Summary
Roger Mudd joined CBS in 1961, and as the congressional correspondent, became a star covering the historic Senate debate over the 1964 Civil Right Act. Appearing at the steps of Congress every morning, noon, and night for the twelve weeks of filibuster, he established a reputation as a leading political reporter. Mudd was one of half a dozen major figures in the stable of CBS News broadcasters at a time when the network's standing as a provider of news was at its peak.
In The Place to Be , Mudd tells of how the bureau worked: the rivalries, the egos, the pride, the competition, the ambitions, and the gathering frustrations of conveying the world to a national television audient in thirty minutes minus commercials. It is the story of a unique TV news bureau, unmatched in its quality, dedication, and professionalism. It shows what TV journalism was once like and what it's missing today.
Author Notes
Roger Mudd was most recently the primary anchor for The History Channel. Previously, he was weekend anchor of CBS Evening News , co-anchor of the weekday NBC Nightly News , and hosted NBC's Meet the Press and American Almanac . He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the George Foster Peabody Award, the Joan Shorenstein Award for Distinguished Washington Reporting, and five Emmy Awards. Mudd lives outside of Washington, D.C.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Mudd's memoir, based on his own notes and extensive interviews, looks back at his 20 years in the CBS News Washington bureau. Mudd, about to turn 80, left CBS in anger when he was passed over to succeed Walter Cronkite, going on to report for NBC and narrate at the History Channel before retiring. But by his own admission, he "never truly ceased being a CBS man." Although he does not mask his bitterness about the Cronkite succession or hesitate to detail the shortcomings of his fellow journalists (especially Dan Rather), Mudd has written a mostly affectionate memoir. The anecdotes about his former colleagues are often humorous, occasionally nasty, but rarely gratuitous, and he is equally unsparing of himself. Mudd's aim is to educate his readers about how first-rate television journalism used to occur more frequently than it does today, and he is a fine teacher. In addition, he fills the book with stories about the politicians and bureaucrats he covered, most memorably the Kennedy brothers and U.S. Sen. Everett Dirksen of Illinois. Mudd's writing is smooth, his tone approachable, and readers old enough to have watched CBS News during the Mudd years are likely to feel nostalgia. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
In 1981, after two decades with CBS News, often substituting for trusted anchor Walter Cronkite, Mudd was humiliated by the news leak that Dan Rather would be named Cronkite's successor. Mudd left for NBC, later PBS, and academia, but he never forgot the glory days of working for the legendary CBS bureau in Washington, D.C., with a front seat to major events of the '60s and '70s. Mudd covered Congress and the White House; he covered the funeral of John F. Kennedy, protests against the Vietnam War, the Watergate scandal, and the March on Washington. Mudd includes musings from his reporter's notebooks, less formal and therefore more revealing than staid news stories. Mudd chronicles as well the competitive and personal tensions between and among reporters and their subjects, recalling relationships with luminaries from Howard K. Smith to Eric Sevareid. Mudd is admiring of CBS but philosophical about the turn of events that kept him from the position of news anchor, hood ornament for the network, in this look back on a glorious past.--Bush, Vanessa Copyright 2008 Booklist
Choice Review
In this personal memoir, Mudd, former CBS congressional correspondent and evening and weekend television news anchor, provides an interesting, detailed, and candid history of the CBS News Washington bureau during its influential years from the 1960s to 1980. The Washington bureau dominated television news beginning in 1963, when the CBS Evening News expanded into a 30-minute television broadcast. Its reporters, correspondents, and news anchors, including Mudd, were all "top network quality" and helped CBS become the most influential television news broadcast in the US. Included are stories of the CBS correspondents who covered the major stories of the day--the Civil Rights Movement, Vietnam, Watergate, and the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr. For this book, Mudd interviewed 46 people who were part of the bureau during this period, and he discusses some 60 people in all. Their rivalries and stories, along with the operations of a major television network and what it took to be "the best," provide an interesting, if lightly documented, history of television broadcast news. Summing Up: Recommended. All readers. C. L. Clements Richland College
Kirkus Review
Veteran TV newsman Mudd engrossingly dissects the coming of age of television news, as experienced at the best and brightest shop on the block. His memoir of the "golden age" of CBS News's Washington bureau--perhaps not coincidentally coinciding with Mudd's 1960s-'70s tenure there--takes a lively and gratifyingly candid look back at a pre-CNN, pre-Internet, pre-cell phone media struggling to decode the strange signs and customs of the U.S. government for a mass audience. Revered as the House that Murrow Built, CBS News attracted an astonishing number of driven, talented journalists with a nearly religious zeal for beating the competition and creating the best possible broadcast. Mudd covered the congressional beat, earning a reputation as a hard-nosed, somewhat irreverent, prickly perfectionist. He was deemed Walter Cronkite's heir apparent at the anchor desk, and more than 25 years after losing that seat to sometime friend and professional nemesis Dan Rather, his bitterness is still palpable. Mudd paints an illuminating portrait of Rather as talented, ruthlessly ambitious, calculating and fatally eager for the big scoop at the expense of journalistic probity and his own credibility. Equally sharp are sketches revealing Cronkite's high standards and tin ear for popular culture; Eric Sevareid's brilliance and difficult personality; Connie Chung's remarkable pluck; Ed Bradley's diva-like tendencies, etc. This makes for delicious gossip, but Mudd's aim is to show the type of person--tightly wound, obsessive and possessed of a healthy ego--that made possible CBS News's many journalistic coups. His insightful reminiscences of covering the Kennedy assassination, Watergate and the civil-rights movement bring a fresh insider's perspective to these familiar events. Also engaging are Mudd's takes on lesser-known stories, rich in period detail and crackling with the urgency of deadlines and the need to prove one's self anew every day. Brisk, brusque and surprisingly witty--a must for students of the peculiar marriage of politics and entertainment. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
Edward R. Murrow, Eric Sevareid, Walter Cronkite: these are some of the notables who shaped CBS as a groundbreaking television news organization. Roger Mudd, an Emmy and Peabody Award winner later associated with NBC and the History Channel, worked at CBS from 1961 to 1980 as another journalist and anchor in the network's cadre of dedicated and talented newsmen. In this memoir, he recounts the heyday of the station's news division and particularly its Washington, DC, bureau. Dotted with humor, these balanced recollections are enhanced by extensive research and interviews with former CBS colleagues such as Dan Rather and Leslie Stahl. He tries to present himself objectively, pointing out both his accomplishments (a Peabody) and his mistakes (publicly criticizing network news in 1970). His clear and concise writing illuminates how all the journalists, producers, cameramen, and staff in the Washington bureau worked diligently to report the significant events of the day, including such milestones as Civil Rights legislation and President Nixon's impeachment hearings. This enjoyable book is recommended for all libraries.-Donna Marie Smith, Palm Beach Cty. Lib. Syst., FL (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.