The First Amendment; John Hughes

The First Amendment and the Free People Weekly examination of civil liberties in the media in the 1970s produced by WGBH radio Boston in cooperation with the Institute for democratic communication at Boston University. The host of the program is the institute's director Dr. Bernard Gruber. What are some of the main issues of concern to the leaders of the newspaper business in the United States. I'm delighted to have as my guest John Hughes the editor of The Christian Science Monitor who is a Pulitzer Prize winning foreign correspondent. And John is going after 25 years to leave the monitor in June of 1979 and he's bought the Orleans article at Cape Cod in Massachusetts. And John you told me some very interesting stories but is there some trend here. Russell Wiggins the distinguished journalist at the Ellsworth American in Maine Scotty Reston bought the Vineyard Gazette

and is being run by his son Walter Cronkite has bought a share in the Camden Maine newspaper and Simons of The Washington Post the distinguished editor there has bought a weekly newspaper in Alaska. Is there a movement out there he says that we don't understand. I don't know what the what the trend is. A lot of people suddenly come out of the woodwork when you buy a weekly newspaper and the news gets out. It is amazing how many of your colleagues call you and say hey that's a wonderful idea where are there other weeklies that we can get our hands on. I don't know some people say what's the difference between running a big paper like the monitor New York Times The Washington Post and and owning and running a small weekly. There are tremendous satisfactions to both. I think that one thing that intrigues all of us who are moving into so-called community journalism is the is the immediacy of the relationship with the

reader. Scotty Reston had a marvelous phrase he said if I write a critical column about salt in the New York Times maybe I get 20 letters from readers who don't agree with me. If I write something in the vineyard because that upsets people he said you get punched in the nose. Well this immediacy of the reader that is his paper in the small community where when you read the New York Times or The Christian Science Monitor you have the feeling that you're reading something that's a national institution perhaps you'd do it. It may be more important than you think. Well that could be I mean I think that. You're talking about trends in the profession and I think one of the things that editors are having to get to grips with is this problem of remoteness from readers. That's a hot thing in the newspaper business right now is this whole question of reader research and what what who are the readers and what do they really think about the people who put out the newspapers of the country and what is the credibility of newspapers

and editors. And I think that's a very good trend because we have I think for an awful long time tended to sit in our editorial ivory towers and not be responsive now I don't mean that when you find out what the reader wants you necessarily do it but I think part of being an editor is to know what the what the readers of your newspaper. Think they want then to decide what kind of balance you're going to set in giving them what they're asking for and what you as a responsible editor think they ought to have it's a very interesting mix. Sometimes it's a two way street. William Safire's article on February 14th 1989 pointed out in a New York Times on the Libyan attempts to influence Georgia and Idaho death in order to get transport planes that they bought some years ago released. And of course William Saffire was very much against giving the dictator Gadhafi some more military equipment. But he pointed out that was a local newspaper

team of two journalists in Idaho that really broke the story and eluded him to it. I'd like to turn to your your work as president this year of the American Society of Newspaper Editors and just simply flat out ask you one of the most important things that you have been doing in that role. Well I think what has concerned the newspaper editors of the country most this year and that concern obviously has been expressed through their society is the tremendous assault that I think we're seeing on the freedom of the press in the shape of court orders and rulings and interpretations of tremendous range but unhappily very few of them seem to us to be upholding press freedom. One has rarely seen such a flurry.

I meant a reporter's notes and yet at ground I have my own story search of news rooms that kind of thing. Interpretation of the one that one is respectful of the Supreme Court but I must say I don't agree with many of the interpretations for example to come down on First Amendment questions and of course this in the profession is reviving this long discussion about shield laws and that kind of thing in the profession is frankly divided there. You know there's the group that says the constitution is all the protection we need and we and reporters should not have special legislation. And. My my. My heart reaches out to that purist approach I think technically that is correct but on the other hand the Constitution also protects the rights of minorities. The should protect the rights of women and yet we're having a special kinds of legislation we have had had to have legislation to protect minorities and women and servants and I

think the time may be coming when we have to have special legislation to protect the rights of newspaper men as long as this kind of interpretation of the Constitution is handed down. I heard that same comment being made when a series of these broadcasts for this program were made in Britain British press leaders are saying that the time has come when we must have a bill of rights. Now that's the first step in the shield law a question I'd like to explain that the shield is designed to protect the reporters rights to shield him from unnecessary litigation and so on and so forth. But this problem with I suppose we have a national shield law. The state shield laws that have been passed in some cases are quite good but ignored at the state level for example in New Jersey. It wasn't a question of not having a shield law is the question and the phablet case they the courts go beyond that is if the legislature has not acted Is there any way around that.

I don't know. This is a this is a terribly complex area and of course the argument of those who are opposed to such laws is well if you if you permit state legislatures or a Congress to authorize these rights which are enshrined in the Constitution and ought not to require such legislative authorization then the same bodies can take them away and can fuzzy up the interpretation and as you say you can get terrible complications between State and Federal lines. I don't I don't know what the answer is to this problem. The whole question of conflict between the first and the Sixth Amendments I think has to go. The debate has to go forward with a great deal of common sense on the part of both legal people and newspaper people as they grope for solutions. No way we have various press groups supposedly acting as third parties. Private press councils and so on. And you think we need

a private. Judicial Council just on the press cases say established with some imminent national figures who could respond rather quickly as to what they in their considered judgment thought the issues were in a particular case and whether the the avoidance of the shield or whether this request for papers in a case was justified even if it didn't have an effect. At least there would be a record of that eminent people have been studying this and are not prepared to wait two years to come up with some suggestions. Interesting thought I suspect that the editors of the other country would respond as they almost always do. I don't like it as well. A third would say maybe it has something a third which I don't like. Can't make up their mind. There's a tremendous fear of course of any official outside influence and that's the reason why many of the I I personally am in favor of news councils but that's the reason

why many editors are opposed to the national news Council and the local news councils because they see a movement in this direction I did not perceive those dangers but I. I think I once was in a minority on this question I think that more editors are swinging round the aisle that they have seen the national news Council for example in operation for a couple of years and it hasn't done terrible things to the press and I think they're feeling a lot more relaxed about it. But you know I'd have to be frank and say that it certainly does not have you know the most approval on the part of editors. I like to before I get to the next major topic just ask you a pertinent sidebar kind of question. The chief justice of the United States Justice Berger annually delivers his lecture to the American Bar Association and he won't let the television cameras record this. Is there any reason that an assault in the name of the First Amendment has not been made upon that meeting with reporters being dragged off to jail directly

behind. How does how does the press let him get away with that. There's it's almost without without backing in any logical So yes it is I don't know it may be that public speech and all that if it may be that the healthy competition between the print media and the television cameras has taken a little far out of the presses action on this one. I don't know it's a remarkable aberration I don't quite know how he gets away with it. Is it a show of respect by the press that just doesn't want to get him angry. Because he's very solid on this is he just doesn't want to hear before those cameras recording equipment is there. Well I have to give a little more thought to that. Well I'll let that be to move to the next big question I know that you are very much concerned yourself with minorities and the press. We have some recent statistics that show that

a lot of state newspapers that have less than 10000 circulation about 70 percent of them have no minority representatives a tall and representing all minorities. And the American press are some estimates Well the round figure 700 minority people deal School of Journalism did a survey they could only find less than fourteen hundred of that number about 50 work on the two big Hawaii newspapers another 50 work in Washington D.C.. It's a disastrous picture. There are no training programs only a little more than $100000 being supplied for training programs by the newspapers themselves across the country. Is there any way we can work out of this disaster. Well you're absolutely right the picture is very bad. And they say the American Society of Newspaper Editors is very active in the area and I say very active the influence of us on the as a as an organization is limited. I think it has its main contribution

is in the in the field of monitoring. And the society has the CIA done a lot of that a lot of measuring to see what is going on. And I think it's other contribution has to be in the in the field of jawboning and jogging editors and publishers to get moving in this area. There are some institutions and chains. That doing a good job as one chain for example which is directly timing. The bonus of publishers of its newspapers to the progress that is made in terms of hiring minorities. But I can't pretend that is a widespread fact or it isn't. We have a very poor record on this we've got to do a lot better. And he is going to survey every so often to see how it is improving requiring not requiring because you can't force

but inviting editors to examine the progress of the newspapers just in numerical terms at intervals to see what they've done. And I would say that the other area in which the American press is or is sadly in the fault is in the advancement of women into senior positions now as any I suppose we have about 800 members. You have to be a directing editor to be a member of the society and all of those 800 probably less than 20 are women. And he has taken some steps to try to increase its membership as women in membership for example. If a newspaper. You get a certain quota of members depending on circulation if your quote is already filled and you've got a woman who's qualified why she can become a member of a city that's a small thing to offer. But the fact is that even with such inducements is that we can't get women members of a US only because they just are not directing editors of American newspapers the the record

of advancement of women in the higher ranks is very very poor. You know it's something we have to do something about but let me get to a question I have I requested information an equal employment opportunity figures of a major metropolitan newspaper and I won't tell you what city because I don't want to do lead anyone in the direction of any hometown. But the response I got from the vice president for administration the editorial side of that newspaper was I couldn't give that to me because it was rather confidential information. And then I felt terrible about it because we're doing a study on minorities in the media and I really wanted it. Then I picked up the Bulletin of the S and E for November 978 and that information was there. I am still trying to get the non editorial side of that same newspaper to get any information about it. Is there any way that the S N E can say to its members let's face this question

however bad it is. Let's report the figures without ducking behind this. We are reporters we demand that everybody else give us the information and yet about our own industry were very reticent through. Well yes and he can say that and does say it. But of course listen he has no power to in the halls whatsoever to enforce and if you seek and I assign a member's response on any issue and you don't hear from him there's absolutely nothing you can do about it. Is there any group of people that are acting as the. The moral force or moral conscience in the profession for those who are who is taking the lead aside from the SNP itself is there a center for concern here I think. There are I think I'm not sure that there is a single coordinated body but there are a lot of people who are very conscience stricken by this and are active and I think that in organizations like a preemie managing editors Association and a Sunday the

Editors Association NPA the Publishers Association there are certainly groups as there are in a Sony charged with the study of and improvement of the situation. Are there any goals that could be laid on so that even if the situation is bad now statistically or in terms of management that people might feel a little better if they said well we know we're moving toward the following goals yes they will reach them at certain dates yes there are yes and he has set some goals we had some presented to us which we did not think were were. Good enough were imaginative enough and so we we hasten the go I forget the exact figure at the moment but. But yes we say we set certain goals by a certain year we ought to have certain percentage of minority editors and so we wish you well on that to turn again because I'm so glad to have you here that I want to turn to variety of issues. I

want you to put your political reporters head on now and tell me as you did the last time when we met about a year and a half ago what you think of the national administration and its approach to the press and some of the problems that that Washington does or does not pose for you. Well I think that I think this is not quite as open an administration as it had promised to be. And I think that. In terms of number of press conferences and that kind of thing I think President Carter's done quite well but in terms of curbing some of his people from testifying I want to think like that. I don't think it has as open as he had promised. Somebody said that somebody said the other day that Mr. Carter's press conference is getting terribly dull but I think that's an unfair criticism I don't think you can expect a weekly sensation and that may tell us something about the

quality of Washington journalism. Well his his cabinet members have been making weekly sensations. Yeah. And you factor in them on occasion. Yes. And from his point of view it's the same in every administration though isn't it that when they're making news that appeals to the president there's no stopping they send every National Guard and when they're making news that doesn't appeal or the situation around the world is bad on the on that question the situation in the world being been much criticisms of the United States Great Britain France the Western countries so-called for ignoring the third world in less developed countries and our last big meeting on that was October 19. It's 78 in Paris. And October November 78 and it came out pretty much still a standstill. What are we going to do about these justified third world complaints of ignoring them or treating them only with our own sensational news.

Well the number of things that are being discussed I'm not sure that there are any further along in the discussion phase at the moment but but clearly there are grounds for believing that the American press has quite often been superficial and its coverage of the Third World has been insensitive there are factors on the other side of course as well. It is terribly expensive to keep American correspondents overseas but the trend is all in the other direction. Newspapers that have had substantial foreign services but in large are cutting back some have cut out their foreign services altogether. I think that that has meant that the flow of news from not only from the third world but from around the world in general is a quality the that is not what it used to be. And I think that's a very

very sad thing that is partly a reflection of the economic cost of keeping people abroad. It is partly an interpretation by editors of what they think the American public is interested in at the moment. And there may well be a tailing off of interest in events overseas but that gets back to the to the mix question that I talked about earlier. I think that a newspaper has an obligation not only to pander to the common denominator which is interest but it has an obligation if something is going on in Laos. Or wherever. That is a terribly complicated story but is very important to the people of the United States. I happen to believe it has an obligation to get that story and to try to explain it. Couple handsful interesting terms to make a broader spectrum of its readers especially in an industry that by and large is doing fairly well to try complaining about the cost of getting foreign news may be more of a controller's office concern than it is an honest newspaper person's concern. I often wonder why the

managerial or editorial style of such a publication is the Far Eastern Economic Review is not better reflected in our own domestic press. Why we have to go to the Far Eastern Economic Review we're not always sure that its articles are telling me the exact true facts of something but they seem on the whole to be more serious and perhaps more colorful in the sense of providing more background with reporters knowing intimate details about national leaders and trends especially in a show then. Then our great magazines like Time or Newsweek cause us not turn to the Far Eastern Economic Review that the Christian Science Monitor. Well again the Christian Science Monitor and without throwing any kudos that aren't deserved has always had that reputation of being more concerned with the details of the story with the background to the story than whether it's the latest thing that came off the wire. I tried but the Christian Science Monitor and other news papers the Times New York Times are not being

duplicated You know people not opening those newspapers they're opening. Rupert Murdoch kind of imitations. He seems to be the the great creative force the Norman Lear of the print. That's right and I don't object to Mr. Murdoch saying that. If if a newspaper is dull the editor has a responsibility to live and I don't object to them at all in fact we were talking earlier about the need for it is to get the editors to get up and find out what it is the readers are thinking about and what they want. But as I say having having found all that out it seems to me that you should not pander to the lowest common denominator of reader tastes. No no harm at all in finding out what the reader wants. But we get back to this question of mix and responsibility. Now in all fairness to him people could question whether our characterization of some of the things that he does in New York Post and some of things he did in Australia and in England. Are to be characterized like that but I do think he's interested in

selling newspapers more than he is interested in their value as properties of human communication or for human communication. It is it is it inevitable that he will succeed in the serious people won't. Could you start another Christian Science Monitor a New York Times today. Well I don't think it's I don't think when you're talking about newspaper scene you can say that anything is inevitable it is such a fluid situation. I just. I've only refused to accept the the judgment that quality newspapers can't survive that. That just is not true whether you can start another quality newspaper in a metropolitan area is as a questionable. There's a questionable situation I guess but I just really don't. I just do not believe that in general the public appreciation of these

papers is such that good newspapers can't survive is the heart of the newspaper business becoming more and more. The small newspaper not necessarily the small newspaper but the regional or community or suburban newspaper is that the shift that is taking place. Well I think that is the shift that's taking place. It does seem to me that the newspapers that are in trouble on these papers that have been nibbled away at by suburban communities papers on their flanks. This is what's happening in New York. It's what's happening in every metropolitan area where you have an afternoon paper and of course the other side of the coffin is that you know people say that large city newspapers are going out of business and some of them are. But there's a tremendous vitality in the American press as a whole in terms of numbers of newspapers. We are we are in a growth situation not a situation of decline. And there's a lot of vitality and a lot of improvement.

Well I suspect that when you go in June from your longtime work at the Christian Science Monitor to the Cape Cod paper the Orleans article that one of the things that's going to interest you the most with the title of that paper being what it is the article is right. The first editorial. Have you given a thought to the very serious position you've put yourself in. Well we have a short of changing the name of the newspaper. We have a phrase with the monitor we like our editorials to be genial Persuaders and I like I hope to think that I will carry that philosophy to the Oracle as well rather of attempting to know all from the very beginning how big is the newspaper it's about. Second I saw about eleven thousand and some and about seven thousand seven thousand five hundred women. Well it it may be the start of a major American newspaper of national significance as I recall it there was one that was published in the south. Yes it was

very very popular. And then I'll be able to come back and you'll be able to ask me all those tough questions about chain ownership chain. No I'll probably ask you how you handle that local supermarket where they demanded a retraction of your editorial about American business at the local level. JOHN HUGHES It's been absolutely a delight to have you on the program and I wish you well in your new work and it seems to me that you are doing always the important thing and certainly the citizens of Cape Cod I mean for a treat. Well thank you it's been fun to be with you. Same here for this edition printed ribbon. The First Amendment and a free people a weekly examination of civil liberties in the media. To 1970 the program was produced in cooperation with the Institute for democratic communication at Boston University. Why didn't you GBH radio Boston which is solely responsible for its content.

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