Three Bells! History\'d5s First Draft, As Told by the A.P.

The New York Observer, June 12th, 2007

BREAKING NEWS: HOW THE ASSOCIATED PRESS HAS COVERED WAR, PEACE, AND EVERYTHING ELSEBy Reporters of the Associated PressPrinceton Architectural Press, 413 pages, $35

Journalists aren’t usually hampered by a lack of professional self-esteem. They tell themselves that now, right now, history’s first draft is being feverishly scribbled in pocket-size notebooks and pounded out on laptops—a mantra repeated from J-School classrooms to war-ravaged foreign bureaus.

True, Baghdad bombing dispatches have far-reaching implications. But it’s much tougher to argue that news flashes about Hollywood breakups will earn a spot in history textbooks circa 2030. Indeed, polls consistently reveal that the public isn’t convinced that our celebrity-crazed media is necessarily doing the Lord’s work.

Breaking News, billed as the “first fully documented chronicle of AP’s coverage of the news,” could at least restore faith in the potential of the beleaguered Fourth Estate. Since 1846, soon after the invention of the telegraph, the Associated Press has provided terse, objective accounts of “war, peace, and everything else”—as the book’s subtitle proclaims—and incredible scoops: Lincoln’s assassination, the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the shah’s downfall in Iran.

Often, A.P. reports are printed in daily newspapers without a proper byline, so it’s fitting that the dozen or so journalists who penned the book aren’t mentioned by name on the cover. And because six decades have passed since the A.P. was last documented at length, it’s overdue for an update—plenty has happened since German troops marched into Poland. Furthermore, much of the material in Breaking News hadn’t seen the light until 2003, when archives were discovered under the company’s former Rockefeller Center headquarters.

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FOUR HUNDRED PAGES OF A.P. reports might capture the attention of a few hardened news junkies, but it would hardly add up to an enticing coffee-table book—if it weren’t for the photographs. Indeed, the 20th century’s narrative is clearly entangled with images—like A.P. photographer Joe Rosenthal’s shot of six marines raising a flag at Iwo Jima. There are many such iconic moments in this beautifully designed volume: Each section opens with a two-page, black-and-white spread. Chapters include “Aviation” (Parisians mobbing the Spirit of St. Louis), “Sports” (Ali slugging Frazier in Manila) and “Civil Rights” (federal troops in Little Rock).

These events have already been pored over by historians, and thankfully Breaking News isn’t trying to cover each one exhaustively. Instead, there are anecdotes most likely swapped between reporters on bar stools. In Munich in 1972, an A.P. reporter dons official Olympic garb to get near the German police investigation; foreign correspondents hire armed guards and rent a peanut-drying shack near Tora Bora to stay close to the hunt for Osama bin Laden. The late David Halberstam—killed in a car accident this past April—provided a heartfelt foreword about the A.P.’s heroic Saigon bureau, which stayed behind while the last choppers flew off over the South China Sea.

These days, in an era of media consolidation, when prominent newspapers like The Boston Globe are closing foreign bureaus and bloggers are proclaiming the demise of an out-of-touch mainstream media, it’s refreshing to remember how significant moments in history were skillfully reported on, and quickly disseminated to the world. It’s appropriate that the cover of Breaking News features a reporter racing to file the verdict from the Nuremberg trials, because the entire book sheds light on another well-worn journalism credo that’s been an Associated Press staple these past 150 years: Get it first, and get it right.

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Michael Calderone is a reporter at The Observer.