Summary
I SALUTE the courage of the two New York Times journalists who have admitted this week that they let the Watergate story slip by them, leaving the field clear for the Washington Post to collect one of the greatest scoops of all time. One of them, Robert Smith, left the paper for law school the day after being tipped off about the presidential cover-up by an FBI man. The other, Robert Phelps, is now 89 and says he cannot remember why he did not follow up on Mr Smith's lead.
There is a famous story -- it is part of journalistic folklore now, and has probably been improved over the years -- about a Middle East correspondent who took a mountain hiking holiday in the summer of 1967. There were of course no mobile phones in those days, and when he reached a hotel with a telephone on his way back, the news desk told him there had been story on his patch during his absence. "It lasted six days, and you missed it."See the full content of this document
Extract
Brave Hacks Who Recall the One That Got Away
I suspect th...
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