PBS' Watergate coverage was shockingly quiet

The New York Times

With Trump's impeachment hearings looming, James Poniewozik decided to revisit public television's 51 days of Watergate hearings that are up at the American Archive for Public Broadcasting. "The media coverage of Watergate gave us much of today’s concussive, ballistic jargon of scandal," says Poniewozik. "There were 'bombshells.' There were 'smoking guns.' Ever since, we have measured controversies as if on a decibel meter, judging them by their 'fireworks' and 'explosive' drama. But the most striking thing for a viewer in 2019, watching the gavel-to-gavel public-TV coverage of the first Senate hearings that began on May 17, 1973, is the quiet. There are no flashy opening graphics, just a stately timpani over the text of a Senate resolution. There are no yammering newsroom panels, no countdown clocks, no hashtags. There’s just testimony in a hushed hearing room and two soft-spoken anchors at humdrum desks, trying to figure out what the president knew, when he knew it and whether democracy still worked."