Richard Nixon, found out, covering up the truth, nearly impeached, claiming, “I am not a crook!” Poliitico.

I dodged most of the last few months of my university classes to see it. I sensed – as a journalist-in-training in the early 1970s – that reality was more important than theory. So, we all crowded into a student lounge at Toronto Metropolitan University (then Ryerson) to watch the daily TV Senate Committee hearings into connections between the Watergate break-in and then president Richard Nixon.

I specifically remember Committee Chair Sen. Sam Ervin sparring with Nixon’s then White House adviser John Ehrlichman.

“The President seems to extend executive privilege way out past the atmosphere,” Ervin said later. “What he says is executive privilege, is nothing but executive poppycock.” (more…)

Last winter, during one of the daily meetings with my staff at the Toronto Observer (the online newspaper produced by senior journalism students at Centennial College where I teach), one of my student reporters faced a dilemma. We had assigned her to attend the funeral of Sgt. Ryan Russell, the Toronto Police Service officer killed by a stolen pickup truck with a snow plow. It was too late for her to get a press pass to the funeral. So how, she wondered, would she get into the ceremony?

“Do I hide the fact I’m a reporter?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “It’s a public funeral. You should be able to get in. But if they ask you not to take photographs, respect their wishes.”

(more…)

Ted Barris

author | journalist

Posts with the Bob Woodward tag

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