thumbnail of The First Amendment; Newman
Transcript
Hide -
If this transcript has significant errors that should be corrected, let us know, so we can add it to FIX IT+
The First Amendment and a 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. boated Ruben. I'm delighted to have as my guest today Edwin Newman of NBC who's been a correspondent there for more than 30 years reporting from more than 35 foreign countries including an eight year stint in London. He's been bureau chief in London Rome and Paris and is well-known to all of us as a distinguished radio and television commentator. He has two previous books prior to the one I'm going to be talking about in a moment. Our standards for. People who want to speak English correctly and listen to English correctly are strictly speaking and a civil tongue. His latest book was published by Haute Mifflin this year a brand new book is called Sunday Punch and it's touted on the cover as a light dry sparkling novel
by Edwin Newman. And it is all of those things in addition it's it's just jolly good fun. It's about a prizefighter and about a woman actress in about an editorial writer and about a man who thinks he's with the mafia and about a number of other people. What led you to write this bit of good. Is it jolly fun. Well first I thank you for saying what you did about it. I wrote it because I wanted to prove to myself and to other people that I could write a humorous novel. I have that in mind for a long time I believe that I could. This was an idea or set of characters perhaps I ought to say who came to me a good many years ago in London but I think it probably has most to do with the fact that when I was younger I read humorous novels I read many of them I liked them they stayed with me the works of Woodhouse. Works not necessarily novels but humorous work by Ring Lardner and
Stephen Leacock and Robert Benchley Lardner was not always amiable but what I mean when I mention those four is that their works were happy and they had they tried to make people laugh and that seemed a sufficient justification for them. It's a tradition that I think has not has to some extent been neglected lately. Agree with you I think that Robert Benchley since you mentioned him the sex life of the Newt is one of the great scientific classics of all times especially when dealing with married young Newsome grandmotherly newts and so on. Somebody mentioned to me the other day an author whose name I'd forgotten but who used to I thought be extremely amusing that was Will Cuppy. And if you think back to the titles Will Cuppy came up with how to tell your friends from the apes how to become extinct. That was a spirit an attitude described in those titles but spurred an attitude in the writing. It was frankly set out to
amuse and it people would jab people were poked fun at but nobody was. Nobody was devastated nobody was ruined by it it was an attempt to find something funny in life and that is why I try to do in my book. Well life certainly is too macabre not to be funny too funny not to be. And certainly ought to be enjoyed in the good old sense of being able to sit down and have a good read and to get up from that saying well we're more decent than I thought we were as a human race. If I can turn from Sunday Punch which is the name of this brilliant novel I'd like to ask you a couple questions that get to the Edwin Newman correspondent. And I think you better known to us before this book sells in the millions. We're not going to correspond to one of the questions I'd like to ask you right off is you've been censored to a great many of these controversies over the First Amendment lately. And you know that
people are beginning to wonder whether the Supreme Court is especially amiable toward the First Amendment. And you're also aware that a great many people are wondering whether this is not a period in which the general public is rather unsympathetic to assaults being made upon the press from your catbird seat. How do you see the situation. Well there are some decisions i've been some recent decisions that I don't like how much effect we're going to have however is another question. For example the decision on which the court appeared to say that it was legitimate to inquire into the state of mind of a reporter a journalist at the time he or she wrote an article on which a libel suit was later based. The idea that you can examine the reporter state of mind I think is not likely to have much effect I think in practice. If you've got a reporter on the
stand you would find it extremely difficult if not impossible to show that the reporter was malicious. The reporter had a malign intent in writing the story. In fact if you can demonstrate that what you did is traditional journalism and it isn't very difficult to do that and it seems to me that that is a sufficient reply. There is another point of course which is that if a threat of a lawsuit hangs over us all the time we may be less disposed to write material that might draw a suit and we would then be inhibited and would report less well and report less openly less frankly. That I think is a possibility but I believe that in practice it will not happen I think there will be. I hope I'm right about this I think it will be very few suits that result from that ruling. And I think in practice reporters will just find it too easy to turn aside the idea that they were malicious After all if you're reporting on somebody.
We are engaged in standard journalistic practice which is to say investigation a certain amount of checking more or less judicious conclusion. How what basis would you then be successfully sued. How will it look in the case of what came before the court. How will it be possible to demonstrate that. CBS set out to ruin Colonel Herbert know starbursts minor vs. Lando that CBS set out to ruin him. It seems to me that it is not going to be possible to demonstrate that well because 60 Minutes is the program in point in this case in that particular edition of it which was on Colonel Herbert lately as of this particular taping of this program 60 Minutes has been in so many reruns I don't know what the effect of the decision is but it might be that the worst effect might be that the editorial directors would spread the word that they want people to be a little more cautious a little more
careful. The editorial directors Dr. Ruben I think would be unlikely to do that. You might find that more from the legal department. And there's a question. Should news department submit programs to legal departments while in practice you do I can't speak for all networks and all news organizations but certainly for some programs we have done we have called in the legal department and I asked one of them. What we were doing was was permissible was legal not whether it was advisable but whether it was legal whether we were violating anybody's rights whether we were violating any statutes. I think that's a reasonable practice so long as it is understood that the job of the legal advisor is to give you advice on legal matters and not to not to urge caution upon you. It is true that in the news business there is already a good deal of timidity. There is. News organizations by and large exist for the purpose of making money. But most people in the news business don't
think very much about the legal implications of what they're doing. And I think that most people in the news business I'm not going to be inhibited. The question is whether people in the business and I'm a legal I'm going to inhibit their news people. That is much more likely to happen but that threat has always been one possibility has always been present. And as I say with this decision I must say I cannot see how it is. How anybody's going to demonstrate the existence of malice in the mind of a reporter when he is investigating what is obviously a new story. Well to press too far it could change the complection of the whole democracy. It could change the concept that we have a government because the Fourth Estate is the unofficial branch of government and if it gets too inhibited that I don't see how it would be possible to do what they call investigative reporting. Well two points on that one. One is the term investigative reporting which is which is one that if you were tested while you were lying it was somewhat and somewhat redundant since our reporting ought to write imply investigation were
called for. But how to put this. I I'm not sure I entirely accept what you said about the press being an unofficial arm of government. No I didn't say that I said as an unofficial branch of branch of the concept of democracy. Well that's what I said Well I would certainly accept that. I think there's a danger in the press in X in exactly. On exactly this point that the press will misunderstand what it is I can remember during Watergate. There was certainly a feeling among some members of the press that it was sufficient hollows or in difficulty over Watergate to hold news conferences and answer questions from reporters rattle and answer questions from some of the House committees or whatever appropriate tribunal they should have been appearing before they were not part of a government we ought to be very careful about that and particularly in Washington we ought to be extremely clear about it that we're not part of the government. It isn't just a game we're
playing on which we're on the inside with people in the government everybody else is outside. I agree with that completely. Again looking at the coverage of government it is usually complained about by critics that reporters tend to talk about what people in power say and they trace what people in power do rather than going behind the agency with the Commissioner Wood or the secretaries Department or the president's friends. They if there's a controversy they go to all aspects of the controversy by having six people speak instead of two. Is it true. Is it good criticism valid criticism that the press has been careless in getting away from people in power that they're transfixed you know hypnotized. I think that was that is a valid criticism. Certainly there is a degree of validity in it particularly in Washington. I was
saying before look there's a tendency on the part of those in Washington to play a game. You are on the inside I'm on the inside everybody else is on the outside. This results from time to time. You know reporters are asking public figures to speak off the record and speak not retribution. There are reporters who would rather get statements made which they will tribute to inside sources and that sort of thing so that nobody else will be able to match them. That's the well known journalistic technique for public is better served when those who make statements are identified and the public is entitled to have those people identified most of the time. We do tend to pay a great deal of attention to government and in particular to certain parts of the government. This has become increasingly true as governments have become larger and have undertaken more and more activities.
We pay in my opinion much too much attention to Washington. I have long felt this. But here you are talking about the realities of the news business you hire a certain number of camera crews a certain number of reporters and you assign them. If you assign a camera crew and a reporter to a particular department a lot of say you then have an investment plan and you tend to run perhaps on the nightly news show up put in your morning or evening paper. The story about that camera crew of the reporter assigned to the department gives you. You have an investment. In fact you're amortizing your investment. The further point of course is that if you have a camera crew at one place you don't have another another and you tend to have time to use what you get. So what happens in our business is that habits are created stereotypes are created traditions and usages are created and you tend to cover today what you covered yesterday because you covered it yesterday and because you're covering it today you'll
cover it tomorrow. We're not as quick as we ought to be. Looking elsewhere for stories and understanding at times the stories are not quite what they appear to be. This is a very long answer and I'll try to get to the end soon. It is because of the war in Vietnam was not understood by much of the American press. Many a most American news organizations for a long long time because they tended to see it as they had seen all the wars in the past. It's the same reason that the black revolt in the United States was not understood well for a long time because that was a part of the country that we hadn't been in the habit of covering. Same reason monthly blue collar revulsion against the anti-Vietnam War movement was not well understood because that again was a part of the country that we all the population that we had not been in the habit of covering. So it's a very long answer to say yes any news organization ought to be examining itself
constantly to see whether it is simply falling into rocks. If it has getting itself out of that rut as quickly as it can I'm going to comment now about one of your colleagues not on your own network but on another network who is a very reputable man distinguished man and certainly has made his fair contribution to Television News Notes Walter Cronkite. But I'm getting fed up with Walter Cronkite going to newspaper meetings print journalist meetings and saying of course we can't do it as well as you can you. You have the print you have the space you have the time you can sign reporters and do this that the other thing. I agree with what he says as a general premise that television is no match for print. But I'm beginning to find a certain stultification in the evening news programs on the networks. ABC is trying some novel things that NBC and CBS are beginning to shake each other up and themselves. But the public that used to watch two or three of those network news services through that
Vietnam War that you talked about got so so jaundiced by it may be horrified by what they saw and then frightened by Agnew's ability to frighten everybody else that now they're beginning to wonder whether that news that a pop pops up in front of them is the way it is. I'm going one step beyond what you said. If what you said is correct what can we do to get a better level of electronic journalism. I believe in the first place that were often criticized in television news and some of the criticism certainly justified the level of reporting on television news is not lower than the level of reporting of most of the newspapers in the United States. It simply isn't. Speed the brevity with which stories are often covered on television. It is no greater than the brevity with which many stories are treated in print. In fact we often would
carry stories on the other want to get into print. Many newspapers in this country. I can remember in the early sixties having people coming to me and saying we thank you for putting these stories on we don't have access to them in any other way and this was true of people in many many parts of the country. Having said that it is true that. I think I have to add that it is true that television news programmes tend to become mad as a formula. They do. And here again you have to be on guard to make sure that you're not simply falling into an easy formula. It seems to me that in the first place there's a tendency to patronise the public by insisting that most story can be very long if they have to be only a certain length to three minutes perhaps at the most.
Occasionally you get a six seven or even eight minute piece on for example NBC News a segment three. If you insist on running stories out of two minutes long an hour longer three minutes long and no longer you will soon develop an audience that cannot take a story that is longer simply because it's got out of the habit of doing so. And you will drive away the people who would like to have longer stories so it's that well-known phenomenon the self-fulfilling prophecy I think. Two things if you want to get better news on television you must have an audience that demands better news on television. For that to happen the public must know far more about the news business and it does more than we have in our business been willing to tell them. They're beginning to learn that from such books as David how does John Sununu know about the inner workings of the industry. There are there are people in the news business and I've worked with some of them who don't want the public to know how we operate really. And I don't want the public to know how we go about our business I think this is wrong. I don't argue that the press is a public utility.
But I think people have a right to know the truth about business about the way it functions what it can do what it cannot do. And I think if that happened then there would be a much greater understanding on the part of the public that for example news is not uniform. That is to say news programs are not uniform newspapers are not uniform. They vary greatly in quality they vary greatly and care with which they are produced. They may have different points of view. They may be aimed at particular audiences. There isn't even uniformity let us say within NBC News has a considerable variation of talent. I'm concerned in attitudes and I can do a program of mine o'clock in the morning and say this is the news and somebody else can do a program of 9 o'clock in the morning and find the news to be something quite different. Perfectly legitimate. If we're to get better news and people have to understand something more about the business so that they can
make a demand in the hangar and inform the way. Second thing is it seems to me that there's a great deal of talk about the network news programs going to one hour. This is a wholly personal view has nothing to do with NBC. I wish we had more time on the air if we could get it. I would not like to see it used simply to extend the Nightly News for half an hour I would not like to see another half hour like a half hour we've already got. I would like to see the time used differently now this is going to take a certain amount of daring on somebodies part and a willingness to experiment. But there are other ways time could be used. Spend the rest of the time on one story have you know that you could have debate so you could do repeats or you could show what some other countries are doing and how they're handling stories. You could call in people to discuss what you have done. Pardon me you could show far more film then you show on
normal news story. Sometimes you have to dump a film that ought to be seen at any rate it's interesting you could discuss why you cover the story in a particular way and calling people who perhaps would cover it in a different way. There are many things that could be done without additional time. I would like to see the time as I say used in a variety of ways until we come up with some other means of getting information to the public. There is a tendency in the United States to look upon network television network news as the nightly news programs. In fact there's a great deal more to television news than those programs and there ought to be even more. You mentioned how other countries in the world do things now as you know one of the biggest arguments that we are facing in our country and indeed in the West is the argument that was posed by the third world that says that they have been put upon by us that we dominate the news. Most people agree with them. The physical side the number of
telephones in Africa the number of television sets in etc etc all lead to agreement. If that is so what can we do about it and even more important. From your experience do you think that the Western press radio television newspapers in the Great Western countries are going to make a serious effort or are going to try to ride this out. I guess if we're going to try to ride it out on the whole but that is what I would do. To begin with. There are certain facts you recited some of them. This is where most of the telephone so I heard is where most of the money it is is that it. It is where most of the expertness in the field as it is where the organizations are. A P P writer as young as France Presse so on and so on. Also almost any national
organization and its reporting tends to report from its own point of view. It's really what you exist for and what the third world countries are complaining about as it has been much reporting from my point of view. Well if they want to have their own news organizations well and good. On the other hand they tend to think of news organizations as servants of the government. I don't think that there's a great deal to be said for what there is on the part of big news organizations like United Press International Societe Press Writer France press a few of those. The history in which they have sold this service to other countries for example when I worked for the UPI many years ago it was very big in Latin America. I suppose it still is and a good deal of what we wrote was aimed at various Latin American countries and it was designed to meet their needs. Not that we.
Sought to please them or to write a law to write a particular political along a particular political line but we sought to recognize our interest in a particular story and cover the stories that they were interested in them which were vital to them which would involve perhaps a different angle from the angle you were writing for the United States. So there is a certain amount of that. But they will come right back and say All right let's take the present situation as we are talking at this taping. Trouble in Nicaragua and the American press would rush in there the Western press will rush and they're doing a wonderful job on that correspondents lives and all the things that are required. But for the majority of people of Latin America they ignore most of the things that happened there and they are saying to us that we're living in the same world. And yet it's a blank when it comes to that you know to them. It's curious It's curious how difficult it is to get people in the United States interested in Latin America. I can remember when NBC News had a bureau and when the Cyrus bureau in Rio de Janeiro and the bureau and this was done at the instance of
the head of NBC Robert Kempner who was a former newspaper and a former columnist. And it just it took a good deal of money to establish three bureaus in Latin America as far as I know we don't have any now. But it wasn't because NBC didn't want to have it was because there was no response. By and large what was being done from there. I realize that this argument can go in a circle. I don't know what ought to be done about it. I think you have to put on a certain amount of foreign news with the understanding that very few people will read about it. I do agree that we ignore Latin America and not only Latin America but certainly Latin America and we do so at our own risk. Perhaps the difficulties through which the country is now passing at least one hopes for passing will direct the attention of the United States to the American people to areas in which they have not previously been very interested there must be a new
attitude to Mexico for example that must happen. There must be a new attitude to Venezuela the same reason oil. I would include Canada and Canada. We have we are totally out of keeping with what is happening in Canada. Yes and that's another thing very difficult to get people interested in Canada. We've tried it. It's curious but maybe that will change. It isn't because news organizations don't want or don't want to pay attention to those areas that is because when they do nobody seems to be listening and then you endanger your circulation of your newspaper magazine you endanger your audience of radio television because when you say nobody's listening is it is it fair to say that we've given it a fair enough trial. Or do we withdraw when we say it's not working because the audience gets developed. I don't I don't I shouldn't say nobody is listening. What we're talking about here is something fundamental in commercial television which is the view that you cannot accept a small audience. That is of you
is controlling what I mean by a small audience of maybe an extremely lucky that may run into millions. But I don't know how many people listen to this program it is variously estimated between 100000 and 750 million. But we certainly accept that audience and I want to I want to thank you and win Newman. And may I ask you to finish this program because I don't want to leave Sunday Punch your new book. You're new and liked and very funny novel. You said that you did it for a reason people didn't think you could write a funny novel. Are you going to do another one. Well I have to be correct Dr. Drew and I said I wanted to prove to myself and perhaps to other people that I could because I always believe that I could Am I going to do another one. I don't know at the moment I don't have another idea. For a novel. But I have been. I run into this if I have time to save us time I guess we don't have any time.
I'm just going to say good luck with Sunday Punch and it's been a pleasure having it with Newman for this edition. Bernard Reuben. The First Amendment and a free people weekly examination of civil liberties in the media in the 1970s. The program is 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. This is the station program exchange.
Series
The First Amendment
Episode
Newman
Producing Organization
WGBH Educational Foundation
Contributing Organization
WGBH (Boston, Massachusetts)
AAPB ID
cpb-aacip/15-79v15vj1
If you have more information about this item than what is given here, or if you have concerns about this record, we want to know! Contact us, indicating the AAPB ID (cpb-aacip/15-79v15vj1).
Description
Series Description
"The First Amendment is a weekly talk show hosted by Dr. Bernard Rubin, the director of the Institute for Democratic Communication at Boston University. Each episode features a conversation that examines civil liberties in the media in the 1970s. "
Genres
Talk Show
Topics
Social Issues
Media type
Sound
Duration
00:29:19
Embed Code
Copy and paste this HTML to include AAPB content on your blog or webpage.
Credits
Producing Organization: WGBH Educational Foundation
Production Unit: Radio
AAPB Contributor Holdings
WGBH
Identifier: 79-0165-09-20-001 (WGBH Item ID)
Format: 1/4 inch audio tape
Generation: Master
If you have a copy of this asset and would like us to add it to our catalog, please contact us.
Citations
Chicago: “The First Amendment; Newman,” WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed March 19, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-79v15vj1.
MLA: “The First Amendment; Newman.” WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. March 19, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-79v15vj1>.
APA: The First Amendment; Newman. Boston, MA: WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-79v15vj1