Our Finest Hour

Pete Hamill and Jimmy Breslin courtesy of The Atlantic

Amid all the layoffs, furloughs, and buyouts, in all the name-calling and denigration (“hoax”; “fake news”; “made up sources”; “terrible,” “horrible,” “nasty” stories), this is journalism’s finest hour, one in a series of finest hours alongside the reportage on the Great War, the Great Depression, the Second World War, the Vietnam War, Gulf Wars I and II, 9-11, and, in fact, everyday life and the true stories of people doing extraordinary things.  All of it appears, every day, in the newspaper.  Whether you are a purest who reads the physical paper or the online reader pulling meaning from bytes and megapixels, the newspaper is the best news source, and not just for the facts.  Reporters give us the facts and columnists give us the meaning of the facts; they ruminate and assert.  They make the connections between world events and us, the people.  They analyze the reporting, the data, the details, and they make it coherent to our lives.

Are they biased?  Certainly, because they select what facts to report, but if one reads widely, liberal and conservative publications, a clearer picture develops.  We see all sides, so it is necessary to read it all, consume it all, digest it all.  Newspapers should be daily reading for students, elementary school to college.  We should be talking about the latest story in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and news sources like Politico, CNN, MSNBC, and the BBC.  We should be subscribing and supporting every paper and legitimate news site in this country and around the world.  This is the information age and some of us, by not supporting and reading every day, are missing out.

In these times of COVID-19, I find myself wishing we had more of past voices that Americans used to rely on for an analysis of world events:  the irascible Jimmy Breslin; prose-poet Pete Hamill; Chicagoan Mike Royko; and the gravelly-voiced David Carr.  All are direct descendants of H.L. Mencken.  These guys had voice to spare, and had street cred and the hard-earned wisdom of human beings who saw it as their mission to document and bear witness to human life in all its ugliness and elegance.

Many of these columnists came to their stories as reporters first.  They did not go to elite journalism schools, or in some cases, even graduate from high school.  They learned on the job from the blue-pencil lessons of their editors.  Active verbs.  Concrete nouns.  Cut the adverbs and the sentiment and the overwrought emotions.  They wrote five days a week for years, churning out fresh ideas and insights gleaned from the streets.  They had to get out and be among people; they had to talk to people.  They had to know how to start a conversation, get the quote, check and double-check the facts.  Breslin and Hamill in New York, and Royko in Chicago, knew where to look for stories, be it at the corner bar, or an impromptu street protest.  Breslin, a champion of African-American stories, took a beating to report on race riots.  Pete Hamill wrote about becoming separated from this wife as the towers fell on 9-11.  They were in their stories but not the subject of the story.  They were present to observe and report.  And they knew that all stories are local with a larger, worldwide human impact, and that is bridge they forged for readers:  “you need to pay attention to this,” their work screamed.  What happens in the big cities or the lonely country lanes had resonance that affected the human condition the world over.

Breslin’s best work was the tangential story, the everyman at the margins of history.  His interview with the man who dug John F. Kennedy’s grave is a classic and should be read by any serious student of journalism.

The work of the writers I have mentioned is also captured on film in documentaries that are must-sees for insight into their working lives.  Page One:  Inside The New York Times (2011) and Breslin and Hamill:  Deadline Artist (2018), are two excellent windows into the life of these writers.  CNN’s documentary, The Fourth Estate (2018) documents what life has been like for news reporters and columnists in the Trump age.  Esquire Magazine featured a number of “new journalism” writers like Tom Wolfe and Gay Talese in its documentary, Smiling Through the Apocalypse: Esquire in the 60s (2014).

Who is doing this kind of writing now?  There is no shortage of writers out there following in their footsteps.  One favorite who has done remarkable work in this age of COVID-19 is The New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof.  His recent column from the hot zone of two New York City hospitals in the Bronx is nothing short of breathtaking.  He makes the reader feel what it is like there, with the energy and anxiety of healthcare providers on the front lines of this war against a virus.

We need to cultivate new voices to replace our journalism heroes. Even as I write this, after 115 years of service, the Burbank Leader, Glendale News-Press, and La Canada Valley Sun are closing down shop.  Other newspapers continue to struggle to bring us the news and analysis with fewer and fewer resources.  Trump can rail against the news media but his self-righteous narcissism betrays him.  His anger and vitriol are a clear sign that he is rattled, that he is at war with the truth.  Not only do journalists testify to his lies, they refuse to be forced to sell his narrative.  This makes them advocates for us, the citizens, and they may be the last best chance for our democracy to survive.  We need to read.  We need to pay attention.