Covering Watergate
1972-1974
Primary Sources
A newcomer to the journalism landscape, public television aired live coverage of the Watergate hearings during the day and rebroadcast the hearings at night. Jim Lehrer and Robert MacNeil coanchored the hearings for PBS’s NPACT.
According to MacNeil, NPACT’s gavel-to-gavel coverage of the hearings, which preceded C-SPAN by several years, let Americans draw their own conclusions about Watergate. To read the transcript of the highlight reel from the impeachment hearings, click here.
Directions
Watch the highlight reel from NPACT’s Watergate coverage and respond to the questions in the boxes below.
Highlights from Robert MacNeil (left) and Jim Lehrer's (right) gavel-to-gavel coverage of the Senate Watergate hearings in 1973, edited for the purpose of this activity. Permission has been granted for educational purposes only courtesy of WETA-TV via American Archive of Public Broadcasting (WGBH and Library of Congress).