By LAUREN SEARS
Staff Writer
A newspaper editor who managed coverage of the Watergate scandal for the Washington Post, and then led the largest newspaper in the Albany market will visit Saint Rose to talk about his new book From Kristallnact to Watergate: Memoirs of a Newspaper Man. Harry Rosenfeld, 84, is coming to Saint Rose to speak about his new book From Kristallnact to Watergate: Memoirs of a Newspaper Man. Rosenfeld is an editor at large, consultant and an editorial board member for the Times Union. He also is the former Metro editor of the Washington Post. During Rosenfeld’s time at the Washington Post in the 1970’s, he managed reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein who would eventually break the Watergate scandal during the Nixon Administration. Rosenfeld will be speaking at Saint Rose on Sept.30.
Rosenfeld visited The College recently and sat down with The Chronicle before his scheduled lecture. Watergate to this date remains one of the most historical political scandals in United States History. In 1972, five men were arrested for burglary and attempting to bug the Democratic National Committee offices at the Watergate Hotel and office complex . At the time, Rosenfeld was the Metro editor for the Washington Post. When this story first broke, Rosenfeld said in during an interview with The Chronicle that “This was a very big story for us, an unusually big story. Burglaries are not a big story, happens quite often for a local staff. A burglary at the Democratic National Convention is obviously a big story…” The Watergate scandal would eventually lead to the only resignation of a President in United States history, Richard Nixon ,in 1974. Rosenfeld said about Watergate that “I had no idea where this would lead, had no idea this would lead to the White House…”
Watergate was not the only reason why Rosenthal decided to write his memoir. As an immigrant from Nazi Germany he wants his family to know their history. “A memoir is a remembrance and I was bringing to mind all these memories in my life: many of them profoundly sad, many of them inspirational, many of them of accomplishments and of failure, it’s a story of a life, of an immigrant, America is a story of immigrants, I thought it was a story that needed to be told” said Rosenfeld during the interview with The Chronicle.
Rosenfeld is visiting Saint Rose as part of the partnership that Saint Rose has with the Hearst Corporation, which owns the Times Union.
Students, faculty, and staff will gain a lot of benefit by attending this event. “This is a wonderful opportunity to meet someone whose personal history and career have coincided with major events that are receding too quickly into distant memory or are merely topics in textbooks. As a witness to those events, Harry offers personal recollections and observations that bring them to life and explain their enduring importance” said Joann Crupi in an email to The Chronicle. Crupi is the Hearst Corporation Communications Professional in Residence at Saint Rose.
“Rosenfeld’s insight as someone who was reporting on Watergate is fantastic for anyone, especially in the media industry to have because we have as a society dealt with a couple of great examples of leaking information: Wiki Leaks and with Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning. You always hear about these events and how they compare to Watergate” said senior Communications student Blaise Bryant .
The future of journalism is ever changing with the advancement of technology. When asked during the interview if journalism has a place in the future, Rosenfeld said “I would regret more, the whole processes of exceptional journalism, being thrown away and saying it’s irrelevant, all we have to do is write what we think, what we believe, what we want to happen and that’s sufficient, that will sway public opinion, sway politicians that will implement policies. That is not my belief, my belief is based on informing the public, giving them as much as you can of the facts, and letting them decide for themselves, that is what democracy is.”
“An Evening with Harry Rosenfeld” will be at 7:30 p.m. at the Carl E. Touhey Forum in the Lally School of Education.
