Somewhere between Ted Baxter and Clark Kent

October 16, 2024 (Vol. 18 No. 43) - With this year's election less than three weeks away, it is only natural for me to look back at the elections I covered as a working journalist. I'd like to think I was pretty good at my job. And I have a number of local, state, regional and national awards as my bona fides. However, I also realize that I worked with journalists who, in hindsight, were much better than me. (Bill Leslie, Jim Axelrod and Bill Whitaker come to mind.) Truth be told, I was somewhere between Ted Baxter, the bumbling anchor on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and Superman's alter-ego Clark Kent. No, I could not leap tall buildings in a single bound. But I could crank out a lot of stories under intense time pressure. The picture above was taken on the floor of the 1984 Democratic National Convention in San Francisco. Working a national political convention is hard work. However, it is also an experience I will forever cherish. It was also during that campaign year that I gave one of my best live reports from the middle of a rally with Democratic vice presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro in front of an overflow crowd on the Fayetteville Street Mall in Raleigh. As you listen to this live report, you will hear that the reporting was solid and my timing was impeccable. Of course, I covered other campaigns in Rocky Mount, North Carolina; Beacon, New York: Americus, Georgia; and Milledgeville, Georgia. It was in Americus, just nine miles from Plains, Georgia, that I met and interviewed then-former Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter. After meeting him, I knew he would become president. (My family thought I was crazy.) Election season is almost like Christmas for journalists. And I remember spending long nights covering election results. Jimmy Carter wasn't declared the winner in his 1976 race against Gerald Ford until three o'clock in the morning. I also remember working late into the evening at the North Carolina Democratic Election Night Headquarters in 1984. For those who don't remember, Ronald Reagan took 49 states that night. Covering the Democrats that night was like covering the house band on the Titanic. Come this Election Day, I will miss being out there in the trenches. However, since it is very unlikely we will know the winner of the presidency on Election Night, I will, at least, have the option to go to bed at a decent hour. That's it for now. Fear the Turtle.
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