The Press: A Sense of When and Where

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Bureaucratic Frustrations. A lean, plain-spoken fellow who grew up in Chicago and was educated at the University of Chicago, Broder acquired his passion for detail on the Congressional Quarterly, which publishes masses of statistics on bills and voting patterns. From the Quarterly, he moved to the Washington Star, then 51 years later to the New York Times, where he found himself hemmed in by the habits of a long-established institution. He eventually resigned with a characteristically detailed 71-page memo criticizing the paper for its "endless bureaucratic frustrations in the New York office," its "proliferation and needless division of responsibility in the field" and "parochialism of outlook."

On the Washington Post, Broder, now 38, is free to roam and write as he pleases. While other reporters bemoaned the monotony of the convention, Broder's attention never seemed to flag. Dull or not, it was his kind of story. "All the political personalities are cased in one place," he says. "All the elements come together here."