NEWSWATCH by Thomas Griffith: The Press Has Lost Its Watergate Edge

Newswatch

In one of Virginia Woolfs novels a woman character remarks: "I am made and remade constantly. Different people draw different words from me." As much can hardly be said of Messrs. Carter, Begin and Sadat. From them different interviewers rarely draw different words, however clever or persistent the questioning. Begin and Sadat in particular are expert at saying what they want to say, and no more, to American interviewers.

They do so even though English is not their first tongue. (What is better for the Palestinians—self-rule or self-determination? "They are not so different, Barbara," Sadat answers calmly.) One has to go back...

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