NYTimes: Inside the Jan. 6 Committee

[CousinIT]

An inside look at how James Goldston, formerly of ABC news, was tasked with expertly producing the televised January 6th Committee's public hearings (and almost declined to do so), and more about the frustrations and struggles inside the Committee as they conducted what is arguably one of the most important House investigations in the history of the United States:

https://archive.ph/GYV75

The photo alone is astounding:



I have not read the entire article so I do not know whether it is a hit piece (a brief scan looks like maybe it is NOT), so don't attack me if you dislike it. I didn't write it!

James Goldston’s 30-year career — covering breaking news as a BBC correspondent, creating shows, overseeing the celebrity hosts of “Good Morning America” and running a news division — made him well suited to this new challenge. Still, Goldston struggled to contain his astonishment. He asked the staff how, in past House hearings, video footage was played. Someone just clicks a button on a laptop, he was told. Did they use a control room? he asked. No, no such room existed. Was there a video-production staff on hand? No. Was there money in the budget to hire such a staff? Goldston was informed that the committee staff’s senior team already had vast experience running hearings. “We’ve done these things before,” one of them assured him.

“I can’t do this,” he informed them. Though Goldston stopped short of quitting that day, his first meeting with the committee staff ended on a highly pessimistic note.

Word of Goldston’s consternation soon reached Thompson and Cheney, and within days, he received permission to recruit a small staff. Knowing he needed experienced storytellers, Goldston made his first calls to four senior producers he worked with as the executive producer of ABC’s long-running news-documentary program “Nightline.” Then he met with a veteran Washington-based video-production director named Todd Mason and immediately requested that he and his deputy be hired. Together they constructed a temporary control room in the Cannon House Office Building, one floor above the committee room where the hearings would take place. These six individuals, along with five video editors, would constitute the team for a man accustomed to having as many as 2,000 employees at his disposal.

Like the lawyers on the investigative team, Goldston’s group consisted of highly experienced professionals whose work on the committee paid them far less than what they would have commanded in the private sector. Though no one needed a reminder that the significance of their mission could not be measured in dollars, Goldston saw fit to hang a poster in the office featuring a quote from the Watergate film “All the President’s Men”: “Nothing’s riding on this except the First Amendment of the Constitution, freedom of the press and maybe the future of the country.” (After the hearings began, Goldston also hung an enlarged printout of a statement Trump made to associates: “Those losers keep editing video.”) . .

[Sanity Claws]

1. They look like serious adults

Good on them and so different from MAGA folk.

[Ocelot II]

2. It isn't a hit piece at all - it's a very interesting description

of the inner workings of the committee's process in putting together the materials for the public hearings. There were some internal arguments, which would be inevitable in an undertaking of this size and complexity, but these were clearly in good faith and in an attempt to do the best possible job. The article seems quite objective. A good read.

[lindysalsagal]

3. Their bravery and determination are not unlike that of the founders: not all friends,

not all from similar values, but they trusted each other to build a human devise to save democracy. They knew it didn't have to be pretty- only effective.