NPR

Essential Pittsburgh

    • Watergate 40 Years Later

      Sunday will mark the 40th anniversary of the break-in at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C. The resulting cover-up and scandal eventually led to Richard Nixon’s resignation more than two years later, and ramifications in politics and society that affect us still today. Gregg Ramshaw was part of the investigative team for the Chicago Today and Chicago Tribune newspapers while the scandal unfolded. He joins us to talk about his recollections about the Watergate scandal.

    • Could Watergate Happen Today?

      If Watergate happened today, would we be able to cover it? Or do the plight of newspapers, scaled back budgets for investigative journalism, and a naïve faith in the web mean that stories like that simply can’t be done anymore? Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the Washington Post reporters who broke the Watergate story, stirred up that discussion recently on a panel in Washington, D.C. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette writer Mark Roth and Ellyn Angelotti from the Poynter Institute join us to discuss the issue.

    • Root Shock

      In gardening, “root shock” is the traumatic stress a plant goes through when it is uprooted. Psychiatrist Mindy Fullilove points out how the same thing happens to people displaced from their emotional ecosystem, whether by natural disaster, development-induced displacement, war, or gentrification. In her book, Dr. Fullilove uses the example of the Hill District to illustrate how this happens. Dr. Fullilove uses Pittsburgh to illustrate positive changes in neighborhoods, too. She will be giving a lecture on Monday, June 18, at the August Wilson Center. We talk to her about her ideas on urban renewal, and how Pittsburgh has exemplified both some of the best and some of the worst it has to offer.