There's a nice obit in today's Albany Times Union for Betty Flood, following up on Carl Strock's memorial for his friend Marv Cermak, another octogenarian reporter whom only death this December could stop working. I knew neither Betty nor Marv well, but found both gracious when I occasionally bumped into them, and have nothing to record against their legendary status in the annals of Capital Region journalism.
The news gives me an excuse to run again this New York Times photo by Nathaniel Brooks from March 10, 2008 (March 11 for the print version). That's me in the bottom left, listening to Betty in her small Cuyler News Service office on the third floor of the Capitol, waiting for Gov. Eliot Spitzer to comment on the prostitution story the Times had just broken online (which would result in his resignation a couple of days later).
The LCA (Legislative Correspondents Association) television couldn't pick up the NYC station which was going to carry the Spitzer appearance, but Betty's could. Standing to the right is AP reporter Valerie Bauman, and the guy looking in at the middle of the doorway is Assemblyman Michael Benjamin, D-Bronx.
