Something Was Missing 30 Years Ago. It Isn't Anymore.

I don't do speed dialing as much as I have a few numbers in my mind and, lacking anything else captivating, normally remind myself to check them. C-SPAN 1, 2, and 3 fall into that category.

So it was with sudden, ohhhhh-yeah interest that I fell upon NBC's coverage of the fall (or circumventing, as it were) of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989. C-SPAN 3 did it right; it walked us through the day, about half an hour at a time, when it began to become clear that the East German government meant what it said: Any East German really could go into West Berlin or West Germany any time they wanted to.

The trickle of humanity became a rush, and then a near stampede. Freedom! People stood atop the Berlin Wall, helping each other to what was once the other's side. NBC announced the announcement, then came back again and again, reporting the reaction on the ground and at the White House, where Bush-41 and his Secretary of State, James Baker, tried not to get too excited at the end of the Cold War and, in all actuality, World War II at last, staring them right in the face: What was then supposed to be the victory of democracy over totalitarianism (How sad is that, looking back?).

I marveled at that. But I also marveled, in a retro- kind of way, at the NBC fleet of reporters who were at the White House, the Pentagon (NATO, you know), and Berlin itself. Here are the ones I saw do some reporting:

• Garrick Utley (original anchor of the special report)
• Robert Hagar
• Tom Brokaw (in Berlin, covering the other vestiges of Eastern European liberation)
• Martin Fletcher (London)
• Pete Francis
• John Cochran
• Mike Boettcher (also in Berlin)
• Mary Alice Williams (taking over as anchor later in the afternoon)

Familiar names, those. But notice anything? Almost no women. It felt a little odd. Because women are all over the networks now, doing both regular network and cable work every day without doubt or question. They do regular reporting in the field, covering disasters and wars. They own their shows and they're pretty good at it. The men are now the guests. And on shows hosted by males, women are now experts every bit as much as the men are.

Women are now doing NBA and college football play-by-play, and baseball analysis. Former women golfers do commentary on major golf networks. (What I'd like to see in sports is men becoming on-field reporters for women up in the booth, instead of blondes-on-the-field, giving pro and major college football a decidedly, continually sexist look. Could Michelle Tafoya sit upstairs with Al Michaels and do Sunday Night Football with Chris Collinsworth roaming the benches? Of course. It would look awkward, too. Until halftime.)

Better yet, there are no big announcements any longer. It is no longer a 'thing' that a woman has taken the reins of major journalism coverage, like it was when Barbara Walters tried to do the ABC evening news with Harry Reasoner in the '70s. Now they just do it.

Some of those pioneers are still with us if not actually working: Walters, Diane Sawyer, and Katie Couric, to name just three. They paid their dues for people like Rachel Maddow, Erin Burnett, Gayle King and Norah O'Donnell (and it's indicative that, if I start going down the latter list, I'd have to write a whole bunch of them now). The former fought their way to the top for the latter.

It's been good to be there for it. MSNBC's coverage of the impeachment investigation hearings will be anchored by Nicolle Wallace and Brian Williams. The four journalists who will be asking the questions at MSNBC's hosting of the next debate will all be women, from places like Harvard and Stanford.

Not that that surprises me. There have been female journalists all along. Some of them have been outstanding. But we don't know very many of them. We'll know these women, though. And remember, as we should.

Be well. Be careful. I'll see you down the road.


Mister Mark