The Park Library Logo

LIZ DONOVAN: 
News Researcher

From Watergate to Whitewater:
20-Odd years in News Research

By Elisabeth (Liz) Donovan
Miami Herald News Research Manager

I stumbled into news research by sheer chance, and at the best possible
time and place: the Washington Post library in the late '60s. Post
research director Mark Hannan hired me out of the promotions department,
where I'd had a temporary job pasting up Pulitzer Prize entries. 

My first week in the Post library, April 1968, was the week of one of the
Post's biggest news stories: rioting in the nation's capital following the
assassination of Martin Luther King.  Seeing burning buildings and looters
on my way to work, and watching the Post's reporters, photographers, and
editors deal with this big story was an instant education in newspapering. 

Mark, along with librarian Bill Hifner, built a staff of unusual and
brilliant people who made coming to work interesting every day. Among them
developed some outstanding news researchers/librarians/friends, including
Joe Wright, Jeannette Brown, Sunday Orme, Pat Davis, and others. Some of
us became proficient at marking (indexing) stories, some at photo
cataloging, some at book and collection development. And some of us loved
to research. 

 A year before Watergate, a really big research project came along, when
the Times and the Post got hands on the Pentagon Papers. Though the Times
was first to print, the Post was just a day or so behind. I was taken off
daily chores to spend days working intensely with reporter Murray Marder
to document events in the Papers: this meant climbing shelves in a storage
room, pulling dusty boxes of clips on Vietnam from 6-8 years back,
searching for any mention of particular events. It was a dirty,
frustrating job, but worth every moment to be able to help publish such
important stories. 

It wasn't the only big research job I'd gotten to do: working with the
Post's talented reporters, we were asked to help out on lots of big
stories. We really felt that we were partners with the newsroom; although
the people we worked with were stars, or would become stars, the library
was part of the team. The people we worked with were our friends and
colleagues. But none of those projects were as big as the Pentagon Papers,
or the big story about to happen: 

When we picked up the newspaper Sunday morning, June 18, 1972, and read
about the break-in at the Watergate complex, it wasn't much of a surprise:
except that the burglars were actually caught. As the story developed over
the next few weeks, though, it became more and more fascinating. When Carl
Bernstein asked me to become his and Bob Woodward's researcher on the
story, though, I had to refuse. It meant quitting the library and I had
just come back from a leave of absence and didn't want to jeopardize the job. 

Carl said they expected the story to lead to a book, so research would be
a full time job. I compromised and agreed to do much of their filing work
on overtime, and they hired another researcher from outside to do legwork.
For much of the next two years,

I spent a few hours almost every day clipping and filing every mention of
the Watergate story from every major paper and magazine we had access to,
and working with Carl and Bob to track events. By the time the case had
reached crisis status and Carl and Bob's book was published in spring
1974, the clips filled a file cabinet, and I was working on the National
desk. The last I checked, you could still buy those clips on microfilm
from UMI: The Washington Post Watergate collection. 

My copy of All the President's Men is looking a little shabby now: the
cover was slit taking it out of the box when the first shipment arrived in
the newsroom. Inside is my name in the first acknowledgments (with Ben
Bradlee, Katharine Graham, and others)

. Carl signed "For Liz, with love + thanx"; Bob wrote "With greatest
admiration -- thanks for your help, patience and friendship". Folded
inside the book are some mementoes: a Doonesbury cartoon about Woodward
and Bernstein, the invitation to the book publication party at the Textile
Museum, a photo (taken by librarian George Stoica) of Bob Woodward and
Robert Redford standing at the library counter, and the national news
budget for the day Nixon resigned. 

In spring of 1973, the Post staff was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for
coverage of the Watergate story. Many thought that Bernstein and Woodward
should have won, but all of us spent lots of time helping make those
stories happen; the Post's management, too, stuck their necks out (and
other parts of their anatomies: remember Attorney General Mitchell's
comment about Katharine Graham?) It was a team effort and an incredible
experience. Those of us who worked at the Post in those years were
blessed. I'll never forget the comradeship we had then, and keep fond
friendships still. 

Before I left the Post in spring of 1975, I worked as national desk
researcher, with Pat Davis. We were both ex library staff, and knew how to
combine our library skills with the reporting skills we learned on the
desk. We helped on campaign coverage, contributed to stories, and twice I
wrote long lists of prosecutions in the Watergate and related cases. I
also got to work on the Post's first Computer Assisted Reporting project,
a study of Congressional staffing, with Steve Isaacs; and helped
cartoonist Herb Block on a book about Nixon (the credit said "...researches
with an almost clairvoyant sense..."). 

I retired from newspaper work, then, to see what else I could do; travel
and eventually starting a natural food store in the N.C. mountains. A few
years later, Joe Wright lured me back to newspapers: he was at the Miami
News by then and introduced me to Nora Paul. So here I am again.  Since
1981 at the Herald, we've helped cover international crises, immigration,
drugs and crime, and hurricanes. Again I've gotten to work at a newspaper
on the cutting edge of what's happening. And exactly 20 years after
participating in the Post's Watergate Pulitzer, I was part of a paper-wide
Pulitzer Prize: for the Miami Herald's coverage of Hurricane Andrew. 

Now I'm in the catbird seat in the newsroom again, coordinating research,
training, designing computer research workstations, contributing to
stories and learning new things. I speak at national conventions, the
University of Miami, once at a Latin American investigative journalism
seminar in Chile. At this writing, in May of 1996, I've been learning to
use Access to run FAA and DOT databases to analyze patterns of air crashes
and incidents to help understand the recent Valujet crash here in the
Everglades. Just got a nice credit ("computer whiz"!) in Herald reporter
Andres Oppenheimer's new book about Mexico. Many reporters I've worked
closely with here have gone on to work at the Washington Post. The circle
continues. 

I'm active in the IRE and believe news researchers' future lies in
becoming the C.A.R experts, technicians, and trainers in the newsroom.  I
still love digging through clips, too.  Mark Hannan used to swear there
would never be a computer in his library. 

I believed he was right then, and I wish he were still with us. But news
research will never again be what it was. It is becoming something new,
and very exciting. 

It's the best job in the world! 

(P.S. The next time you see the movie of All the President's Men, look for
the librarian who single handedly turns the Watergate investigation around.
You'll see Robert Redford, as Woodward, buried in piles of Who's Whos,
trying to identify Kenneth Dahlberg, the man whose name was on the check
found in the burglars' bank account. A librarian who looks a lot like me
shows him a photo found in the library files that makes the connection he
needs. I don't remember who actually found the photo, or if an editor
suggested the search, as one has claimed. The important thing is that the
filmmakers found it relevant to put our role in the story into the movie.
It's a permanent reminder of how essential our job is, and what a
difference we can make.) 
Donovan's Updated Bio Brief: 2002
I got into newspapers after graduation from college (B.A. from Marymount College, Tarrytown, New York, in political science with one year at London School of Economics) when I was hired to put together contest entries at the Washington Post. When that job finished, I was recommended to the Post’s library director Mark Hannan, was hired and started at the beginning of March 1968. That week, Martin Luther King was killed and the city erupted in rioting. What an introduction to the news business!

I was assistant librarian at the Post. I quickly learned research was my skill; I helped with research for Pentagon Papers and Watergate stories, including research for Woodward and Bernstein's All the President's Men. I moved to the national desk and helped with election coverage, coverage of Nixon’s last days and much more.

In 1975 I left the Post to travel to Central America. When I came back I started and ran a natural food store in the North Carolina mountains for 4 years.

In 1980 I came to Miami and started work (for Nora Paul) at the Miami Herald library in 1981. I was in the library for 10 years, then moved to the newsroom as Research Editor.

I’m responsible for research and public records training, online resources contracts and budgeting, and am part of our CAR team. I regularly get research credit on stories, along with bylines on chronologies and other infoboxes, along with credits on several books by Herald staffers and others.

I started a newsroom intranet in 1995 and have been maintaining – and improving - it ever since. In coming months I’ll be getting more involved with the Herald’s web site. I also maintain a personal web site for news researchers at http://home.infi.net/~donovan called Behind the News.

I was part of team awarded 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting for coverage of Miami election fraud and am featured in the 2000 book Super Searchers in the News. I’ve spoken at several SLA conferences on various research topics, and also at Investigative Reporters & Editors (IRE), National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting (NICAR), Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ), Florida News Librarians' Association (FNLA), a Latin American Investigative Journalists’ convention in Santiago, Chile sponsored by Interamerican Press Association, and at NetMedia2001 in London.

I’ve been active in SLA, attending meetings alternate years, since about 1990. I’ve also been active for many years in the FNLA, including two terms as president. I’m also an IRE member and have attended several conventions.

Copyright 2003 - The Park Library - School of Journalism and Mass Communication - University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill