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Bernard Devoto 1eman• orts January~ 1958 Bernard DeVoto By A. B. Guthrie Twenty Years of Nie1nan Fellowships Louis M. Lyons The All-Day Newspaper Victor J. Danilov The Voice of the West Alastair Scott Denmark: Labor Press Puzzle Max Awner Access to Quasi-Public News Chades.-Gene McDaniel Getting Through to Newspaper Readers Byron H. Christian Critic's Corner: Keen Rafferty - Reviews: Press of 1776 - Segregation-Integration -John MeL. Clark: Life of a Young Editor. Nieman Notes. 2 NIEMAN REPORTS School's training iJJ. journalistic skills. "The course should," the dean said, "enable the young journalist to see an event NiemanReports as it emerges from the stream of current history. It should stimulate him to read, to think, to place in intelligent Nieman Reports is published by the Nieman Alumni Council: perspective all .the occurrences that are his to deal with. Piers Anderton, New York City; Barry Brown, Providence, R. 1.; We believe the course will further Joseph Pulitzer's tradi­ John L. Dougherty, Rochester; Thomas H. Griffith, New York tion of free inquiry, upon which the School was founded." City; A. B. Guthrie, Jr., Great Falls, Mont.; John M. Harrison, Toledo, 0.; Weldon James, Louisville, Ky.; Francis P. Locke, Dr. Grayson Kirk, president of the University, called the Dayton, 0.; Frederick W. Maguire, Columbus, 0.; Harry T. Mont­ new course "an example of significant pioneering in jour­ gomery, New York City; Frederick W. Pillsbury, Boston; Charlotte nalism education." F. Robling, Norwalk, Conn.; Dwight E. Sargent, Portland, Me.; Kenneth Stewart, Ann Arbor, Mich.; John Strohmeyer, Bethlehem, "You might call this an attempt to build bridges from Pa.; Walter H. Waggoner, The Hague, Netherlands; Melvin S. the Graduate School of Journalism to the several faculties," Wax, Chicago; Lawrence G. Weiss, Boulder, Colo.; Louis M. President Kirk said. "The bridges, of course, will be broad Lyons, Cambridge, Chairman. Published quarterly from 44 Holyoke House, Cambridge 38, enough to carry the two-way intellectual traffic. Ideas Mass. Subscription $3 a year. Entered as second-class matter De­ will flow both ways. The journalists will benefit greatly; cember 31, 1947, at the post office at Boston, MassachUsetts, un­ but so, too, will the scholars of the other faculties, meeting der the Act of March 3, 1879. the young newspapermen in their world of journalism." VOL. XII; NO. 1 JANUARY, 1958 The immediate objects of the course will be to give all of the School's 72 degree candidates an acquaintance with "Basic Issues in the News~~ the six major issues and to drill them in the disciplines of scholarship as they prepare major papers and shorter Columbia Opens a New Journalism Course articles. The six subjects to be studied are: Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism ENERGY AND CONTROL. Dean Dunning, a pioneer opened last Fall with a new dean, Edward W. Barrett. in the development of the atomic bomb and a leading One of his first moves was to establish a course, "Basic physicist, will survey the history of the development of Issues in the News," described by Columbia as "a new pro­ physical energy, the physics of heat and fuel, the politics of gram to enable young journalists to attain broader un­ nuclear energy, and the role of government in nuclear derstanding of underlying currents in the news under the control and development. Collaborating with him will guidance of leading scholars." be Professor John Foster, Jr., of the Faculty of Journalism. The new course was announced as follows: THE NATIONAL STATE AND THE INTER­ Six high-ranking members of other faculties of the Uni­ NATIONAL COMMUNITY. Professor Jessup, formerly versity will join the Faculty of Journalism in conducting ambassador at large and United States Representative at the course. With their help, the students will examine six the United Nations, will discuss international relations major issues through background readings, lectures, semi­ and organizations, American traditions of isolationism, and nars, writing assignments and the production of major combinations and balances of power. His collaborator research papers. The first year of the experimental pro­ will be Professor John Hohenberg. gram was made possible by a gift to the School of The FREEDOM AND SECURITY. Professor Maciver, an New York Times Foundation. author and sociologist, will examine national security and The six visiting lectures will be: the limits of freedom, with special reference to freedom Dr. John R. Dunning, Dean of the Faculty of Engineer­ of opinion; and economic and social security and the ing and Professor of Physics. rights of the individual. Dr. Philip C. Jessup, Hamilton Fish Professor of Inter­ THE CRISIS OF THE CITY. Professor Sayre, who national Law and Diplomacy. has held positions in the New York City and Federal gov­ Dr. Robert M. Maciver, Lieber Professor Emeritus of ernments, will review urban history, the city's powers and Political Philosophy and Sociology. limitations, its administration and financing, its politics, Dr. Wallace S. Sayre, Professor of Public Administra­ and its future problems. His collaborator will be Professor ti n. Richard T. Baker. 'I r. Herbert Wechsler, H arlan Fiske Stone Professor of THE COURTS AND THE CONSTITUTION. Pro­ nstitutional Law. fessor Wechsler, a former United States Assistant Attorney r. L ' O Wolm an, Professor of Economics. General and government adviser, will trace the develop­ an Ba rr tt described the course as an effort to add ment of the law and the judiciary, courts and their juris- some grounding in the substance of the news to the (Continued on page six) NIEMAN REPORTS 3 DeVoto - A Memoir by A. B. Guthrie I am going to talk about Bernard DeVoto-Benny, as so Let's have a look at DeVoto. He was a Westerner who in many of us called him. It is a difficult subject. Any apprais­ a sense renounced the West but still loved it. I told him al of DeVoto and his works is sure to be so much less than once that he was in the position of a man who had left his the man that I approach this assignment with misgivings wife only to find that if he couldn't get along with her and humility. The task is made all the harder because neither could he get along without her, and Benny gave me Benny was my friend. his little knowing grin and agreed that it was so. In the beginning we talked of having two pieces about But to begin to understand Benny, you have to read the him, perhaps on the subjects of DeVoto, the historian, and Preface to one book of his trilogy. That book is The Year DeVoto, the militant and critical friend of the American of Decision, and he opens it with what he titles an Invo­ West. I found him indivisible. In addition, I found other cation by Henry Thoreau. I am going to read what Tho­ aspects of his personality and his life that I wanted to talk reau wrote and what DeVoto uses: about. When I go out of the house for a walk, uncertain as I am not going to say much about his contributions to yet whither I will bend my steps, and submit myself to the craft of fiction. They were great. Due to him, we know my instinct to decide for me, I find, strange and whim­ something about the actual visceral workings of fiction. sical as it may seem, that I finally and inevitably settle Others have added to it, amended it-but the first and southwest, toward some particular wood or meadow or greatest indebtedness is to him. If you want really to know deserted pasture or hill in that direction. My needle is the basis on which most of us teachers operate, read De­ slow to settle-varies a few degrees and does not always Voto's World of Fiction. Just about everything that we point due southwest, it is true, and it has good authority know and believe is expanded in it. for this variation, but it always settles between west and We know more about fiction than non-fiction. That is, south-southwest,. The future lies that way to me, and we have developed principles that we consider aids to wri­ the earth seems more unexhausted and richer on that side. ters, beginning and established. And it is one of the losses ... Let me live where I will, on this side is the city, on in DeVoto's death that he had not the time to bring his that the wilderness, and ever I am leaving the city more powers of mind to bear on the subject of non-fiction. He and more and withdrawing into the wilderness. I had agreed to do so in that summer before he died, and should not lay so much stress on this fact if I did not be­ I am sure as I am sure of anything that he would have lieve that something like this is the prevailing tendency of analyzed, organized, and articulated theories as valuable as my countrymen. I must walk toward Oregon, and not the theories of fiction that make Bread Loaf the finest toward Europe. writers' conference in America. In a sense, that describes DeVoto. He always walked West. A. B. (Bud) Guthrie talks about his friend Bernard De­ Or, let's go a little further and say that while DeVoto's Voto, historian, journalist, crusader, teacher, and great per­ outrage, indignation, or mere fretfulness was with the pre­ sonality. DeVoto and Guthrie have each given us a trilogy sent culture of all America, his heart lay in the early West on the West. Guthrie's is the more recent, but on the same of the mountain man and the prairie schooner.
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