DATELINE JOURNALISM IN THE UNITED STATES THE FIRST 200 YEARS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01315R000400150017-7
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 76
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 27, 2004
• Sequence Number: 17
• Publication Date: January 1, 1976
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

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Give Ken a call.
Ken Peterson is ready to talk about Mobil and the oil business worldwide. He's
our press relations supervisor. And he can fill you in on the energy news. Give
you complete background information. Set up interviews with the experts you
want. And supply sharp photos for those crisp pieces you write.
To get the energy story right, fast and complete, come to the source. Call
Ken: [phone].
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IS1Q liiea;
get launched
in Parade
On January 9,1966, PARADE had a
far-out idea. In an Open Letter to
President Johnson, Editor Jess Gorkin
proposed that "a Russian cosmonaut
... join an American astronaut
for a ride in space:" On July
18, 1975, the American Press
told the rest of the story -
it happened!
PARADE believed in 1966,
as it does now, that peace
in outer space
can lead to peace on earth.
That wasn't the first time PARADE
took a giant step for peace. In 1960,
we proposed a "hot line" between
Washington and Moscow.
President Kennedy and
Premier Khrushchev
approved the idea;
President Johnson
implemented it.
Not all of our ideas are this
big...but we keep trying.
It wouldn't beAWA ~ I'o s~e"2U Ai/12 Cia= 8' 315000 015001 American homes
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Lord Acton, a historian who never wrote a book of history,
authored, in a letter, a phrase that is much with us these days:
"Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely."
Lord Macauley, who wrote many history books, was equally
concerned with excesses of power. In another enduring phrase
he placed his hopes not in the three formal estates of govern-
ment, but elsewhere: "The gallery in which the reporters sit has
become a fourth estate of the realm."
His faith has never been better vindicated than in the past
few years in America. Outrageous abuses of power have been
uncovered in which all the formal instruments of government
have ordered the abuses. Congress's oversight bodies have
winked at them. The Courts have rarely dealt with them.
It has been the Fourth Estate, prying, insisting, harrying, that
has kept them in the searing light of public attention which, in
the end, may stop them.
The price of thus becoming conspicuous has been a host of
plans to affect media freedom, by restriction as in Senate Bill
S-1, or by defending it with statutory "shield laws."
Both, I think, are wrong. They would complicate the simple
clarity of our guarantee of freedom, the First Amendment's
plain statement that "Congress shall make no law... abridging
the freedom of speech, or of the press."
If we are wise we shall shun all statutory refinements. Like
General Grant, who vowed "to fight it out on this line if it takes
all summer," we should fight it out on this unadorned, perfectly
clear line, forever. -Howard K. Smith aac NEWS
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^ Dateline is always a joy to read, espe-
cially the honors for journalistic excel-
lence. I have said often and don't mind
repeating that the OPC awards, next to
the Pulitzer awards, are the most pres-
tigious in journalism. The Club has a
right to be proud of its role in main-
taining them; it is a professional trust.
This year we have a new title-the Bob
Considine Memorial Award. Bob, one
of the great men of journalism and a
former OPC president, died last Sept.
25, 1975. Only a week earlier he had
been honored at an OPC Old Timers'
Night and delivered a very sentimental
talk, in which he expressed his love for
his profession and predicted he would
"croak in the newspaper business."
The text of that talk became his last
column. We are grateful to King Fea-
tures for making the award possible.
Incidentally, the Bob Considine Schol-
arship Award is now in existence. Each
year a full annual scholarship will be
awarded at Ohio University to a stu-
dent completing his junior year in
journalism. If there are sufficient funds
the second scholarship will provide for
a Bob Considine Internship in Ohio
University's unique foreign correspon-
dence program. This special field of
journalism identifies closely with Bob's
own career in an area where he re-
corded major achievements.
Through 37 years
Another source of pride to the Club
over the years-we now mark our 37th
anniversary-is Dateline. Leading maga-
zines assume editorial responsibility for
putting out our annual magazine, and
this time we have PARADE to thank.
We appreciate especially the Bicenten-
nial theme.
Now, let me report the Club had a
good year. The annual awards dinner,
the headliner luncheons, shop talks,
book nights, overseas jazz nights, re-
gional dinners and "Old Pro" nights
were well attended. One of the shop
talks deserves special mention, the one
that was held at a special luncheon for
Sydney Schanberg of The New York
Times, who, covering the last days of
6 the war in Cambodia, stayed behind to
PRESIDENT'S LETTER
be captured-then released-by the in-
surgents. The third OPC World News
Roundup, after two years of being co-
sponsored by NBC, was put on this
time by CBS, with Walter Cronkite as
anchorman.
One of the Club's most important
events was "Jimmy's Night," honoring
Club manager Jim Menditto on his 20th
anniversary with the OPC.
The Overseas Press Club Foundation
has taken on new life and strength.
The OPC Bulletin is getting better all
the time. We have enjoyed good rela-
tions with other clubs, particularly the
Deadline Club (Sigma Delta Chi), the
City Club, which holds its regular
newsmaking meetings in our quarters,
and the Foreign Press Association, with
which we co-sponsored a luncheon.
Financially, the Club operated in the
black for the third year, but it still is
burdened by grave debts from earlier
years. The Club quarters at the Hotel
Biltmore are quite attractive. The mem-
bership rolls are slowly increasing, but
we need many more members. Many
persons believe the name of the Club
ought to be changed, in view of the
fact that overseas professional experi-
ence no longer is a requirement for
active membership.
Now, about the Bicentennial theme
in Dateline. What better theme could
there be for journalists than one based
on the founding of the United States
of America and the freedoms for which
it stands? Especially since one of its
fundamental freedoms is that anchored
in the First Amendment of the Con-
stitution?
I do not know what other contribu-
tors are writing in this issue, but as for
me: If it is true, as many assert, that
there is a pendulum effect in the na-
tion's philosophic attitude, that people
sometimes accept more strictures on
their freedoms, sometimes less, I fear
we may be witnessing a swing toward
the more.
Too much freedom?
Despite our pride in our institutions
and despite the readiness of some of
our leading commentators in print and
on the air to uphold the banners of
journalistic freedom and despite those
all-too-few publishers and radio-TV
executives who back them, too many
people are revealing their discomfort
with our country's practice of a free
press.
What is more, there are newsmen
among them. Embarrassedly they apol-
ogize for those who "go too far," who
"don't care about security." I submit
that there has been very little breach
of security in most of the exposes of
recent years. What we've seen are in-
creasingly desperate and even clumsy
efforts on the part of newsmen to cope
with increasingly powerful and equally
clumsy efforts to hide nefarious deeds.
I think it's about time that we stop
equating the inadequacies of disparate
elements of journalism with the abuses
by institutional authority. On that note,
so long everybody. This concludes my
four years as president of the Overseas
Press Club. It was an honor.
-Jack Raymond
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DATELINE
JOURNALISM IN THE UNITED STATES-
THE FIRST 200 YEARS
Two centuries ago, when the United States of America was
becoming a nation, Thomas Jefferson wrote: "Were it left to
me to decide whether we should have a government without
newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not
hesitate for a moment to prefer the latter."
Ever since, this country has managed to have both, each working with
the avowed aim of furthering the interests and answering the needs
of a democratic society. At various epochs in our history it
may have been arguable which was doing the better job. But certainly
today, journalism-now an inclusive term that embraces electronic media as
well as the printed word-has never played a more potent or influential
role in the national life. In Vietnam, as never before, journalism
has brought home the reality and meaning of war. In Watergate, as never
before, it has investigated and uncovered malfeasance in the highest places
in the land. Journalism has touched and changed all our lives.
Yet to a considerable extent this is what it has been doing in
America ever since the days of John Peter Zenger and Ben Franklin. In
this Bicentennial year it is the purpose of DATELINE to glance back over
American journalism during the last 200 years, to recount some of the
ways in which it has met its challenges, to salute some of the
men and women who have provided its leadership and worked in its ranks.
In fulfilling its task of chronicling the achievements of others,
journalism too often overlooks its own. Yet surely the nation's
reporters, correspondents, photographers and
editors have compiled a record in which they can take pride as they
begin their third century of serving the people.
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THE FIRST 200 YEARS-
REFLECTIONS OF A VETERAN EDITOR
by I. Russell Wiggins
page 10
kq
BROADCASTING THE YOUNG GIANT
by Elmer W. Lower
page 1s
ONE CHANGE AFTER ANOTHER
MAGAZINES
COVER: 1) Benjamin Franklin 2)
Thomas Paine 3) Margaret Bourke-
by John Tebbe/
/
White 4) Adolph S. Ochs 5) Ma-
page25
thew Brady 6) Horace Greeley 7)
Carl Bernstein 8) Bob Woodward
EVOLUTION OF THE NEWS SERVICES
9) Lowell Thomas 10) William Ran-
dolph Hearst 11) Walter Lippmann
by Samuel G. Blackman
12) Herb Block 13) Cissy Patterson
page 30
14) Henry Luce-15) Edward R. Mur-
row 16) DeWitt Wallace 17) Ernie
REBELS WITH A CAUSE - MUCKRAKING
Pyle 18) Walter Cronkite. John
by Jack Anderson
Peter Zenger was not forgotten,
but hi
t
it
il
bl
a
34
s por
ra
was not ava
a
e.
p
ge
WOMEN IN JOURNALISM
EDITOR
by Georgie Anne Geyer
Jess Corkin
page40
MANAGING EDITOR
James D. Head
THE CAMERA WAS THERE
ART DIRECTOR
Anthony La Rotonda
page 46
ASSOCIATE EDITORS
Jonathan Braun
THE TRENCHCOAT BRIGADE
Noel Humphreys
by Walter Logan
Herbert Kupferberg
David Paley
page 52
Pam Proctor
Martin Timins
DRAWING THE LINE
L. H. Whittemore
THE EDITORIAL CARTOONIST
PICTURE EDITOR
Arthur-Rothstein
by Thomas A. Engelhardt
ASSISTANT ART DIRECTOR
page 60
Al Troiani
ART ASSOCIATES
THE OVERSEAS PRESS CLUB AWARDS
Candice Culbert
page 66
Robert Peterson
PUBLISHER
PRESIDENT Jack Raymond
Arthur G. Milton
Long Island Press
VICE PRESIDENTS Anita Diamant Berke, Matthew A. R. Bassity, Arthur G. Milton
SECRETARY Helen Alpert TREASURER Louis J. Calderoni
CIRCULATION DIRECTOR
Will Yolen
AWARDS COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN Robin Moore
Hill & Knowlton
BOARD OF GOVERNORS-ACTIVE: Jean Baer, Ruth C. Biemiller, Marguerite Cartwright,
Ralph Leviton, Meyer Laurie, Rosalind Massow, Robin Moore, Grace Naismith, Joseph C.
ASSOCIATE CIRCULATION DIRECTOR
Peters, Ralph Salazar, Ralph R. Schulz, John L. Scott, Larry Stessin. ACTIVE ALTERNATES:
Patricia A. Milton
Robert Moskin, Donald Shannon, Jean P. Shepherd. ASSOCIATE: David Anderson, Jay
Associated Press
Brennan, George Burns. ASSOCIATE ALTERNATES: Jack Galub, Harry Rand.
ADVERTISING DIRECTOR
Len Silverman
Overseas Press Club of America, Inc.
Pennyfeather Press
Hotel Biltmore, 55 East 43rd Street, New York, N.Y. 10017
[phone]; Cable: OVERPRESS
CONTENTS
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The First 200 Years-
Reflections of a Veteran Editor
by JAMES RUSSELL WIGGINS
This is our 200th anniversary
year; but in strict accuracy,
the Declaration of Indepen-
dence adopted on July 4,
1776, did not begin the Amer-
ican Revolution. John Adams pointed
out that the "Revolution" was some-
thing that took place long before Lex-
ington and Concord-something that
took place in the minds of the people.
The American press had much to do
with that, probably more than any
other element in Colonial society. On
the surface, the early newspapers did
not seem very formidable opponents
of British rule in North America. They
were modest publications. And there
were few of them. The first American
newspaper, The Boston News Letter,
had been started in 1704. There were
only 12 weekly newspapers by 1750.
There were 23 weekly papers in the
Colonies when the Sugar Act was
passed in 1764, and 37 by the time of
the Stamp Act in 1775. These news-
papers had few subscribers. In 1765,
The New York Journal had 1500; The
Boston Chronicle 1500; The Pennsyl-
vania Chronicle 2500; The Massachu-
setts Spy 500; The Boston Gazette
1500. During the next 10 years their
circulation rose somewhat, but on the
eve of Independence, The Spy had
only 3500, The Boston Gazette 2000.
Mighty mite
Even less impressive than their size
and circulation was the equipment on
which they were printed-the com-
mon press. This puny hand press with
two printers was capable of printing
some 200 sheets an hour on one side.
But, to British authority in America,
it proved a more formidable weapon
than the cannon that Henry Knox
dragged by sledge from Ticonderoga
and Crown Point for the siege of
10 Boston.
The "common" printing press of The Massachusetts Spy: Newspapers helped bring
American Colonists from mild dissent to open rebellion in the decade before 1776.
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It is something of a miracle that so
weak a press could have transformed
the relations of the Colonies to the
Mother Country. In 1764, before the
Sugar Act, the American Colonials
were prosperous, loyal to the King,
devoted to the Mother Country, and
proud of their British connection.
Within a decade, they were brought
from mild dissent to a state of rebel-
lion. It was, of course, partly due to
the misguided governmental policies
of England, and partly due to the sud-
den maturity of a hitherto dependent
people.
John Holt, publisher of The New
York Journal, made no idle boast
when he told Sam Adams that the
press had "kindled a spirit" sufficient
to repel the tyrannical designs of
Great Britain.
From the moment the Stamp Act
was passed, the patriot newspapers
kept up a drumfire of attack and ac-
cusation, playing upon the fears and
anxieties of a people who viewed with
increasing mistrust the designs of the
British government.
The Declaration of independence
proved that a vigorous and patriotic
press could make a revolution; but
if the Revolution that commenced in
1775 had proceeded from military
victory to counter-revolution and pol-
itical disintegration in the footsteps
of so many violent revolutions, there
Printer John Peter Zenger (dock, left) represented by Andrew Hamilton (center)
beat libel action in this historic case with truth accepted as defense against Crown.
would have been little to celebrate in
1976.
What made the struggle of the Co-
lonial printers and the other Colonial
patriots memorable was not just Lex-
ington, Concord, the Siege of Boston,
and the Revolutionary War, but the
principles that governed them, the
zeal that animated them, the funda-
mental tenets that lent vitality to the
Revolution and permanence to the in-
stitutions that were founded upon its
victories.
The Declaration of Independence proved that a vigorous press could make a revo-
lution, and the first account of that document was in The Pennsylvania Evening Post.
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