Word: donaldson
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
When Jimmy Carter left the White House, he wished two enduring headaches on his successor: Israel's combative Prime Minister Menachem Begin and ABC News' abrasive White House correspondent Sam Donaldson. Last month, when Ronald Reagan spoke at a ceremony extolling the achievements of ABC News President Roone Arledge, Reagan added: "Sam Donaldson is a small price to pay." Not many people would cherish having provoked Chief Executives as diverse as Carter and Reagan. But Donaldson, 49, has gleefully made himself perhaps the best-known TV reporter in America by asking pertinent questions of Presidents in the most...
...public that often regards the White House press corps as a pack of hounds baying at whatever misfortunate occupies the Oval Office, Donaldson can seem the loudest and meanest coon dog of all. He asked Carter whether he was competent to be President. (Donaldson's judgment: no.) He suggested to Reagan that his presidency was "failing" and asked if it was true that he had to be "dragged back to making realistic decisions" by aides. To lesser officials Donaldson can be, if anything, ruder: at a press conference preceding an international economic summit, when Secretary of State George Shultz...
...camera, Donaldson titillates and embarrasses the press corps by shouting out, often within earshot of public figures, the sort of tasteless jokes that other reporters only murmur. Says a former ABC colleague: "People often find him boorish and obnoxious." Admits Donaldson: "I cause myself a lot of trouble with my deportment, and I am less than thrilled about that." Yet Donaldson seems a mascot rather than an outcast among the White House-beat regulars. They are used to his Peck's Bad Boy manner and enjoy his outbursts against the White House staff for manipulating access to the President...
...Donaldson is more than just aggressive. He is perhaps the leading practitioner of a style of broadcast journalism that treats news like sports, emphasizing vivid snippets of videotaped reality rather than a reporter's measured conclusions. Indeed, some critics claim that Donaldson is scarcely a reporter. He makes little effort to compete with print journalists in developing sources and background knowledge, or uncovering major news. As he sees it, his job is to get people, especially the President, to react on the record, on camera. Says he: "My specialty is asking a pointed question to draw the newsworthy response...
Most people in the press corps, whether reporting for print or broadcast, do in fact use the replies to Donaldson's queries. Says a rival from another network: "Sam is the first one out of the block, and the rest of us need him in a White House as tough to crack as this one." Howell Raines, former White House correspondent for the New York Times, agrees. Says he: "Donaldson plays an important role, asking the obvious question that everyone wants the answer...