"Was It Always Like This?"

A young reporter's question sends a gang of press veterans into a fit of nostalgia

By Jeff Greenfield

(TIME, November 21) -- She saw us from far across the cavernous hall, past the rows of tables laden with laptops and telephones, beyond the center of the room where the dervishes spun, as we huddled together and comforted one another with tales of campaigns gone by. We saw her too: lustrous of hair, cornflower blue of eye and fair of face. But her youthful countenance wore a troubled look as she approached our group.

"I know who all of you are, for I have seen you often on the tube, pronouncing on matters of great political moment."

We nodded sagely, humbly.

"But this is my first campaign, and I feel myself as on a darkling plain," she went on, struggling to control her emotions. "All my life, I have dreamt of joining you to chronicle these great romantic battles. Even as a child I read myself to sleep with the works of Theodore White. And I do not understand what is happening. Look!" she cried, brandishing a sheet of paper.

"These are the comments of prominent political players, proclaiming the powerful performance of their principal. But the debate has not yet begun! And look!" she continued, with a broad gesture, "your colleagues here are watching not the clash of those who would lead us into the 21st century, but a--a baseball game! I have to know," she said helplessly, as a tear coursed down her smooth cheek, "was it always like this?"

Her words so moved us that we ceased our idle chatter and spoke these words of regretful wisdom to her.

"No, my child, it was not always like this. There was a time, not that long ago, when it was all very different. At such times, we would find a single figure from a candidate's camp, and he would tell us--really tell us--how he thought things had gone."

Her expression of sheer disbelief prodded us to go on.

"Oh, yes," we chorused, "and that is only the beginning. When the campaigns began, we would journey to frozen New Hampshire; we would stand in the corner of a living room to listen to the candidates chat with the people. We would ride with them in the back of an automobile, talk with them of how they intended to win and what they might do with their power should they win."

"But--but how did you all fit in a single car? And what of the lights, the cameras?"

"You see, child," one of us said, "that is the point. There were no lights and cameras back then, at least not out on the campaign trail. And where now there are thousands, there were only a handful of us then, scattered across the campaign battlefield. And since there were so few of us, everyone in those campaigns knew who we were, and we knew them, and we knew that some words were meant for private consumption only."

"But what of the public's right to know?" she asked.

"Ah, yes. The public now sees all, but knows less. We push ourselves and our cameras through the doors of barns and living rooms and coffee shops in Iowa and New Hampshire, and dozens of us capture a politician talking to a single petrified farmer or shopkeeper or housewife. And every word that candidate utters has been polled and market-tested until nothing fresh remains. We brought conventions into living rooms across America, and every trace of honest disagreement, every hint of personal eccentricity has long since been banished from the halls. We throw floodlights into the press rooms after debates, and the comments are so meaningless that if one of the candidates pummeled a nun to the ground and stole her purse, we would hear him described as a firm advocate of the separation of church and state."

"So it was better once upon a time?" she asked.

"Better? We cannot say, for there was much to deplore. For one, chances are you yourself would never have been on the campaign trail; you would have been relegated to the research offices or the secretarial pool. Your sisters who wanted to work in campaigns would have donned cheerleader skirts and straw hats. For another, there were serious personal flaws in the candidates that we should have relayed to the people.

"But for all that, we miss it--and not just because we know we are growing older and will soon be banished to sit behind tables in half-empty rooms, for the greater glory of CSPAN2. We can feel the people turning away, not so much in disgust as in boredom. They once were drawn to politics because it provided them excitement, because it brought them out of their lonely rooms and homes into streets lit by torchlight, into halls where bands played, into tents and arenas and along parade routes where they felt connected to something bigger than themselves.

"Now they are at home, fingers at the keyboard, remote control in hand, watching a processed pageant one at a time. Who can blame them for their weariness?"

She turned to go, then shook her head.

"I envy you your memories," she said. With rheumy eyes, we watched her walk away with a youthful spring in her step, and thought what cold comfort memories can sometimes be.

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