This Just In by Bob Shieffer

Generally speaking I don’t much like reading personal memoirs.  I find them too chatty and not a little bit vapid.  Bob Shieffer’s book This Just In proves itself to be an exception.  Shieffer describes his progress from college radio reporter in the 1950’s through his growth into one of the most widely respected television reporters.  What sets Shieffer’s story apart from other memoirs is his willingness to explore his own growth as a person or as a reporter.  Whether he is writing about his growing understanding of racism in America or his home state of Texas or the horrors of the war in Vietnam, Shieffer doesn’t spare himself as he lives through the challenges and changes of the late twentieth century.

Shieffer presents himself as a nice man and a hard-working reporter who doesn’t seem to have the drive or charisma of a Walter Cronkite or a Dan Rather.  During his career he covers all the major beats, has his share of failures, and serves as a mentor for several rising news people, mostly women, who are now household names.  His stories provide more insight into the process of working for a major network like CBS than they do into the politics and personalities of the time, although Shieffer has met and interviewed most of them.  He rarely has a critical word to say about people, and his writing is never mean. 

This Just In  is worth reading if only for the remarkably clear insight Shieffer provides into the difference between the State Department and the Pentagon.  “Left to its own devices (and it never should be), the Pentagon will find a way to take some action.  It may be the wrong act, but the Pentagon will act.  Left to its own devices, the State Department can be counted on to do nothing.”  In the light of the recent war in Iraq this statement takes on added meaning as we reflect on Rumsfeld’s commitment to mount an attack to dislodge Saddam Hussein for whatever reason he could sell to President Bush, while Powel, until pushed to the wall, continued to seek to find a negotiated solution to problems for which negotiation may have been impossible.

This Just In is light reading, but it is not fluff.  Take a few hours and enjoy.