Carl Bernstein's Club Sandwich

Monday, June 25, 2007

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A sidebar to my encounter with Watergate legend Carl Bernstein. Interviewing a Titan of Journalism can be a nerve-wracking experience - particularly when it's someone with a reputation for being somewhat prickly, who has long campaigned against falling standards in this trade. With that in mind, I was wondering whether I should confess that I hadn't had the chance to take more than a quick peek at his 600-page biography of Hillary Clinton, as the interview was only set up at the very last minute and I'd had the book for little more than four hours...

In the end, I decided I knew just about enough about the Clintons to be able to busk it.. But as Bernstein - a man who is used to his audience hanging on his every word - chewed severely on his club sandwich in the reading room at Claridges, he kept referring to specific anecdotes or quotes in the book, saying things like: "As you'll know, on page 312, [some obscure US congressman] said..."

After twenty minutes or so, I decied it was safest to come clean. Setting down his club sandwich, he looked horrified. "You're kidding, right?" I told him, sadly, that I wasn't. He mumbled something about what it said about our industry and from then on had clearly decided I was some kind of imp, at one stage informing me with a wag of his finger that my time would be "best spent reading the book before I write the piece". I told him, gently, that I had 24 hours to write up the article and that provoked further dismayed head-shaking. "I'm not even going to ask why they won't let you write it a week from now.."

One of the best things about this job is getting to meet the occasional hero. One of the worst, is when the hero in question ends up thinking you are the journalistic equivalent of Homer Simpson...

Posted by James Silver - On Monday, June 25, 2007

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