On May 17, 1973, Sen. Sam Ervin, D-N.C., gavelled in the first public hearing of the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, better known as the Senate Watergate Committee. The impending result was almost unfathomable. The months that…

In the summer of 1973, Robert MacNeil and Jim Lehrer led PBS’s gavel-to-gavel coverage of the Senate Watergate hearings — launching the beginnings of what the PBS NewsHour is today. On May 17, the NewsHour will look back at the…

EmbedVideo(6418, 482, 304); "Covering Watergate," a PBS NewsHour special report, will air May 17. Forty years ago, in the summer of 1973, Robert MacNeil and Jim Lehrer led public broadcasting's gavel-to-gavel coverage of the Senate Watergate hearings -- co-anchoring…