In this second episode of Ink in our Blood, Sarah talks to her dad, David Maraniss, about growing up as the son of a “Newspaper Man.”
In this second episode of Ink in our Blood, Sarah talks to her dad, David Maraniss, about growing up as the son of a “Newspaper Man.” Long before David won the Pulitzer Prize, and wrote best-selling biographies on Vince Lombardi, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Roberto Clemente, he watched his father, Elliott Maraniss, manage The Capital Times, the afternoon paper in Madison, Wisconsin. The son of a printer in Brooklyn’s Coney Island, Elliott knew every angle of a newspaper, from layout to headlines. David absorbed the sounds and sights of his father’s paper and the rhythm of life for a newspaper man in the 60’s. Those were the days of noisy typewriters, cigarette butts on the floor, teletype machines, and hot type. At the dinner table, he heard about the big stories of the day— a serial killer, JFK’s popularity with Midwest farmers, and a killer zoo elephant named Winkie. When David arrived at The Washington Post in 1977, the technology had advanced to 6-ply carbon paper and then large computers built by Raytheon. David tells Sarah about filing stories from earthquake ravaged Mexico, recognizing Bill Clinton’s rising political power, and learning the ropes from the Post’s Ben Bradlee.