[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 81 (Thursday, June 23, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: June 23, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                         A TRIBUTE TO PAUL DUKE

                                 ______


                        HON. ANDREW JACOBS, JR.

                               of indiana

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, June 23, 1994

  Mr. JACOBS. Mr. Speaker, as our friend, David Broder, says, Paul Duke 
is a very special person.
  Paul Duke is a man of uncommon talent and uncommon modesty, the 
quintessential scholar and gentleman.

              [From the Indianapolis News, Jan. 19, 1994]

                   Retiring Journalist Earned Respect

                          (By David S. Broder)

       Washington.--Every Friday evening at 8 p.m., Eastern time, 
     millions of Americans interested in politics and public 
     affairs tune their television sets to ``Washington Week in 
     Review'' and watch some of this city's best journalists 
     summarize and discuss what is happening in the U.S. 
     government.
       For the past 20 years, the moderator of this Public 
     Broadcasting System program has been a mellow Virginian, Paul 
     Duke, who is the embodiment of an endangered tone of civility 
     and professionalism in the news business. Duke is retiring 
     from the program at the end of February, and last Wednesday 
     his colleagues hailed his work at the National Press Club. An 
     out-of-town assignment kept me from attending, but--like last 
     year's retirement of John Chancellor, a journalist of similar 
     quality--this is not an occasion which should go unremarked.
       There is never a surplus of sensible, non-strident 
     reporting and analysis, and ``Washington Week'' increasingly 
     has stood out as a monument to that tradition in a landscape 
     littered with ``infotainment'' and other forms of junk 
     journalism.
       As a very occasional participant in the show, I have 
     enjoyed the gentle makeup room needling and obvious 
     camaraderie of the regulars like Gloria Borger, Hedrick 
     Smith, Jack Nelson, Haynes Johnson, Charles McDowell, Howard 
     Fineman and Steve Roberts.
       Far more often, when on the road, tuning in to ``Washington 
     Week'' has been the closet thing to the ``fix'' I get when 
     shooting the breeze in The Washington Post newsroom with the 
     reporters covering the White House, Capitol Hill, the 
     State Department, the Pentagon or the big investigative 
     story of the week. In both cases, there is a minimum of 
     bunk and a maximum of good-humored, skeptical but earnest 
     effort to figure out exactly what the hell is going on.
       The tradition was already established when Duke slid into 
     the moderator's seat at ``Washington Week'' seven years after 
     the program went on the air. He has done a huge amount to 
     strengthen it. He came to the job as a first-rate reporter. 
     When I met him, he was part of a trio of political/
     congressional reporters at the Wall Street Journal, with Alan 
     L. Otten and Robert D. Nowak, that may have been as strong a 
     team as any news organization has ever had on that beat.
       He did the same kind of non-flamboyant but aggressive 
     reporting for NBC News before shifting to public television. 
     And he sought out the same kind of reporters for ``Washington 
     Week.'' Oddly, in opting for workhorses, rather than show 
     horses, ``Washington Week,'' found people like the late Peter 
     Lisagor of the old Chicago Daily News, who became beloved 
     figures to the weekly audience of 4.5 million people.
       Duke spoke at the press club of the extraordinary bond that 
     exists between the viewers and the regulars. Those viewers 
     worry about the reporters' colds, criticize their clothes, 
     name their children for their favorites. The trust that our 
     colleagues on ``Washington Week'' engender benefits all of us 
     in the journalist community. It's an offset to the cynicism 
     and distrust bred by the sarcastic, smart-aleck shouters who 
     dominate so many of the other Washington-based talk shows.
       Duke spoke for many of us when he said: ``It is our 
     business, the press' business, to chronicle all the deeds and 
     misdeeds (of public officials). And clearly the press is no 
     more perfect than the politicians or the policy-makers. There 
     is too much careless reporting today, too much cynicism, too 
     much reliance on unnamed sources, and too much instant 
     analysis which all too often turns out to be instant 
     baloney.''
       And in specific reference to television, he added: ``The 
     notion that news is entertainment has spawned a flashy and 
     slurpy brand of programming that leans heavily on sob stories 
     or celebrity interviews, shows that are little more than 
     video versions of the old Hollywood movie magazines and the 
     Police Gazette. What we've seen is the news business becoming 
     more like show business.''
       Happily, the executives at WETA-TV, which produces 
     ``Washington Week,'' have chosen a successor to Duke who 
     embodies the same values and virtues. Ken Bode is a political 
     scientist by training, who left teaching to write politics 
     very well for The New Republic magazine, then moved on to do 
     a first-class job as NBC's political reporter. He always has 
     eschewed the ``glamour-puss'' approach to television news in 
     favor of dogged reporting. His crammed, looseleaf source book 
     testified to his cultivation of grass-roots political 
     activists of all stripes.
       A few years ago, Bode returned to academic life at DePaul 
     University, while keeping his hand in journalism with special 
     reports and documentaries for CNN. He is going to keep his 
     home in Greencastle, Ind., while commuting to Washington 
     several days each week. That's smart.
       I've visited him there and joined him and his wild buddies 
     at their regular after-breakfast cribbage game near the 
     potbellied stove in an auto repair shop. If Bode or his 
     ``Washington Week'' panelists ever threaten to become stuffy, 
     the ``boys'' at the garage will razz him unmercifully.
       Paul Duke's fine legacy will be in good hands.

                          ____________________