The First Amendment; Melvin Miller

The eastern Public Radio Network in cooperation with the Institute for democratic communication at Boston University now presents the First Amendment and a free people a weekly examination of civil liberties in the media. In the 1970s the host of the program is the institute's director Dr. Bernard Reuben. I'm pleased to have as my guest for this program Mr. Melvin Miller the publisher of the Bay State Banner which is a Boston newspaper primarily for black people and for those interested in black news. Mr. Miller is a lawyer and a trustee of Boston University as well as trustee of the New England Conservatory of Music and Children's Hospital Medical Center. I can't think of any three more important preoccupations to be a trustee for a major university one of the finer arts and one of the basic concerns that we have for children in the health of everybody.

Mr. Miller I I would like to ask you a leading question as it were. What is the major purpose of a newspaper for the black community as you see it. Well I think that the purpose changes when I first started the newspaper it was because there was absolutely no institutional way of getting information out to the people historically there's always been a paper directed to the black community since the 900 century and then for some odd reason around the middle of the 60s when things were the most turbulent there was no newspaper in publication. And also there wasn't a radio station that was primarily concerned with covering news and directing information. So I think that the first job at least the job that I had in mind was to provide information. But now I think it's broader than that. I think there has to be a voice to enunciate. Positions that are in the best interest on blacks and so many issues that are before the public.

Well I noticed that in reading in preparation for this program rereading three months of the issues of your paper which I follow quite regularly that you concentrate on on an educational work that you provide basic stories about job training about education about or about new trends that might be taking opportunity about new laws that should be understood. I I have a sense that your newspaper provider provides a service beyond that of the regular daily newspapers and that is as a daily school for the community is this true course where a weekly weekly school for a community of one. And that's correct I think that all of us will agree that the social changes preceeding it just. Pace it's impossible for everyone to comprehend.

And so I think part of our responsibility is to look at the changes and try to filter out for our readers the elements that might be of general significance and importance. I think that's a major responsibility. Now tell me another impression I have some Joining with my impressions is you always correct me. First to repeat again you are a weekly you have a prosperous circulation of about 10000 U.S. a week. And as I read through the Bay State Banner I find many a story that somehow is not followed up. It reaches a certain level and stops there it reports the event without going into the surround of it. Now is this. A misimpression. Or is it what does it reveal that you perhaps don't have the number of reporters to really go after the story that you would like or want to give time to a story that you like.

Well I think that that's a characteristic of weeklies. You have a choice to make if there's something that is of current significance. But it's not ripe. You can gather as much information that is available at the time of publication. Then if the matter isn't pressing enough for follow up stories your decision might be well it's a dead issue in a week so maybe some of the follow up information isn't available. Of course when you have a daily what you do is and you have. Success of stories in the next couple of days while the issue might still be alive and then it peters out. We have weekly time frame and you find I think you'll find that is a practice of a number of weeklies. Yes it is. But let me get let me get deeper into that I'm trying to draw you out. If you had to to announce what you would like to have for your own paper the optimum I'm not talking about heaven the thing you would like to have

a 10 percent injection of professional staff to do the kinds of things that you're not now doing by the way you're doing a fine job I'm not suggesting otherwise. What would that 10 percent consist. Well first of all you have to remember that we cover a community. If we if we just restrict ourselves to blacks and it's and I think that that's a restriction that we would not want to have to limit ourselves to. Ultimately we have over 100000 a population of over 100000 to cover. Now you have dailies operating in cities of a hundred thousand with a good sized staff really staying on top of things. So for a weekly in an active community where social change is just absolutely rampant with all of the. Problems of low income and the like. It's just absolutely impossible for us with the present stuff to provide the kind of coverage that I think the situation

really deserves. Do you provide the coverage that would be of interest to expanded audiences let us say that you wanted to expand your audience if you had additional staff could you do certain stories about job employment or about entertainment or about education that you're not tackling now. Not not so much in that area I think but I'm not sure that perhaps politics. Well yeah but I'm not sure that we cover a lot of those things now I mean you're asking about what is our strong suit. And I think that there are so many important stories that where we are weaker than the issues that you raised. But the point you have to remember is that some of these things that happened have a slant that makes the story particularly relevant to minorities. But you wouldn't get that impression because if you if you read it in the dailies because they have to write for a much broader audience so we

would take the same event and point out the slant that we give it its particular relevance to minorities and of course if you are not a minority you might not particularly be interested in that slant so it would be difficult to move along. Along that line but you know the there's a fast growing Spanish speaking population. Haitians speak French speaking points you like to attract their yes I think ultimately what we would like to because I think with a closer a closer coalition of these groups would be politically important in the city in the years ahead. I was recalling a story now I've forgotten whether the good woman's name is Ms Morrison or not for some reason Morrison sticks in my mind. And she works for a New York publishing house. Oh yes. And is that Tony Morris Tony Marston right. And I thought that was distinctive of stories in several

issues because it was a full blown story. It's a. fied your every desire to know more where some of the others were of the line police chief says. There was worry about is this a racist attack upon schoolchildren. But the Morrison story I thought being virtually a full page long in going into every facet of her career making her a real person was what intrigued me. Yeah but you can't you know I mean you can't do THEY WOULDN'T you Doris know you have to remember that. That was just a special situation and I think it was. I think it was a good story but it was awfully long as you say and many of our readers. I mean all of our readers haven't had a college education and had to have been required to consume volumes of written material so reading is a chore and it's not necessarily the most entertaining thing for a lot of people.

And so what I think that we try to operate within a certain words I mean I don't mean that we have a definite word limit for each story but we have to try to reduce things to an essence we don't like to go on and on and on. But that's not the reason why some stories are kind of the Toni Morrison issue was complete at the time the story was done. But a lot of the things that we have to report on the incident is still going on the matter is still under investigation there's still yet to something yet to happen with the story. So what you're looking for you would get if it were a daily in a successive public in a in a later publication. But if you compare us with other weeklies you'll find that there's not. Other weeklies are and what quiet communities generally speaking and they don't have so many live dynamic issues to cover what By the way.

All that I've been asking you is been a way of bringing out the ideas behind the paper. One of the ideas obviously you do have a strong sense as Henry Luce did when he started Time magazine as a young post college man that he wanted a certain style about it he wanted certain cliff Innes in his stories. Right and I'm all in favor of this. If I could just switch a little bit now. What are your own feelings and not about the Bay State Banner but about the responsibility of the Boston press in general to the coverage of the stories about ethnic minorities or about human beings the Freedom House coalition people took one approach. About a year and a half ago they they attacked the Boston press the predominantly white dominated Boston press for victimizing the the school is an ad hoc Council victimizing the the victims of the school desegregation crisis as they put it. Who did this. This was an ad hoc committee of people who were criticizing the Boston press mostly black people

who said they made the victims into the villains. Oh and. I thought they had a point there. Up to a certain point of reason do you agree with them or do you feel it's exaggerated that the three a lot of Boston school desegregation crisis were mishandled in some ways. Well the thing that bothered me about the handling was that. I think that it has never been properly stated in the general media how extraordinarily nonviolent blacks were through all of this with tremendous provocation and as a matter of fact people are more militant people coming more militant blacks coming from out of town have been very critical of me because I haven't been urging people to go to the ramparts. I mean after all you know blacks have been subjected to really severe physical harassment in certain sections of the city. And

I think it was a matter of fact there's been very very few retaliatory efforts and this and the. One thing that has never been pointed out is that these acts of retaliate or retaliation occurred in areas where one might expect there would be a special problem and were not did not represent the general attitude of the community. You know what. In a sense you cannot. It's not fair when one party says we don't want to fight and then is drawn into a fight to say that both parties are then fighting is make to make it appear that it's a mutual mutually desired condition. And I think that the papers haven't really all the media hasn't really distinguished that. I think blacks have been very very restrained through this whole period. I agree with you. Is it because I'm talking about the press now not about the courage heroism of most black people but is it that the

press doesn't cover the story because there are so few black people on the metropolitan dailies now there are about 2 percent of American newspaper men and women who are black on the on the great dailies of our country perhaps 2.3 percent something like that which is gone up from nothing. Is that the main reason that you have to live in the community to understand it. Well I think that that's part of it. I think that. Obviously the more people you have in the media who understand the situation and can make an impression on management which is really where the decisions are made I think that's all to the good. Well I suppose you are somebody said Melvin Miller. We want you to move up here. Don't leave the Bay State Banner alone but we want you to come on to be a trustee of the Boston Globe or the Herald or The New York Times or whatever and we want you to influence our policies. What repressed thoughts would you tell the board of directors at that time of whatever broadcasting

organization or print organization asked you for that advice. Well it's never it's never been a possibility. So I haven't it's a lovely thought that I have. Well I haven't given it a thought so I have had no thoughts to reveal. Well but you certainly have have feelings about what you think the duty of the press is. Well. First of all I think that we have to understand what the major media are and the the scope of their readership or the scope of their viewing audience a listening audience is very very wide and minorities comprise at least in the Boston area very very small percentage of this whole viewing audience. And so I think it's important to note that you must expect that most stories will have more of a general point of view. Several years ago when the Boston Community Media Council was organized there was an extraordinary effort with all of the media to

get them to be more sensitive about reporting matters events occurring in the black community of issues of importance to the black community. And I think it's worked to some extent. I think there's always room for improvement but. You know people are always critical of the media they are critical of us I'm I'm not sure that they always do as bad a job as they held out to be given what their basic responsibility is. You know the year the Boston media accounts that you were talking about was not the one that I referred to the ad hoc committee that was where the newspapers and radio station television got together and said how can we best cover the upcoming desegregation I'm not sure where that was. That was in the Boston Community Media. Yes. Now that that issue was widely criticized you know the statement that the criticism of that was an absurdity because all in all the media did their end. And you might remember that this was at the beginning of the desegregation effort here and everyone was concerned about violence. Now it's

very clear that the victims of the violence would be the school students. And I think every responsible citizen wanted to allay any possibility that children would be hurt. And the statement that was issued by the media at that time was had the catchword think of the children and it was a very very mild statement. Urging everyone to do everything to avoid any violence and that's that was the thrust of the statement. Now I can't see how anybody could object to the state statement as such. Now the there were some people who said a joint statement shouldn't have been made because for some reasons of editorial policy which elude me I found the any articulation of this objection to be very very fuzzy. But I just can't see how anybody would have. I mean if everybody if

every radio station every newspaper and every television station issued the statement or a similar statement independently I suppose it would have been all right. I can't see any reason for I think there was some criticism that some of the stories were sugar coated or that there was the feeling that they might be sugar coated in order not to exacerbate the situation from day to day or moment to moment. And some of the critics said that it was a bad story that people were being hurt that they were being victimized and for a long time there was almost a sigh. Conscious desire by many reporters to play it down that's was one of the criticisms where you don't think that's valid. I can't say you know I can't say whether it's valid or not but I think that we really have to face up to a 2:1 fact that has been a phenomenon particularly of TV news is that an event is occurring but when people realize that the TV cameras are wearing away that it becomes itself part of the event.

And for for the news media to people have become generally just more sensitive to how to use the media for their own political purposes. And I think it's important for television and radio and and the press to avoid becoming. Pat Patsy's or co participants in an event. So I just really can't say I mean something can be contrived just to get on the front page and and I don't I just really can't say I wasn't there when at the events that were complained of. So I can't say that I could support that criticism. At a recent publisher's national publishers conference dealing with the Muslims and how to handle that kind of a story or how to handle any kind of a story like the Gilmore story with the execution anything it had a lot of rampant violence in it in the immediate sense or

latent violence behind it. One of the. Guest on the program on the schedule was a black newspaper man who looked around and said to the audience startling them he said I have. You asked me about terrorism. I have never been in one room with so many terrorists before which is as flagrant a statement as you can make a newspaper publishes implying that they were not careful about some of the things that they run. And the net effect was to scare people to worry people to incite perhaps through innuendo or perhaps by the sin of omission. Well you know yes. Is there any validity to that kind I realize it's a strong charge but what lurks behind it in his mind you think well I don't know what lurks behind in his mind but I think that it's fairly clear when we look at the kind of TV programming and the kind of films that people like. It's absolutely clear what kind of news reporting they're going to like

and there's nothing that will sell papers or track the attention of the public any more than photographs of of terrorists with massed faces and weapons pointing at. Huddle scared hostages and people a move like that as long as the generator in the public is going to be more moved by that than good news. It's good news very rarely sells papers there's only one paper that we all know what is that thing in that weekly in the south that is all good news has such a wide circulation. People keep saying they want good news but it doesn't sell when you produce it. I know. Interestingly a lot of people. The criticism has been that there should have been more good news and the coverage of the desegregation. And I think they could have been more but interestingly people aren't aware of the good news that was published because I didn't want to hear it. So I don't I think it's unfortunate but

publications in the news media are in an intensively competitive market and they have to get ratings they have to get viewers and listeners. What would you say I don't like that but that's the way the system works. That is why we're newspaper people or all media people. Are they not increasingly sensitive or leery because they used to think they could stand apart from the story that they were just in competition price very difficult to stand apart from most stories now that have a basic political or social connotation I mean you just can't say I'm covering this. It's you know I don't think that that's much of a problem. I mean if somebody is breaking the law as. Assassins or terrorists I don't think you have any. I mean I don't think that you have to have a dispassionate attitude to this horrendous breach no but if you're standing in front of a high school and there has been again that day's troubles a lot of the way you reported or a lot of the way you decide

to report the story in the future depends upon an assessment the newspaper men didn't have to make too often or the process of analyzing Well I think it was I think the problem with coverage on those stories is that there are very few people who who have the responsibility yes to cover them who really have the sources they have to rely on. He said she said type of journalism and my experience has been that's about the worst way to try to get a news story a particularly one that's important important. Right now if you were to create a new kind of news person man or woman from the black community and let's say you were standing in front of a group of youngsters who are just about ready to go into college or thinking about should they go through the long haul or should they go right from high school and become news people. What would you urge urge them to remember on the basis of your own experience what what would you say I give you one tip or two tips that

somebody ought to have given me or is that is that too hard a question. It's it is an odd question but I'll tell you one of the biggest problems I find for with people who are interested in going into journalism is that they think that being a good journalist has to do with mastering grammar and being able to write a lucid sentence. And write paragraphs that seem to follow reasonably after one another and I think it's very hard for me to get across to them that this is a sina qua non. If if you can't do this then there's just no possibility of being a journalist once you have the new something. One thing that they all have in common is an ability to write. The biggest issue is whether you have any profound understanding of public issues or whether you have good judgement and those of the. In my opinion the factors that distinguish a mediocre journalist from a good one and there are some

people who are national columnist who write while they have an adequate writing style is certainly not very literate. I won't mention any names to embarrass anyone but they are read because of the profundity of their thoughts. So you would look if you were hiring somebody you would look for some background information that he brings to your organization some some basic learning some basic understanding. You wouldn't send a and the quality of the person and the quality of the person how successful have you been in hiring such people very successful. As a matter of fact I'm I'm rather proud of the kinds of success. People who have worked at the bank I have had in in the field have gone on to do pretty substantial things. What is the typical background of a new employee that you put on the reporting staff I caught. I can't even tell you that there is a typical background when you become a boy. Well I can get. There was a fellow who was a copy boy at one of the dailies who who had a burning desire to be a reporter and

no one was teaching him so he came over and was working as a second job with us. And I have a very tough way of working with people like that because we don't have the time of the stuff it's like teaching somebody to swim by rowing out to the middle of the pond and then throwing them in. He worked hard and in a matter of six months he was he was became a roving reporter for a major weekly and he didn't even have one day of college. So you just can't tell by a person's educational background. Now you have the other side of it as well you have the in one very well trained person right. Does not work well there are several people who have who are working with us now who have advanced degrees. And do they per se do a better job than somebody with sensitivity to Wellington in the areas. I think they tend to it makes sense to have some political science and sociology background psych background.

The more you can the more you have the more the more you know about what's going on behind the issues. Sometimes for instance the young that journalists just have no idea what they're looking at that nobody seems to teach civics anymore so they don't know much how the American political system works. They have no idea what the responsibilities are of the police and no understanding of law so it's very difficult for them to cover a story. And if you send such a person down to City Hall or to the state capitol or to Washington D.C. The results will be about the same they would superficially cover it yes they could they couldn't do a good job. Well you're doing a terrific job on the Bay State Banner I'm one of your devoted readers and I think I have very few complaints but I think that the the audience now understands a little bit more about your newspaper. And I thank you Melvin Miller the publisher of the Bay State Banner for this day. Bernard Reuben. The eastern Public Radio Network in cooperation with the Institute for democratic communication

at Boston University as president of the First Amendment as a free people a weekly examination of civil liberties in the media in the 1970s. The program is produced in the studios of WGBH Boston. This is the eastern Public Radio Network.