The obscure 60s TV show that helped shape this reporter's career

Like most children wondering about their future, I had various ambitions when I was a kid, one of which was to become a political cartoonist. That idea never got off the drawing board (so to speak). Instead, after the usual youthful collection of short-lived jobs and false starts, I ended up spending most of my working life as a journalist.

I worked in radio news in Massachusetts and then as a reporter for newspapers in New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Maine for more than 30 years. And for most of that time, I covered state politics for papers in New Hampshire and Maine, particularly the interplay among assorted governors, state legislatures, and the ever-present special interests that deceive themselves into believing that lobbying is a noble profession.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but perhaps my eventual career as a political reporter began to take shape as far back as the mid 1960s, when I was a kid. Back then, I was addicted to a TV series on CBS that you’ve probably never heard of, even if you’re old enough to remember the time period.

The show was called Slattery’s People, and it starred Richard Crenna as, of all things, a state legislator named Slattery (in an unnamed state). Slattery’s People survived for a mere two years, from 1964 to 1965. It scored poorly in the ratings, but it won praise from the critics, and created at least one teenage fan in the process.

Looking back, I guess I was hooked from that point on. While studying political science in college in the late 60s and early 70s, I spent hours sitting in the public galleries at the Massachusetts State House in Boston, engrossed by the legislative process. For four years starting in 1977, I covered the New Hampshire Legislature in Concord as a newspaper reporter, followed 10 years later by the start of a 21-year stint reporting from the Maine State House in Augusta.

So why didn’t I go into politics rather than journalism? For one thing, I try not to lie, and when I do fib, I’m not very convincing. No poker face. So that would have disqualified me right off the bat. Plus, I have little tolerance for ignorance. If elected, I would have quickly antagonized ill-informed constituents who subjected me to their moronic opinions. Moreover, I'm more of an observer than a participant, a common journalistic characteristic.

Richard Crenna, who died in 2003, had a long and varied career in movies, TV and radio, but I still associate him with a long-forgotten role that he played almost 60 years ago. As a narrator intoned at the start of each episode of Slattery's People: “Democracy is a very bad form of government. But I ask you never to forget. All the others are so much worse.”