The Press: China Coverage: Sweet and Sour

For the television viewer, the President's trip was a remarkable demonstration both of TV's powers and limitations. No written account could convey, as did the live camera, the drama of Nixon and Chou touching glasses after a quarter-century of enmity. At the same time, no written account could be as tedious as a camera searching for something—almost anything—to record.

Nothing could mar the coverage of the landing at Peking's airport. Undramatic in itself, the event nonetheless had something of the excitement of the first landing on the moon. Would the Chinese roll out...