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December 1969 -- --------------- ---------- ----- - --------, 1eman• orts December 1969 Democracy and the Press By JohnS. Knight Covering the Vietnam War By Peter Braestrup What I've Learned About the Press By Lord Devlin Robert G McCloskey, 1916-1969 By Alan Barth Harvard Appoints Nieman Selection Committee for 1970-71 --- --- - ·. --- ·---------------- 2 NiemanReports VOL. XXIII, NO. 4 Louis M. Lyons, Editor Emeritus December 1969 -Dwight E. Sargent, Editor- -Tenney K. Lehman, Managing Editor- Editorial Board of the Society of Nieman Fellows Robert W. Brown Roy M. Fisher C. Ray Jenkins Sylvan Meyer Augusta Chronicle Chicago Daily News Alabama J oumal Miami News Millard C. Browne Robert B. Frazier John Strohmeyer Robert Lasch Buffalo News Eugene Register-Guard Bethlehem Globe-Times St. Louis Post-Dispatch William B. Dickinson Thomas H. Griffith E. J. Paxton, Jr. Robert Giles Philadelphia Bulletin Life Magazine Paducah Sun-Democrat Knight Newspapers Tillman Durdin Rebecca Gross Harry T. Montgomery Smith Hempstone, Jr. New York Times Lock Haven Express Associated Press Washington Star William F. Mcilwain Alan Barth David Kraslow George Chaplin Newsday Washington Post Los Angeles Times Honolulu Advertiser Published quarterly by the Society of Nieman Fellows from 77 Dunster Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138. Subscription $3 a year. Second­ class postage paid at Boston, Massachusetts. What I've Learned About the Press By Lord Devlin evitable. But I have been surprised to find in many public Lord Devlin has just retired after five years as chairman men a feeling of personal hostility towards the Press that was of the British Press Council. sometimes quite intense. What causes it? The image of a profession reflects its past, especially its ·immediate past, more clearly than its present. All professions have a discreditable past. Even those that are now most When I became chairman of the Press Council-and respected have their skeletons-their medical quacks, their thereby, I suppose, left the Establishment for the outer rascally attorneys and the like. During the past 100 years one world-! did not expect to find a high degree of mutual profession after another has submitted to discipline. admiration existing between the Establishment and the The freedom of other professions is largely their own to do Press. Their natures make them opposing forces whose inter­ with what they will: the freedom of the Press belongs in the action is designed to set the delicate balance on which a free society rests. A basic antagonism is healthy as well as in- (Continued on page 15) NIEMAN REPORTS 3 Democracy and the Press by John S. Knight What Gov. Richard B. Ogilvie of Illinois said last Septem­ Having thus been dissected in public, a common occurrence ber 26 at the Lovejoy Monument rededication ceremonies in nearly 40 years as a regular writer of commentary and in Alton is incontestable. The Governor rightly observed opinion, I beg your indulgence to proceed with some that "to truly honor the Lovejoy heritage demands a re­ thoughts and observations. newed dedication to the principles he espoused and to the As with the late Ralph McGill, I am a sentimentalist about land which he loved." newspapers. And I have always shared McGill's view that Which properly invites the question as to how well the newspapers ought to believe in the journalistic relevance of press of America is meeting this test. Are we as vigorous and moral principle. dedicated as we might be? Or, as a now departed Washing­ Philosophy, broadly construed, is the love of wisdom. In ton politician once put it, "do we duck, dodge and slide" application, says the dictionary, it is the science which inves­ when confronted with the gut decisions? tigates general facts and principles of reality and of human I can speak only as one recently described by Hugh Sidey nature and conduct. of LIFE as "that old curmudgeon," a term which in Web­ My philosophy of newspaper publishing centers upon ster's New International Dictionary means "an avaracious, these basic points: grasping fellow; a miser, niggard, churl." The Knight Newspapers strive to meet the highest stand­ While reeling from the impact of this low blow to my ards of journalism. We try to keep our news columns factual dignity, Mr. Sidey soothed my feelings with another defini­ and unbiased, reserving our opinions for the editorial page tion from William Safire's"The New Language of Politics." where they belong. According to Safire, "a curmudgeon is a likeably irascible We have no entangling alliances. We are not beholden to old man." any political party, faction or special interes t. Well, that was better. But along came a letter from a self­ Our editors and officers studiously avoid conflicts of inter­ styled devoted reader who said that through the years he est. They serve on no corporate boards or committees other had found me "stubborn, exasperating, frequently wrong, than appropriate civic organizations or committees in the unpredictably right, liberal, conservative, drastic and mod­ fields of education and communications. erate." It is our publishing judgment that business and general And to the New York Times, I am invariably "crusty." managers should conduct the managerial functions of our --------- - - - ·- ·- ·------------- - 4 NIEMAN REPORTS newspaper group; that the editors be responsible for the es poured forth from Washington and Saigon to prove that news, feature and editorial quality. we were actually winning the war. Years ago, I maintained We believe in making a profit through efficient production that these overly optimistic pronouncements were a men­ and modern business procedures, but we do not sacrifice the dacious melange of misinformation. quality of our newspapers on the altar of the counting house. On April 25, 1954, I warned that the United States was True, we have our critics who take issue with aggressive headed toward another war through the pattern of gradual editorial performance. But the truly distinguished news­ involvement. "Intervention in Indochina," I wrote, "would papers in this country are those which have dared to face find us fighting another dead end war with virtually no public wrath and displeasure. support from our allies." I said further that "if the President, As responsible purveyors of information and opinion, the Vice President and Secretary Dulles are to be believed, our newspapers are committed to the philosophy that jour­ the United States will be irretrievably involved before the nalism is likewise a public trust, an institution which serves, year is out." protects and advances the public welfare. For my pains, I was assailed as an un-American appeaser For me to maintain that we have consistently achieved and a pro-Communist sympathizer. The drum beat of criti­ perfection in the pursuit of these goals would be an imperti­ cism swelled in volume and sound for the next 12 years. So nence. But they stand, nevertheless, as guidelines and inspira­ my believability suffered steady erosion until the Fulbright tion for the officers and editors who direct our policies. And hearings of 1966-67 when the American people came to the they make us believable to the thousands of men and women shocking realization that they had been duped. in our organization who hold to high ideals of ethical jour­ On the subject of objectivity, there are many diverse views. nalism. If dictionaries have not gone out of style, objectivity means The charges most generally directed against the press­ "involving the use of facts without distortion by personal and I refer specifically in this instance to newspapers-in­ feelings or prejudices." Objective reporting to old-time news­ clude the following: The American press is not to be be­ papermen meant an unbiased and accurate account of the lieved. Newspapers are not objective in their coverage of event being covered. "Ideally," says journalist Herbert people and events. Bias and sensationalism show through Brucker, "the reader should not be able to tell, from reading their columns. a news story, which side the reporter is on. That is precisely The press is pro-establishment and cares nothing about what it was-and still is. the rights of minority groups. Newspapers have shown little "But today," laments Mr. Brucker, "objective news has be­ or no appreciation or understanding of the motivations of come anathema to young activists in journalism, to some of youth in their reporting of campus demonstrations or the the rising generation of university intellectuals, and to others incidents at Grant Park during the 1968 Democratic con­ who should know better." It is indeed a fact that many of vention. Editorial position dictates everything that appears the younger journalists are more intent upon reforming the in the news columns. world than in reporting it accurately. They find nothing un­ These allegations are by no means all inclusive. But they ethical in attempting to use the news columns for what they will suffice for the purposes of this dissertation. consider to be the vastly more important iss ues of progress Newspapers, unlike the ordinary run of magazines and and betterment of mankind. much of the electronic media, are sitting ducks for the The doubters say there is no such thing as absolute objec­ unbelievability charge since they dare to take strong positions tivity. Kerry Gruson, daughter of a New York Times news on public men and issues. The politician whose integrity is executive, declares that objectivity is a myth. "There comes a challenged by the press resorts to cries that he has been mis­ point," avers Miss Gruson, "when you have to take a stand. quoted and to threats of libel. His friends and supporters ... After that you try to be fair." naturally tend to side with him and cast aspersions on the I disagree. If a newspaper did not pursue the quest for ancestry of the editor.
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