Talking Back

September 1, 2005
Mitchell's narration, as expected, is flawless. Her delivery is stamped with the distinctive inflections and authoritative husk TV viewers have come to know during her 30 years as a broadcast journalist, primarily with NBC. But for a memoir, this is a double-edged sword, for often the impression is: "This is Andrea Mitchell reporting live from the career of Andrea Mitchell." Rare are the truly personal moments, so her voice betrays little vulnerability. Even in the treatment of her marriage to Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, she maintains a mostly matter-of-fact tone about its unusual nature given their respective professions. Mitchell does allow a bit of personality to shine with her impersonations of Ronald Reagan and whiffs of resentment when considering antagonistic Reagan chief of staff Donald Regan. No doubt Mitchell has had to be tough. From the Jonestown massacre to the Iraq War, from Carter to Bush II, she has covered it all, regularly landing exclusives and beating the competition in a traditionally male-dominated profession. But ultimately, Mitchell's unwavering manner, which serves her well as a journalist, deprives the listener seeking deeper passages into the human heart, especially one that has beat so close to some of this country's most historic events.

June 13, 2005
Millions of TV viewers may feel they already know Mitchell—she has reported on politics for NBC for some 30 years and is married to the Fed's Alan Greenspan—but there's lots to learn about her in this engrossing memoir. Mitchell began as a "copyboy" at radio station KYW in Philadelphia in the 1970s. After covering the major political conventions for them, she was hired by NBC and headed to Washington. Shortly after, she flew to Guyana for her first major story: the 1978 Jonestown massacre. She has covered all the presidents from Carter through George W. Bush, done exclusives with Castro, sat in on high-level negotiations in the Middle East and North Korea, and much more. Mitchell's tales are fascinating, but her evolution as a journalist is even more intriguing. She was a gender pioneer, for example, but her gender rapidly became a nonissue. Yet her original insistence on a clear separation of work and social life seems progressively undercut by her own account. She mentions many dinners with dear friends like the Cheneys, and parties with the Bushes, Rice and Rumsfeld, and then wonders why the media got the Iraq WMD question so wrong. Still, this is a treat for political junkies. Agent, Robert Barnett at Williams & Connolly.