Remarks to Knight Ridder Fellows, San Jose Calif., July 12, 2002
Thank you. It’s a great honor to be here this afternoon.
Let me congratulate each of you as well – what a terrific opportunity you have. I hope you make the most of it because this is a business where one can still make a difference. Then you all know that – that’s why you are here today.
I want to start by taking you somewhere you might not have been before. This place is a few hundred miles from here, at the summit of a small mountain range in western New Mexico.
Imagine we’re climbing the Chuska Mountain range. We’re at the top. From this ridge we can peer out and see two very different worlds. If you look West, you see the natural beauty of southwestern mountains. Pinon-pine trees, juniper and desert flowers.
But when we turn East, everything changes. The ground looks harsh, rugged, devoid of the same kind of plant life that grows on the wetter-side of the mountain.
Even the rocks seem to change color: they’re a colorful red on the western side; and a dull gray on the east. Some have described the eastern view from the summit as gazing at a Great Basin of Kitty-litter.
But this is not a geography lesson. I want you to think about contrast, about divisions. I want you to think about that ridge and the difference between a world of pinion trees or one of kitty litter. Imagine that stark divide.
One such contrast can be found in the lives of two men from the 20th Century: Robert Maynard Hutchins and Robert C. Maynard.
How many of you have heard of either of these men? Do you know about their contributions to journalism? Do you know why their stories matter?
Let’s start with Robert Maynard Hutchins.
He was born shortly before the turn of the century in Brooklyn, New York. His youth was a race to the top: He graduated from Yale Law School in 1921 and was named dean of that same school six years later. Then, two years after that, Hutchins became president of the University of Chicago.
He was thirty years old.
Perhaps one would expect a young president, later chancellor, to stick with status quo. Not Hutchins. He dropped college football and promoted a new kind of intellectual academy, one that focused more on the outcome of the student than on the amount of time spent on a campus.
Robert C. Maynard was also from Brooklyn.
He was the son of an immigrant from Barbados who founded a moving company. He quit high school at the age of 16 to become a writer in Greenwich Village in the 1950s. "My credentials," he told a sister, "will be my work."
His journalism career began in 1961 at a daily newspaper in York, Pennsylvania. Four years later Maynard received a Nieman fellowship to Harvard University. After Harvard, Bob Maynard covered civil rights and urban unrest as a national correspondent for The Washington Post. He later became the newspaper's ombudsman, and later still, joined the staff of the editorial page.
A friend of mine recently recalled Bob’s first days at the Post. He said even as a young reporter Bob was a presence in the newsroom with a voice that always commanded authority. "He was an unlikely revolutionary," my friend said. He was covering the riots and reported that some of the looting that was occuring was because people wanted to loot; this is not the message favored by someone trying to change the world. But Bob stuck with the world as he saw it – even if he was trying to shape it into something more.
Maynard was picked as editor of The Oakland Tribune in 1979. He bought the paper in 1983, taking the title of editor and president in the first management-leveraged buyout in U.S. newspaper history, one of the few African-Americans to ever own a major metropolitan newspaper. The paper went on to win a Pulitzer Prize. Bob and others were also co-founders of the Institute for Journalism Education – a 25-year-old organization that now bears Maynard’s name.
Stark differences.
One man had a formal education. And one had not.
One man started nearly at the top of his profession, his craft. The other worked his way up through a newsroom and ended his life at the top of his profession.
One was white. One African-American.
One an academic. The other a journalist.
One was a critic of newspapers – and their owners. The other was a newspaper owner.
But here’s the interesting part: While their backgrounds were so different, their conclusions about journalism and democracy were strikingly similar.
Let me quote something:
"Civilized society is a working system of ideas. It lives and changes by the consumption of ideas. Therefore (the news media) must make sure that as many as possible of the ideas which its members have are available for its examination."
These words come from the 1947 study that bears Hutchins’ name in the publication "A Free and Responsible Press." The Hutchins commission made the philosophical link between our working press and the nature of democratic institutions. That document remains an elegant defense of what is best in American journalism.
"Today, our society needs, first, a truthful, comprehensive, and intelligent account of the day’s events in a context which gives them meaning; second, a forum for the exchange of comment and criticism; third, a means of projecting the opinions and attitudes of the groups in the society to one another; fourth, a method of presenting and clarifying the goals and values of the society; and, fifth, a way of reaching every member of the society by the currents of information, thought, and feeling which the press supplies."
Hutchins’ report came out during an important time, just after World War II. The Hutchins Commission argued that America’s requirements for the press "are greater in variety, quantity and quality than those of any previous society in any age." The statement was obvious then. Today it takes on additional meaning because of the frenetic pace of society and the news media. So many of the images broadcast or printed these days are likely to be entertaining versions of events rather than what the Hutchins commission called "full access to the day's intelligence."
But perhaps the most prescient section of "A Free and Responsible Press" is its discussion on race.
Five decades ago a group of, essentially, all white, male scholars said journalism, and our democracy, would fail if we could not understand all of the different groups, racial and others, that make up America.
"The account of an isolated fact, however accurate in itself, may be misleading and, in effect, untrue. ... The country has many groups which are partially insulated from one another and which need to be interpreted to one another. Factually correct but substantially untrue accounts of the behaviors of members of one of these social islands can intensify the antagonisms of others toward them. A single incident will be accepted as a sample group action unless the press has given a flow of information and interpretation concerning the relations between two racial groups such as to enable the reader to set a single event in its proper perspective. If allowed to pass as a sample of such action, the requirement that the press present an accurate account of the day’s events in a context which gives them meaning has not been met."
This standard – indeed this very test – takes on a particular meaning for us in the 21st century. Is there enough coverage of all our communities for us to get a perspective about how "constituent" groups think?
This last election is but one example.
One narrative focused on the vote itself, you know the copy about ballots, chads and vote tallies. Indeed, many news organizations spend a fortune recounting ballots to re-test the question, "who won?"
But is that the whole story?
If you listen to other voices from Florida, there’s a very different storyline – such as the sheer number of registration foul-ups, a complaint cited by African-American citizens. Or, the state’s purging of tens of thousands of voters just weeks before the election.
One story is about an event, something that happened. The second hints at a far greater question, a systemic look at whether the ability to vote is equal.
I think about Hutchins and his work when I wonder about Florida and fairness.
Hutchins once offered a definition for democracy in a 1962 interview. He said: "I do not think that the method of voting is a criterion for democracy, though I should certainly say that unless there were some way in which each member of the community could register his opinion on important political matters the situation was not one that could be described as democratic."
What determines a democracy? Hutchins said every citizen must feel that he or she is taking part in important political events that affect their lives.
"A democratic community is a self-governing community," he said. "Every member of the community must have a part in his government. The real test of democracy is the extent to which everybody in society is involved in effective political discussion."
Much of the discourse involving the Florida election centers on what really happened. The greater story might be the systemic, long view of a community (or even more than one) that feels like it has no say in its governance.
If we use the standard set by Hutchins for democracy, then Florida is an example of a failure. Indeed, so many of the news organizations covering this story have said as much. Quite simply, we in the media have failed to interpret at least one constituent group’s view of disenfranchisement. We have some facts right, but we have missed telling a story that puts the day’s events in a context that gives those events meaning.
This takes me back to the stark world at the top of the mountain. We see two views that are physically close – yet so distant.
Then, I think that world-view is complicated by the question of context. Consider when we even start a ‘news’ story. Just what triggers our background knowledge?
In many stories about the recent Census, for example, a couple of boilerplate paragraphs show up over and over in newspapers.
Beware of the boilerplate – a newspaper term for the easy background sentence that is copied, rewritten, and used over and over for readers across the country on any complicated story.
There are a couple of census boilerplates that ought to be challenged. Here in California, the boilerplate labels this state as a "first," because it’s a land where there is a new majority of none; a state where no single ethnic groups has majority status.
But is this true? Of course not. A closer look at the data will show that this "first" is also true – and has been – in Hawaii and New Mexico. And, in fairness, many newspapers get this part right.
But step back a little more in time.
Go back in California’s history – and this ‘first’ is not.
California has had several "majority-minority" eras – starting from a time when the Golden State was populated by was Pomo, Shoshone, Shasta, Mission or Karok Indian people.
Or another era that included Spaniards, Mexicans or Russians.
Each change was led by an immigration wave that brought new people and ideas to the state; this is exactly what’s happening today.
The second boilerplate I wonder about is the "new" census collection of mixed-race data. This is remarkable, a first, and something new – or so we are told.
Well I happen to know from my own family’s census answers that this particular boilerplate is not true either. I’ve pulled old census records and saw how the ledgers are full of names neatly scrawled in the book, followed by state or country of birth, age, gender, occupation and race. We’ve been concerned about race as a statistic since 1790 given the constitutional mandate to count African Americans as three-fifths of a person.
A century ago the census had categories that included White, Black, Mulatto, Mexican, Chinese, Indian and half-breed. I’ve read the ledger with the record for my great-great-great-grandfather, Thomas Lavatta. The book said he was a Mexican, my grandmother, a Bannock Indian. Their children, more of my grandparents, were listed as half-breeds. The newspaper clipping of my ancestor’s death puts this in some perspective: "Old Man Lavatta, the father of all the Lavattas, died at his home on Bannock Creek." The Pocatello Tribune said he was Mexican, and the "father of many half-breed children, many of whom are widely known as scouts and interpreters."
Historian Patricia Nelson Limerick says so much of our history is about the doings of white people, especially white men, controlling center stage.
This is important to rethink the context because we’re here in the West – a region, she says, that’s "a place of extraordinary convergence, one of the great meeting zones of the planet. In the Trans-Mississippi West, people from all over the planet met, jockeyed for position with each other, and tried to figure each other out. The westward movement of white Americans was unquestionably important, but so was the westward movement of African-Americans, the northward movement from Mexico, the eastward movement from Asia, and the prior presence of Indian people."
This is the story that we need now – context – instead of a collection of facts about a first that is not.
It is this context that gives a story meaning; something we as readers can use to see the beyond the stark divide, a way of thinking to help us see the whole mountain.
Hutchins called it context that gives a story meaning. Bob Maynard used a different framework.
My friend and colleague, Dori Maynard, made a promise to complete her father’s work on a notion he called "The Fault Lines."
Bob edited a paper in California – a land that’s no stranger to earthquakes. So he took this concept and applied it to society.
His notion was that we as a nation are split along five Fault Lines of race, class, gender, geography and generation.
Dori says: "My father believed that in order to bridge these Fault Lines journalists must not only admit they exist but also learn to talk, report and write across them. Acknowledging Fault Lines compels us as journalists to seek out those who present a range of views on an issue."
The Fault Lines model is interesting because it gives us a way to talk about complicated subjects in a way that’s not threatening.
Again, consider Florida and why it is important to understand why much of one community, the African-American community, feels disenfranchised. We need to find a way to explore that ‘why.’
In the end you or I might not agree with the conclusion, but it is critical that we understand why so many people will never be convinced that George W. Bush won the election.
A Fault Lines’ framework allows us to look fresh at news stories and challenge the assumptions behind them.
Take hip-hop.
When writing about hip-hop are we writing about race?
Some stories acknowledge the roots of hip-hop in the African-American, urban experience, and then report that it’s been picked up by suburban White kids.
A true fact. But does this make it a racial story alone? Or are we really writing about a generation?
If you ask someone who’s African-American and, say, 40, they might be more likely to know more about jazz or some other genre than someone who’s 20.
And it can’t be geography – "urban" is one of those code-words that’s a polite way of saying African American. No, it can’t be geography because I have nephews and nieces who live on a remote, rural Indian reservation. They know hip-hop, probably better than they know their own culture.
This is why journalism matters.
If we practice our craft well, we can explain these cultural forces at work – and help our readers cross barriers of race, class geography, gender, generation.
Fault Lines gives us a method for examining journalism – and our conversations – in a way that embraces the very ideals of the Hutchins’ test of what makes good journalism.
I asked you at the beginning: How many of you have heard of either of these men? Do you know about their contributions to journalism? Do you know why their stories matter? This is my challenge to you as you begin your careers, learn from the philosophical guide books about journalism – Hutchins, the Kerner Commission, or the work of our great thinkers.
Two sons of Brooklyn, Robert Maynard Hutchins and Robert C. Maynard, had so many different life experiences.
One was self-educated. One was not.
One was black, one white.
One ended his career as a publisher and national commentator, at the top of his craft. One ended his career as a disappointment – no longer that "boy wonder." A journalist. An academic.
Yet both of these sons of Brooklyn were passionate about this country, their belief in journalism and our democratic experiment. They both could see country that can be better than it is now.
Bob Maynard once said it this way: "The country's greatest achievements came about because somebody believed in something, whether it was in a steam engine, an airplane or a space shuttle,'' he once wrote. "Only when we lose hope in great possibilities are we really doomed. Reversals and tough times inspire some people to work harder for what they believe in."
A stark divide on a mountain top. But, really, we all live on the same mountain. Thank you.
to top of page