Abstract
The subtitle of Rosenfeld’s From Kristallnacht to Watergate: Memoirs of a Newspaperman concisely and accurately describes what one finds between the covers. He gives an interesting, straightforward, and insightful recounting of his career in print journalism. Through his eyes, readers can better see and understand how the newspaper business has evolved and responded to a number of historic events.
When thinking of The Washington Post’s exposing and coverage of Watergate, the assistant managing editor of the Metro division at the time might not be the first person we recall. Although Woodward and Bernstein get much of the credit, Rosenfeld helped orchestrate the strategy behind the stories which made it to print. He points out that the story of one of print journalism’s finest hours is one that varies by perspective. And, for him, “The version I value most is the straightforward narrative least impacted by the notoriety, celebrity, and claims to fame that enveloped Watergate” (p. 181). Rosenfeld’s account does not focus on the events, but rather the process and decision making that led to the numerous stories that reached page one.
However, this is not a book that is focused on Watergate. In fact, coverage of that historic event does not begin until the halfway point of the volume. Rosenfeld explains his childhood and upbringing first, giving readers a better understanding of who he is and how his thought processes and journalistic practices were shaped. Whether it was experiencing Kristallnacht as a young Polish Jew in Berlin, or his escape to America from the Holocaust, the skilled editor provides a great deal of context for his noteworthy career.
It becomes clear early in the book that he was destined for a career in journalism. “In my eighth grade classroom, that striving found expression in an unusual way—the establishment of a weekly newspaper, produced entirely by students, its pages run off on a mimeograph machine and distributed to the entire school” (p. 24). In his early days, Rosenfeld was the “foreign editor” for a newspaper. His experiences abroad, while with the New York Herald Tribune before its demise, again provide insights into how a person’s background help to shape his or her worldview.
Throughout his memoirs, Rosenfeld illustrates his determination and drive. He fled Nazi Germany for America with his family, landed on his feet because of his work ethic and talent after the Herald Tribune folded, and moved to become managing editor and the architect behind the reestablishment of the Albany Times Union at a point he felt he reached a professional wall within the Post. That persistence and desire to tell the stories that need to be told, in a fair and objective way, leaves the author with a long and satisfying career full of accolades and professional recognition.
The competitive nature of journalism also can be seen in the Pentagon Papers case, as The Washington Post tried to make up ground against The New York Times during the Vietnam War era. Lawyers and journalists maneuvered in and out of the courtroom, which makes for an excellent case study of how journalistic values should be assigned. Rosenfeld even coins the phrase “subpoena envy” (p. 171) to describe the tensions.
From Kristallnacht to Watergate provides a valuable first-person history lesson from some of the best times in twentieth-century print journalism. Harry Rosenfeld was an eyewitness to the fighting in Vietnam, Watergate, the convergence and consolidation of newspapers, and publications that were unable to survive heightened competition in the journalistic marketplace. The book can make a substantial contribution in a journalism history course where students may not be sidetracked by a retelling of All the President’s Men. Instead, readers are able to find insight and understanding of the journalistic process and how stories, particularly of historic magnitude, are shaped and decided upon before they are published. Learning how our own life experiences can influence our work is a benefit that can be gained by reading the entire volume, not just the chapters on “Woodstein’s” Watergate.
As Rosenfeld explains, he has had the experience of a career spanning fifty years, and looking back to write this book allowed him to see “the connection between what I had experienced as a child growing up in the grip of a totalitarian regime and what I was to do as a grown man in a democratic America” (p. 308). While readers and students of journalism today might not have the opportunity to follow the road map he lays out in his book, reading this first-person account allows us to better chart our course to navigate the world of journalism as it lies before us.