cover image Happy Talk: Confessions of a TV Newsman

Happy Talk: Confessions of a TV Newsman

Fred Graham. W. W. Norton & Company, $19.95 (352pp) ISBN 978-0-393-02776-1

Replete with closeups of famous people, this lively autobiography is filled with wryly humorous anecdotes. Graham, trained as a lawyer, worked as a legal reporter for the New York Times from 1964 to 1972, then in a similar capacity with CBS-TV until 1987. At the network he reported on the legal aspects of Watergate, Vice President Spiro Agnew's resignation and the Pentagon Papers, and covered the Supreme Court, the Justice Department and the FBI. During his years at CBS, Graham saw the news division change its emphasis from reporting and analyzing major events to ``infotainment'' as the rating wars intensified. Forced out of his network job, he became an anchor and senior editor at WKRN-TV in Nashville, where he had practiced law. Unsuccessful at ``happy talk,'' the mainstay of local news broadcasting, he lasted slightly more than a year. Photos not seen by PW. (Mar.)