Forgive Us Our Press Passes, Selected Works by Daniel Schorr

A collection of papers, articles, and speeches in which the veteran US reporter takes his profession to task. They begin with the FBI investigation that led to impeachment articles against Richard Nixon, and progress through the Cold War and the Gulf War to the devolution of news into sensationalist entertainment. A special 20th-anniversary edition of Hastings Communications and Entertainment Law Journal. No index. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

For more than half a century, Daniel Schorr has entered American homes to teach, challenge and enlighten us to the meaning of world events.

In 1946, Mr. Schorr began his career as a foreign correspondent, writing from postwar Europe for the Christian Science Monitor and later the New York Times. During this time he documented the effects of the Marshall Plan and the creation of the NATO alliance. In 1953, Mr. Schorr's vivid coverage of a disastrous flood that broke the dikes of the Netherlands caught the ear of Edward R. Murrow, the guiding spirit of CBS News, and Mr. Schorr joined CBS News as the diplomatic correspondent in Washington.

In 1955, Mr. Schorr opened the first post-Stalin CBS bureau in the Soviet Union. His two-and-a-half-year stay included the first-ever exclusive television interview with a Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, which was filmed in Krushchev's Kremlin office in 1957 for CBS's Face the Nation. However, Mr. Schorr's repeated defiance of Soviet censorship eventually landed him in trouble with the KGB. After a brief arrest on trumped-up charges, he was barred from the Soviet Union at the end of 1957.

Returning to Washington in 1966, Mr. Schorr hung up his foreign correspondent's trenchcoat and settled down to become re-Americanized, as he puts it, by plunging into coverage of civil rights, urban crisis and environmental problems.

In 1972, the Watergate break-in brought Mr. Schorr a full-time assignment as CBS's chief Watergate correspondent. His exclusive reports and on-the-scene coverage at the Senate Watergate hearings earned him three Emmy awards. Mr. Schorr unexpectedly found himself a part of his own story when the hearings turned up President Nixon's enemies list with his name on it and evidence that the president had ordered him investigated by the FBI. This abuse of a federal agency figured as one count in the Bill of Impeachment on which Nixon would have been tried had he not resigned in August, 1974. That fall, Mr. Schorr moved to cover investigations of CIA and FBI scandals what he called the son of Watergate. Once again, he became a part of his own story. In February 1976, when the House of Representatives voted to suppress the final report of its Intelligence Investigating Committee, Mr. Schorr arranged for publication of an advance copy he had exclusively obtained. This led to his suspension by CBS and an investigation by the House Ethics Committee in which Mr. Schorr was threatened with jail for contempt of Congress if he did not disclose his source. At a public hearing, he refused on First Amendment grounds, saying that to betray a source would mean to dry up many future sources for many future reporters . . . It would mean betraying myself, my career and my life.

Mr. Schorr's half-century career has earned him many awards for journalistic excellence, including three television Emmys and decorations from the Queen of the Netherlands and the President of the Federal Republic of Germany. He also has been honored by civil liberties groups and professional organizations for his unwavering defense of the First Amendment. In 1995 he received a Gold Baton from the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University organization to honor his exceptional contributions to radio and television reporting and commentary. The most prestigious award in the field of broadcasting, the duPont-Columbia Gold Baton is considered the equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize in the field. Mr. Schorr also won the coveted Peabody Award in 1993 for a lifetime of uncompromising reporting of the highest integrity and the George Polk Radio Commentary Award for his interpretations of national and international events. He has also been inducted into the Hall of Fame of the Society of Professional Journalists.

Mr. Schorr currently interprets the news as Senior News Analyst for National Public Radio.