Veteran news reporter Steven V. Roberts said there are two kinds of stories: Those about usual things that do not happen often, and those about things that happen every day.
“People nod about my stories because they are very familiar,” the Bayonne native said during an appearance at the Bayonne Jewish Community Center on May 12 to talk about his new book “My Father’s Houses: Memoir of a Family.”
More than 95 people attended a dinner prior to his presentation, and nearly 200 crowded the hall, oohing and aahing and nodding over the tales Roberts told about growing up in Bayonne.
While the nationally-known television and radio commentator talked about his book, much of what he had to say involved what Bayonne was like as a community and how people here interacted when he was a boy.
Since 1966, Roberts has been married to Cokie Roberts, award-winning reporter for ABC television and National Public Radio. Mayor Joseph Doria presented Roberts and his equally famous news reporter and commentator wife with keys to the city.
In presenting Cokie Roberts with her key, Doria made her an honorary citizen of Bayonne since she had heard so much about it from her husband over the years.
Roberts always wanted to be a writer
Born in 1943, Roberts said Bayonne played an important role in his life – although he is hardly the first writer in his family. His father wrote a children’s book about trains, under the name of Jeffrey Victor (the middle names of his two sons). Sixty years later, his own grandson asked Roberts for help in binding a handmade book of his own about trains.
Roberts remembered his father taking him to the walkway over the rail line along the eastern side of Bayonne to look at the trains. His father served as a role model.
“More than anyone else, he made me a writer,” Roberts said. “He encouraged me and guided me and cheered me on.”
He also had a great uncle who served as editor of Pravda, the official newspaper for the Soviet Union.
“I always wanted to be a writer,” he said. “I ran the little paper in the sixth grade at No. 3 School. The first day in high school, I went out for the Beacon and spent two years as the editor. My dad wrote children’s books; my uncle was a successful magazine writer. It was in my blood. In fact, at least 12 of my relatives have written books – we all inherited the writing gene. The only other profession that ever occurred to me was teaching. Dad had a teaching license but never used it. My twin brother has been a professor at Harvard for 40 years. And now I’m a professor at George Washington U. in addition to my writing. But I think the two careers are closely linked. Both try to explain the world to other people and encourage them to be good citizens.”
In coming home to Bayonne, Steve Roberts brings back a vision of the wider world. A journalist for more than 35 years covering stories from Harlem to Capitol Hill for radio, TV, as well as print media throughout the country, Roberts recalled the beginning of his career at the Bayonne Times as a copyboy at age 14, and jokingly talked about how his career almost ended when he printed the wrong movie starting time for the DeWitt Theater. It caused many patrons to arrive late at a financial loss to the theater.
“That taught me the importance of small details,” he said.
Returning to Bayonne
In responding to questions submitted to him by the Bayonne Community News, Roberts described his first impressions returning to Bayonne.
“What’s the same is the strong sense of community,” he said. “The blocks and neighborhoods retain their shape and spirit. What’s different is the ethnic groups populating some of those neighborhoods. There was never Arabic writing on storefronts in Bayonne before. I like the change. I think it makes the city stronger.”
A world view groomed in Bayonne
During his speech, Roberts joked about the a grandparent who had run an amusement park on First Street right across from where Steven Spielberg recently filmed “War of the Worlds.” His brief talk reflected a Bayonne to which many in the audience could relate, too, about how life for children centered on the block on which they lived, and even places a block away seemed like another country.
Neighborhood shaped Roberts’ early perception of the world – and he joked about how many wealthy people lived on streets with names while the poorer people lived on blocks named with numbers.
In Bayonne, people knew each other often from the churches they attended, and his world perception was painted partly because of the religious makeup of Bayonne, where 80 percent were Catholic and 19 percent Jewish.
“Until I left Bayonne, I thought Protestant was a very minority religious sect,” he said.
His memoirs in some ways serve as a history of his family and community, and depict what a special place Bayonne was to grow up in. In responding to a question as to what he brought away from Bayonne that helped him cope with the wider world, Roberts said, “I knew where I was from and who I was, Stevie Roberts from West 31st Street. There were no doubts about my origins, my roots, my traditions. When I left Bayonne I carried it with me. I wrote about and lived through some very turbulent times, but I kept an even course because I knew where I started from – and where I wanted to end up.”
Making his way to Harvard and beyond
Of course, when he finally left Bayonne to attend Harvard, he was a bit out of touch with the geography. He recalled coming out in the center of Harvard Square and asking someone where Harvard was. The person he asked was kind.
” ‘It’s all around you,’ he told me,” Roberts recalled.
As luck or fate would have it, he saw someone from Bayonne and latched onto the person for a time.
At Harvard, he became an editor of the Crimson, the university daily, and campus correspondent for the New York Times. After receiving a B.A. in government magna cum laude, Roberts joined the New York Times staff as a research assistant to James Reston, then the paper’s Washington bureau chief – beginning a career that would see him become the bureau chief for the Times for in several key cities including Los Angeles, and the White House correspondent during the waning years of President Ronald Reagan’s administration.
Roberts called Reston his other great role model.
“I served as his research assistant in ’64-’65, and even though he was the most influential figure in Washington journalism at the time, he took time for me every day – answering my questions, reading my articles, encouraging my dreams, advising me to marry Cokie,” Roberts said. “It was an indelible life lesson. No matter how prominent you become, you should always take to help younger people. I do that now as a professor, and Scotty is a big reason why. Every semester I tell my students about him and ask that they do only one thing in return for my help. That they help someone else.”
Although he only worked at the Bayonne Times as a copyboy. before starting off his professional career with The New York Times city staff in 1964-’65, he got the sense of beat reporting while covering Washington D.C.
“I did cover Congress for many years, and the Times was practically the hometown paper for Capitol Hill, and what I miss about that is the constant interaction with your sources,” he said. “You could develop relationships of mutual trust that enabled you to dig below the surface of events. And since your sources also read you every day they could hold you accountable for your mistakes – a very healthy lesson.”
Roberts became a senior writer at U.S. News and World Report in 1989, then went on to concentrate on his syndicated column, broadcasting appearances, teaching, and other projects.
Nothing would be changed
Roberts said in looking back, there is very little he would do over.
“Perhaps have more children. We have two lovely kids, both grown now and successful in their own lives, and five grandchildren. But you can’t have too many of those,” he said. “Perhaps I would have started writing books at a younger age. I’m 62 and this is only my third book. Books last in a way that news articles and broadcasts don’t. But those are very small things. I’ve been very blessed and I try hard to take nothing for granted. I want to help people every day, thank people every day, and tell people I love them every day.”