Article archive / February 2018
Originally published: . Volume 9, No. 2. Source pages: 2.
I received some nice comments from a few readers after they saw the recent movie, The Post, Spielberg’s story of the 1971 conflict over the disclosure of the Pentagon Papers. (Be sure to see Al Burstein’s review this issue.)
The story is a good one for today––the public’s right to know and the duty of the Press. Spielberg supports the theme with iconic images of linotypes, web presses, newspapers being hurled in packs out onto city street corners and held open at breakfast tables.
While the First Amendment is the main theme in The Post, actress Meryl Streep lays out the subtheme, the fevered decisions made by Katharine Graham, the first female publisher of a major American newspaper, joined by her gruff newsroom editor, Ben Bradlee, played by Tom Hanks.
My mother and father both earned LSU journalism degrees and after they died I inherited a marvelously helpful introductory textbook, Exploring Journalism, by Wolseley and Campbell. This 1943 time machine of a book captures part of the golden age of the Press in the U.S. and has been a best friend for simple answers to questions such as “How do I write a news story?” or “Why do I need an Editorial Page?” The authors even have a section titled, “Reporters as psychologists,” where they say, “Good reporters are good social and applied psychologists.”
By happy luck, I struck gold. I discovered that my mother, ordinarily reluctant to express her ideas (or overshadowed by my extraverted father), had scribbled her thoughts in the margins. So I was given the chance, like a message in a bottle, to understand just a bit of what she thought about being a good journalist.
She jotted down these necessary traits for the career: “… good English, resourceful, aggressive, spelling, accurate observer, knowledge and grasp of the English language, interest in people, visual senses, ability to stand your convictions, mental physical stamina, clear thinking, seeker after truth.”
She wrote, “not a moneymaking profession particularly,” and would be “…a lot of hard work,” which obviously did not scare her off. She put a big check by the section on small, weekly papers.
Wolseley and Campbell did not scare her off either with their candid section on, “Women in journalism,” since she placed a big checkmark by that section, also. “Young women interested in journalism often receive little encouragement. If they are realists, they will note that the fourth estate is a man’s world. Their prospective employers are men and they prefer to hire men. Moreover, many of them are convinced that journalism is a man’s profession and that the woman who doesn’t believe her place to be in the home should choose an occupation sheltered from ugly realities that journalists encounter. For that reason a woman usually has to be much abler than a man to succeed.”
Wolseley and Campbell also wrote about character––“Promotion of any private interest contrary to the general welfare for whatever reason is not compatible with honest journalism. Partisanship and editorial comment which knowingly departs from the truth does violence to the best spirit of American journalism.”
I’ve come to the notion that journalists and psychologists have and should have a good deal in common, both hoping to work with finding truth, facts, and valid information, resisting the pull to fast- think conclusions, or political, motivated or superficial reasoning. Today there appears to me a decline in the overall level of reality in our group collective and the process from which it emerges.
A few years ago CareerCast rated the job of newspaper reporter as the worse career out of 200 they ranked, cited low pay among other problems. In a 2017 study of social class, (“Defining Social Class Across Time and Between Groups”) researchers found that, over the last four decades, people define their subjective social class increasingly by their income, and less by occupation or values. The link to self-esteem was strongest in whites, who have dropped more, and rate themselves lower, than other groups in social class.
My parents settled in Coushatta and purchased the Coushatta Citizen. While raising a family, their partnership built the Citizen into a publication of journalistic excellence and social conscience when it was thrust into the national spotlight during the Civil Rights era in the 60s. One thing I know for sure–it was never about the money.
Has some sad combination of subgroup dynamics and monetary incentives led to a decline in character and competence today, and in today’s Press? The common man seems to think so, if the surveys are valid.
Where are the Katharine Grahams and Ben Bradlees of the world, the Gordon and Lynn Nelsons? I think the real journalists, and also the real psychologists, are still out there. I hope they are.
1947 La. Press convention badge for Lynn H. Nelson.
This article is part of a historical newspaper archive. Read the original issue for its original layout, photographs and graphics.