Abstract
In Journalism Unbound, New York University professor and news history guru Mitchell Stephens tells us his “all-time favorite lead,” written by Ernie Pyle: Someday when peace has returned to this odd world I want to come to London again and stand on a certain balcony on a moonlit night and look down upon the peaceful silver curve of the Thames with its dark bridges. And standing there, I want to tell somebody who had never seen it how London looked on a certain night in the holiday season of the year 1940. For on that night this old, old city—even though I must bite my tongue in shame for saying it—was the most beautiful sight I have ever seen. It was a night when London was ringed and stabbed with fire. (p. 131)
What make those paragraphs stand out? It is the language, Stephens argues, that makes it art. The way the war correspondent sets the mood with “someday when peace has returned to this odd world” . . . the way he shocks us with the “beautiful sight” bombing of London, a city “ringed and stabbed with fire.” He loves the rhythm, the music.
If journalists today knew their history, Stephens argues, they would learn the lessons of writing well from world-class teachers. Our lack of historical knowledge hurts us in many ways. Too many of us do not have diverse perspectives, penetrating approaches, or engaging styles. We do not often seek deeper truths or wiser understandings. To do something “new,” Stephens says, we need to learn from the timeless examples of great journalism from centuries past.
In particular, the author calls for more risk-taking journalism, edgier, with voice, based in fact but reaching for meaning the way columnists, news analysts, and commentators do.
Very well. In the spirit of Journalism Unbound, this review will now shift gears and head toward the attitude-rich territory Stephens seeks, the place where we “spend more time pondering news and less time merely transcribing it” (p. 86).
Mitch and I go back two decades. We met during the building of the Newseum. Dressed in New York black, looking smart with his cool, bald head and soft, questioning voice, Mitch mined news history as a consultant, wrote exhibit text, helped identify artifacts, and advised the whole project. In the wrinkled blue and gray suits of a California newsroom, looking too young to be running a content team, I shaped the exhibits and edited the words and images as “managing editor.” Together, we (and many others) co-created the world’s first interactive museum of news.
Mitch’s best-known book, A History of News, influenced us deeply. The Newseum could have focused on the rise of modern independent journalism, a story with brilliant scholars at the helm, notably Columbia University’s Michael Schudson. Yet, in the end, excited by Mitch’s collection of historic gems, we slipped professional journalism into the larger frame of the whole history of news, the story of the human need to know and to tell.
Similarly, Journalism Unbound uses historic treasures to make masterful points about writing, empathy, interpretation, research, and other journalistic staples, from John Hersey on Hiroshima to Judy Pasternak on the Navajo and uranium and Rachael Carson’s exposé of deadly pesticides, from Joan Didion’s California to James Baldwin’s 1957 visit to the Jim Crow South, to Edward R. Murrow’s “Harvest of Shame.” Murrow reported, “The people you have seen have the strength to harvest your fruits and vegetables. They do not have the strength to influence legislation. We do” (p. 164).
What I take issue with—ever the editor—is what I hope is just a packaging gimmick of calling all this “new.” The back cover says the author “explores a number of ways journalism might take advantage of the digital revolution to become less formulaic and more engaging . . . particularly to young audiences.” No, he does not. Stephens tells us much to think about but not really on how we go about doing journalism in this new digital age of communication. I would rather know how to record a video while tweeting an interview than get more tips on how to take written notes.
Journalism educators, such as Boston University’s College of Communication Dean Tom Fielder, 1 have questioned the premise of using the 500-year-old device of a printed book to discuss anything having to do with the digital revolution. Imagine Journalism Unbound as a responsively designed HTML 5 website, each of its multimedia pages shareable through social media, demonstrating easy-to-learn tools such as DocumentCloud to link from excerpts to full works, Videolicious for summary videos, and the interactive TimelineJS to show the evolution of an idea or technique through history. In my book, that is journalism unbound, a better way to encourage improvement, give history a chance to change the future, and keep our timeless values alive.