistake. But through the process of amendment, interpretation, and court decision, I have finally been included in "We, the people." Even so, she continued, "My faith in the Constitution is whole; it is complete; it is total." My mother and I watched as much of the proceedings as possible. And Barbara Jordan became our North star.

I was in my 20s then. I disliked Nixon but didn’t watch any of it except maybe in passing. It was boring and complicated. My mother watched it though. Gavel to gavel. She filled me in.

Of course, the main difference between now and then is that the news divisions of the three television networks back then were run as independent, non-profit, public-service arms of the networks, subsidized by and walled off from the entertainment divisions of the networks. Today it is just the opposite. Network and cable news is a for-profit commercial enterprise, owned and operated by the Big Five entertainment-movie companies, Comcast, Disney, Warner, Viacom and Fox. Accordingly "news" decisions are now based primarily on commercial entertainment values, such as ratings, advertising revenue and page clicks. The news departments are expected to run a profit. Promotions and compensation packages for producers and on-air talent are based on ratings and revenues, not necessarily on the journalistic quality of their programs. Thus in order to generate ratings, the news content is packaged to highlight drama, conflict and confrontation, while long-form thought and analysis pieces are rare. Given all the focus on money and ratings and the success that Trump, a proven reality-TV star, has brought to the news industry (the "Trump Bump"), there is very little financial incentive for the modern news companies to change their way of doing business. It's all about the ratings.

I was an avid viewer of the Watergate Hearings. Sam Irving's wonderful smooth voice and when it was revealed their was a audio taping system - WOW how that made everyone's mouth to open. When Nixon's secretary Rosemary tried to explain the 20 minute gap in the recordings, I felt sorry for her. Later "All The President's Men" with Woodward and Bernstein and Deep Throat who turned out to be one of the top FBI agents who didn't get to replace the sick dog Hoover - WOW that was great. IMHO there is not a chance the senate will find the donald guilty - it would take 20 repulsive senators to vote for it - ah well it will provide some good stories!

May 1973, the Watergate hearings, the last American GI out of Saigon and graduation from college. An amazing year to say the least.

Witnesses to History: My niece didn’t walk until she was 15 months old because for weeks, my sister ensconced her baby atop her king-sized bed, distracting her for hours with toys, while she focussed intently on the Watergate hearings. Each night, we debriefed each other. Now, decades later, she calls me every night, after work, to check up on “what happened today”? I’m retired and have Sirius so I can monitor the shenanigans even while doing errands. And even though we’re up north in Canada, the dark, cold place which disappears at the top of your weather maps, we are still fascinated and horrified by what’s going on ‘down there’. She has just called to tell me she is not attending her Mah Jong game tomorrow afternoon! Our fingers are crossed for your democracy.

I understand the Senate 1973 hearings were the highest rated daytime TV shows in history up to that time.

A general point on photoreporting. 1. Depending on the photographer's political orientation, the subject photographed appears either attractive or not. 2. On the recent photos of the officials marching to testify before the Congress, all are accompanied by at least two armed guards. Are they in danger of being disappeared on the way by those who want them kept silent?

Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio? Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you . . . What's that you say, Mrs. Robinson? Jolting Joe has left and gone away Fellow commentators are correct, especially about civility and decorum. So, I'd substituent Senators Sam Irving and Howard Baker for No. 5 Joltin' Joe.

“What did the president know, and when did he know it?”—Howard Baker, R-Tenn. to Richard Nixon’ White House Counsel John Dean (1973). I can’t imagine any Republican getting ready to ask the same question beginning tomorrow.

You know what is, to me, truly sad? That this article reads like an Op-Ed From The Future.

This isn’t that.

If you haven’t yet clicked the link to watch some of these tapes, you should. It is spell-binding. Don’t mind the old tv color bars at the beginning)

It seems that, in the main thrust of this essay, Mr. Poniewozik longs for the days when a more homogenous news media reined. When independent thought and a wide range of views were only encouraged if they fit within established frameworks of acceptable opinion. He puts “mostly” in parenthesis when discussing the trusted press of the time as a means of shooting down criticism that the statement is hopelessly naive. While a few anchors giving “just the facts” to their audience while airing the coverage live might seem like the best way for the people to make up their minds, having a diverse, independent news media allows for ones’ mind to open to possibilities she may never have thought possible when given “just the facts” by a corporate news organization.

Yes the impeachment hearings will DEFINITELY be different this time around. They are scheduled to start at 10 am Eastern time time, but first at 9 am there will be the RED CARPET show where our lawmakers will come to the Capitol by limousine and they will be asked - What are you wearing? What are you wearing? The invariable answer will be - a suit, but never mind. The MC for the event will be Adam Schiff played by Toby Macquire. Incriminating statements and accusations will be kept under 5 minutes by Jim Jordan, the musical director. Live commentary, with insulting and ad hominem attacks will be on Twitter by the accused - Donald Trump. Instant replay and statements with ambiguous meanings will be examined all night long by the various cable channels with Fox only broadcasting exculpatory statements in the interests of the President. At the end of the day people will move on to the next outrage that cheapens our country and makes us the laughingstock of the world. The after parties will go on until November 2020.

I so clearly remember watching the Watergate hearings in 1973. I was absolutely mesmerized, as was much of the country. I was in High School, it was Summer, and I could watch every moment of the coverage, uninterrupted. I wouldn't have missed a moment. And yes, I felt patriotic. I am extremely concerned that the upcoming televised hearings will be viewed by relatively few Americans. First, the hearings are airing in the daytime (or even early morning, here on the West Coast)...not prime time. Second, I don't even know if Fox News will be carrying the hearings. And if they do, can you imagine the commentary and/or selective editing? Third, I question if today's viewers have the attention span -- or even the interest -- to immerse themselves in the coverage the way we did during Watergate. Combine all of the above with our current, fractured, "Fake News" political environment, and I just don't see these hearings being "Must-See TV". I hope I'm wrong.

I remember the Watergate Hearings. It was must see TV of the era. It was gavel to gavel coverage on ABC, CBS and NBC. For my mom, it replaced soap operas, with a real life one. All in glorious color on a 19" RCA portable TV. And, to catch up, there was the pages of press coverage in "Newsday". The New York Times dedicated more pages to comb through. I chose the newspaper option, during the summer before my senior year in high school. Also, my mom gave a very good summary of what she spent 8 hours watching each day. It seems she liked it better than "The Guiding Light" and "As the World Turns". In that era, you watched, and read for the facts. There wasn't the 24 hour talking head news cycle, op-eds that read like news articles, and cable TV was just something to get a better signal on eastern Long Island. For my parent's generation who survived both the Great Depression and World War II, they felt that Washington has failed them. The trust built under FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy was destroyed. The Vietnam protests, the assassinations, the riots, etc. of the 1960s took their toll; Nixon was just the final nail. Though, they expected Nixon to fall, because he was seen as a crook and shady character. He was elected because of Vietnam; he was elected again because of McGovern. The irony is, that trying to undo McGovern; he undid himself. 1973, was a turning point, an era of innocence and trust lost. 46 years later this country could lose much, much more.

This was, truly, one of our finest hours. Legislators from both sides of the aisle putting country before party. What a concept.

That was the year I graduated college w/o a job and watched most of it during the day. John Dean's days of testimony, with wife Mo behind him, sticks in the mind, but not like Alex Butterfield revealing the tapes.

Today: uncivil, chaotic, hateful, filled with lies, rampant environmental collapse. The public behavior towards today's impeachment process is a clear indicator of the decline of the USA since the early 1970s. It mirrors the decline of politics at the national level to achieve great things together. It mirrors the decline of the environment in the same timeframe, starting with Nixon trying to help it by creating the EPA, and ending with trump's destruction of it. It mirrors the success of conservatism.

I was 13 years old and went next door every day to watch with my newly retired grandfather, a lifelong Democrat. We were very proud of our TN Senator, Howard Baker!

I was in graduate school when the Watergate hearings aired. Someone would bring a tv into the common area of our dorm each day and a group of us would watch, mesmerized. What gave the hearings their power was the quiet, dignified seriousness of the proceedings. There was no partisan posturing, no grandstanding, no cheap shots. Watching those hearings renewed my sense of patriotism and faith in America.

This piece seems to be geared towards us vintage viewers while the majority of "young bloods" could certainly learn a great deal from merely reading this article. History, regardless the time period, has always proved to be a valuable, essential and effective learning tool.

Remember, those were the days with only three networks and a couple of UHF channels. Entertainment was pretty limited.

The biggest change is news as for-profit entertainment. Back then it was a service for the public good. That still exists in Europe to some extent but not here. Here it’s all marketing and market segmentation.

Oh, how I remember Watergate. I was 30 years old and absolutely fascinated with the drama, even before the hearings started. Looking back, the most dramatic days were in watching the most ardent defenders of Nixon gradually come around to voting to impeach him as the facts of the case and especially the testimony of various White House staff simply tell the truth. I doubt we're in the same situation. Our politics have become blood sport. Moreover, the Republican Party is not the party of 1973. Not by a long shot. As Trump has said, if he was on trial for murdering someone on 5th Ave., this group would acquit. They don't care about truth anymore.

The fact that so much has changed about the media landscape since 1973 aptly encases the dilemma of our times. By empowering "the voice of the people", many paid by extreme right wing organizations or billionaires, the internet has fractured the narrative. Everyone can scream, everyone can pick a pet theory and ride it down. The internet has fostered a false sense that we are all our own experts. We can look up anything, (mostly looking for views that reflect our own) so we think we are masters of information and thought. This is dangerous. People who are not scholars, who have not been carefully trained at the university level to discriminate bad information from good or who have not worked as reporters and editors. are simply not qualified to do "research". The internet makes a weak or untrained mind powerful, righteous. Way back in 1973, the great names of newspaper columnists were still strong voices. These columnists were not always honorable and they made deals with the powerful to parrot their views, but there was also some coherence of public opinion. Now, we are fractured into a thousand pieces of a thousand pieces with Fox Noise selling propaganda as news. The three major television network newscasts, seen by 20 million a night, are not doing their job. They peddle every Trump scandal as a "he said/he said", as if all points were equal. They aren't.

By early summer of 1973 the nation’s focus was riveted on the testimony of John Dean and other key figures in the Watergate investigation of President Richard Nixon and his subordinates. At the time, my wife, our toddler daughter and I lived in an apartment complex in the suburbs. We shared a small courtyard/landing in the back, joined to other neighbors by fire escape-style stairs emptying into the common area. Each evening, our bachelor neighbor Frank would bring his black and white television through his first floor window, adjust the tin foil on the antenna, and a shifting group of us would share an inexpensive bottle or two of wine and watch the drama unfold. There was no moderation or partisan commentary – no Fox News or MSNBC to interpret the proceedings. All of America watched the same images and heard the same words. Democratic Senator Sam Ervin and his Republican Vice-Chair, Howard Baker, led the Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, commonly known as the Watergate Committee, with blunt dignity. In 2019, one longs for the courage, clarity and integrity with which the bipartisan Congress discharged its responsibilities in 1973.

I have experienced the exact description of 1973 versus now in this article. A lot of the Watergate videos feel quaint, and reminds one a bit of Father Knows Best including the importance and given of decorum. Much more theatrics now.

I was a young teenager who was riveted by those Senate Select Committee hearings on Presidential Campaign Activities back in the 1970s. Ervin and company were a far cry from Schiff, though. Close comparisons of Schiff's skewed process with Ervin's relatively-even-handed process will not come out in Schiff's favor. Lehrer was my graduation speaker at Haverford, and there simply is no comparable figure in the mainstream media today. Lehrer leaned left, but he was no tool. Schiff is in the process of ending his political career, perhaps being quietly shoved over the far-left cliff into the Pacific with the help of a subtly-petulant Pelosi. The real question is whether the Democratic Party ship will go down with Schiff. The Pubs have a clear position on Trump (often personally offensive but typically defensible in fact). The Dems do not yet have a clear position on Schiff. If the Dems know what's good for them, they will give Schiff the political shiv. Schiff is a political disaster, as we will shortly see.

Will not watch. Watched end to end last 2. This will be a giant hyped circus. Me watching has zero effect in outcome - not putting myself through it.

I was 8 at the time, so take my memories with a grain of salt. I vividly recall everyone being riveted to Watergate, but I'm curious what percentage of viewers actually followed it on the PBS primetime highlights vs. other ways. I watched part of it live every day when I came home for lunch, along with my homemaker mother. After my father got home, the day's highlights were viewed at 6:30 on the national news. Did we really watch it again in primetime, or did the Odd Couple and the Brady Bunch win out? If anyone's got actual ratings/statistics for the various modes of Watergate consumption, I think it'd be interesting reading. For those of us who watched significant hours of Watergate live, that awkward, 45 degree camera angle at which we watched the testimony of John Dean and the rest is seared in our minds. There was something very cinema-verite about the whole thing. All Congressional testimony since then, shot more like an interview, always feels so "Made for TV" -- which of course it is!

I grew up in the summer of 1973 as my mother & I were glued to the b/w TV, watching the Watergate hearings unfold before our eyes. We were spellbound & speechless. We could not believe what we were hearing or what folks like John Dean were confessing to. In those days, this WAS shocking news because the country never witnessed anything like it, especially as it was happening. What I love about the photo in this article are 9 men gathered around Sam Erving and only one gentleman is speaking while the others, including Howard Baker, are huddled in, tightly, listening to what is being said. The respect, the professionalism, the class shown to each other is so different and stark compared to 50 years later. Lehrer and MacNeil were spot on when they stated, “we think it is important that you get a chance to see the whole thing and make your own judgments” and the fact that they focused “on the actual developments and charges” rather than perceptions. Not shocking then but definitely by today’s standards. I admired and loved Howard Baker, especially in his honest assessment that “the only way his party could be “mortally wounded” by Watergate would be “for the public to think that we Republicans don’t have the courage, the stamina and the determination to clean our own house.” Those individuals involved in the Watergate hearings like Sam Ervin and Howard Baker truly demonstrated various profiles of courage when most needed. We could still learn so much from them today.