Former Tampa investigative reporter Mark Feldstein, now a University of Maryland professor, was back in town last week to discuss his book Poisoning the Press: Richard Nixon, Jack Anderson, and the Rise of Washington's Scandal Culture at Inkwood Books. He met with me to talk about the book and its focus: journalist Jack Anderson, whose investigations of Nixon almost led to his own demise and whose muckraking tactics were a precursor of the "scandal culture" we see today.
From the interview:
"Anderson stalked Nixon like Ahab stalked the Great White Whale ... Anderson, far more than Woodward and Bernstein, haunted Nixon."
"Nixon's men met on March 24th, 1972 at a hotel called The Hay-Adams, across from the White House, and they came up with a CIA poison expert schemes to assassinate Jack Anderson. They conspired to murder a journalist."
Listen to the entire interview after the jump.
