Clash: Presidents and the Press in Times of Crisis,

Abstract

exhaustive Reporting Vietnam shows, most US reporters covering Vietnam were not part of Reston’s networks, yet they still deferred to official statements, handouts, and off-the-record backgrounders in the early 1970s. What, then, was the true power of those rooms where journalism’s elite congregated? Did their influence extend beyond Washington, DC, beyond the newsroom, into Vietnam and elsewhere? Considering the whole newspaper, and not just foreign-policy news and commentary, might begin to answer those questions. But that, of course, is another book. As McGarr has capably shown, there are more rooms to investigate.