Allentown Morning Call review of Capitol Journey

Journey from Capitol reporter to chronicler
Vince Carocci's new memoir covers his time on Pennsylvania's political scene.
By Shira R. Toeplitz
Call Harrisburg Bureau

June 12, 2005

HARRISBURG | When Vince Carocci came to the Capitol as a reporter in the early 1960s, the media world was a very different place.
In those days, reporters sparred with politicians by day, but mingled ''off-the-record'' in local bars by night. Relationships, in fact, were a lot more like ''The Front Page'' than ''All the President's Men.''
And Carocci had a front-row seat — first as a journalist and later as a press secretary for state Senate Democrats and the late Gov. Robert P. Casey Sr.
Now, in the memoir ''A Capitol Journey,'' he's pulled back the curtain on those years.
These days, the ex-newsman thinks the new breed of reporter is less interested in informing the public and more interested in getting his opinions across.
''Journalism was always a profession about informing first, and opinion-making second,'' Carocci said. ''The current class of journalism has allowed opinion-making to be their first priority. The (Dan) Rather case at CBS is a classic example of that.''
When Carocci worked in the Capitol newsroom, he said relationships between the press and politicians were less strained.
As a young reporter for United Press International, he vividly remembers a December tradition: ''The Divvy,'' a holiday luncheon where the invitees, the governor and his Cabinet were expected to bring their own liquor.
The next day reporters would divide the remaining libations among themselves, thus the name.
That sort of thing would never happen now, Carocci said.
''Particularly in the aftermath of Watergate and Vietnam, I think the barriers between politicians and the press got a little more distant,'' Carocci said. ''Young journalists came into the business probably thinking there was…an appearance of conflict and it was time to do away with it.''
Four years after Carocci left the newsroom in 1968, the press corps discontinued ''The Divvy.''
After a brief break, Carocci returned to the Capitol in 1971 to work for state Senate Democrats. As a child, he had watched his father and grandfather serve on the Scranton City Council, and a part of him had always pined for public service.
While with the Senate he saw profound changes in the state's political landscape, including the abolition of the electric chair and the coming of term limits for the executive branch.
In 1987, Carocci left Senate Democrats to work for Gov. Robert Casey Sr., first as his deputy press secretary and later as his press secretary. During this time, he witnessed even more change in the news businesses.
''The appetite of the institution was much more intense than I had experienced it,'' Carocci said. ''You have a 24-hour news cycle starting to come, you had cable, and you had talk radio.''
Carocci sees a lot of the late governor in his son, Democratic state Treasurer Bob Casey Jr., who shares his father's anti-abortion stance. When he would hear the younger Casey testify in legislative committee hearings, ''there was more than one occasion that if I would have closed my eyes, the words could have been his father's.''
Carocci is taking a break from politics to write his second book, a biography about a local high school basketball coach.