An hour with Journalist Bill Moyers: Part One

this month journalism legend bill moyers stepped down from the world of public broadcasting i'm kate mcintyre and today on k pr press that's bill moyers from its recent talk in kansas city it's the truman library institutes bennett forum an annual event focusing on the presidency but first if you missed last week's programme on the kansas legislature and issues facing the two thousand fifteen session it's now available on demand on our website npr that's ed you last week's show with a special roundtable discussion from the kbr live performance studio with peter hancock of the lawrence journal world bryan lowry of the wichita eagle professor bob beatty of washburn university and professor michael smith of emporia state university hear their thoughts about the state budget taxes school finance and other issues likely to come before the house and senate this year again that's last week's katie are present now archived at our website k pr that kay you

that edu bill moyers has reported on and work inside government serving as president lyndon b johnson's press secretary in the nineteen sixties before returning to journalism for five decades first as publisher of newsday then at cbs later in public broadcasting he's won more than thirty emmy awards nine peabody award and was elected to the television hall of fame in nineteen ninety five this month marked his formal retirement from broadcasting actually his third such retirement his previous retirements first in two thousand and then again in two thousand thirteen were short lived but at eighty years old he says this time he's retiring for good today on k pr present lawyers talks about his time in the johnson administration and how about presidency compares to that of president harry truman his talk is called a tale of two presidents history takes time

this event was recorded by kbr is chinese that on november first two thousand fourteen shortly after the royals last game against the san francisco giants in the two thousand fourteen world series of fake village and thank you for the local it brought a prepared to beginnings this talk and one of them doesn't work anymore this is how i intended to start a detail you mighty roar eels the pope monarch rumors of our land seasons of the old chisholm trail slayers of giant somebody on the golden gate the science of silicon valley lonely rain as defenders of the faith

the league that anymore so i prepared another just in case oh somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright on the band is playing somewhere and somewhere hearts are light and somewhere men are laughing and somewhere children shout but there is no joy in kansas city our talent the lancet i read that as a journalist i'm always prepared for any eventuality having been part of the band that formed seven years ago frankly i'm surprised you would welcome you back but i'm grateful that you did because you have given me the chance to honor

a promise made you knew mary bennett johnston daughter harry truman's good friends virginian howard been if you live in a house around the corner from them and independents mary married her junior high sweethearts mike and overall life together they did many fine things including establishing before my wife of sixty years and my creative and business partner and i met mike and mary in new york in nineteen sixty three we became the closest of friends but for the last twenty three years we live just twenty minutes from them in new york and new jersey if you order visit our place you see a small stone in the terrace between the paris and the words inscribed mary's garden placed there by judith and surrounded by roses lilies iris and half as beautiful as the members only and deep

friendship she loves mike jenny and then the nature and music but she also loves politics and she peppered me with questions about president johnson's friendship with president truman and before that mike was done she expected from me they promised to return to form someday to talk about the two presidents mary i'm here this is for you there is no one who understands the president better than a former president and that's why linden johnson hung harry truman close just this week i went back and looked at the transcript of a phone call harry truman made from independents to lyndon johnson the day after the nineteen sixty four election when johnson won the biggest karate ever in a presidential election the most interesting part of it to me as they're discussing the

campaign is being meet in vicious and very truly surreal they lied about you and just as it you know on the late night about a piece of the remaining harry truman said yes i could've killed them if i could get my hands on the military the talk though like that for a while and i was reading this transcript i was smiling to myself hearing him talk about how mean and thirty the campaign of them had been because both of them had entered politics as the most available career too ambitious young men of no means and they quickly learned in depth what it that it takes mortar climbed the greasy pole and channeling the founding fathers back then the columnist peter farrelly done that invented a fictional character named mr dooley to rely on politicians who complained about the rough and tumble of elections that politics at the bag truman and johnson didn't need reminding true and won

his first office county judge by only two hundred and seventy nine votes out of twelve hours and test in nineteen forty eight he was elected president in his own right after all the pundits and experts said he was a dead duck that's emir lyndon johnson was elected to the senate from texas by just eighty seven questionable votes he had question about a lot of people get out of nine hundred and eighty eight thousand two hundred ninety five ks and would of course be forever doug landslide linda which quite frankly he relished recently our burden sent me the truman library magazine with a photograph of the two presidents all the cover it was taken in nineteen sixty five when lbj and i was tagging along came here to sign the medicare act which johnson said had started with a man from independence when president truman proposed a health insurance propose health insurance for everyone over sixty five

years of age or have congress as usual in the photograph it truly is laughing broadly with a grand that runs from chico to chico suggesting i'm sure the pleasure of vindication which he deserved johnson is obviously pleased to all of this photograph of it but if you peer closely for his sunglasses you can see as us or cut over to something off in the distance with that sly look of the poker player who says play the cards for joy know what i built you there's a story i think both men would have appreciated a certain presidential candidate is putting the finishing touches on his announcement speech when the double appears beside him go fight the devil said i can guarantee you victory in the iowa caucuses i can give you the

new hampshire primary the south new york california i can even give you the machine in kansas city i can give you all the rest i won't even guarantee you the nomination of your party and in return you have so many years so you must pander to realize and to see you must explore and re read it must be prepared to engage in hype and deception and consider me your closest adviser and i promise you'll win so says the killer what's the catch it's b politics ain't been bad fate they also had in common the fact that fate gave both men a tragic bridge both for accidental presidents the odds of

success steeply against them all that april day in nineteen forty five win over truman cole president vice president truman of the white house to tell him that the president her husband frightened was dead what are the people in a recording the arctic byrd who was hair trimmers close advisor mccain than johnson's closest talk about joshua seventy go spend the evening with harkin haven't tell you about harry truman which i did wonder people and set in the rich and he looked to me like a very little man in an oversized leather chair it was an ad in the bowl for almost everyone but this onetime far more with the squeaky voice than a high school education could possibly fill the shoes of the suave sophisticated and popular franklin delano roosevelt a harvard graduate from an aristocratic family owned new york's hudson river who had been elected president four times and when lyndon johnson was sworn in on air force one on the

twenty second of november nineteen sixty three soon after john f kennedy's coffin had been lifted aboard it was just this unfathomable to many that this flamboyant six foot four inch wheeler dealer from the thin crust of soil of the hill country of texas who reportedly had never read a book could fill the shoes of the young erudite and glamorous war hero from boston also a graduate who not only read but wrote books yet both truman and johnson had something you don't necessarily get and they refined education truman was as old fashioned and uncomplicated as a missouri new and he possessed the polish role sense of fair play but political instincts that were greatly underestimated as for lbj he may not have read books but he read people and he wanted

to find out two things what you most lauded and what you're most feared that he would work you over sometimes he implored the famous treatment a combination of gymnastics aerobics and semantics and had you backed into a corner podcast partly for your wallet looking frantically for an exit the washington post editor ben bradlee who died last week compared lbj through st bernard who lecture face for an hour and poured all over you but it just sing the women found him graceful on the dance floor he is said to have been the finest dancers as george washington who was also six forum had even more and he could be a gentle push waiter in conversation yes he was confrontational but he

was also successful conversationally sitting calmly speaking softly leaning forward listening carefully and never taking his eyes off sometimes you wanted to do things for him just because you ask both truman and johnson were accurate products of their time school warriors who believed communism had to be contained both took a country to war in asia truman the stalemate in korea lbj to defeat in vietnam johnson was often heard to say i heard him often say i'm not going to be the first president to lose a war against the communists but he did not belong to richard nixon would sabotage the peace talks nineteen sixty eight in paris to prevent hubert humphrey from winning election once i was at your shot when lbj told a member of congress

truman threw away his reform programs in that got damp sinkhole of korea that's not going to happen to me but it did eric chairman never seem to look back and regret that lbj became increasingly disconsolate over the floor filled gap between ends and means that enveloped the war in vietnam you don't want to go into it it almost a year but he didn't know how to get out so finally he drew the sword and threw away the scabbard and we still lost and the progressive historian peter dreier included lbj in his recent book the one hundred greatest american of the twentieth century a social justice hall of fame he was greeted with a broad's of complaints from people who still today see lbj as

a warmonger worse peter sent me a copy of one email he received from readers go johnson has the blood on his hands of over fifty thousand americans killed and over three hundred thousand americans injured plus the deaths and injuries of a million vietnam me but of course if this is thomas carlyle wrote now is the sum total of the whole pest the highest aspirations of public figures come tethered to brutal realities many of my old college wish we could separate people from his legacy but as john kennedy or john kenneth galbraith once suggested it's no more possible the fate of the johnson years without vietnam than to think of switzerland as a flat country without the alps so there are memories like a virus in the blood stream never to be

expunged a few months ago waiting for the opening curtain of bryan cranston's remarkable portrayal of president johnson in the broadway play all the way sitting there as you are here before the curtain went up so help me i heard from some far distant corner of my mind angry voices outside the white house shouting hey hey lbj how many kids did you kill the day i have no doubt that he heard those shots until his own death in true and by the way the three weeks apart through in december of nineteen seventy two lbj in january of nineteen seventy three truman was eighty eight it helps to walk a lot johnson was sixty four doesn't help to smoke but in nineteen sixty

for those angry shout outside the white house are still ahead of us in this evening i just want us to think about the fact that in the greatest struggle of american history here at home both harry truman and lyndon johnson did the right thing at the right time and the civil rights act of nineteen sixty four was the result of their deeds truman he'd been out of the white house for twelve years what did he have to do with the civil rights act of sixty four that monumental piece of legislation that ended segregation in public places and outlawed employment discrimination on the basis of race color religion sex and national origin even know when i say it that plainly that doesn't do justice to go lohmann says meaning of how that one piece of legislation changed our country the journalist play rise and calls it and i recommend you read

this book that drove clear eyes and calls it the bill of the sentry survey research and riveting account of the whole epic battle for the civil rights bill he begins the book with thirteen year old eugene young on the morning of july second nineteen sixty four walking into the historic knew about hotel here in kansas city to get a haircut he was refused because he was blocked in the barbershop cater only to whites later that same day the second of july nineteen sixty four president johnson signed the civil rights act outlawing the very kind of discrimination that eugene young had just been subjected to color barriers begin falling across the country in restaurants hotels creators and barbershops and the very next day

the third of july nineteen sixty four eugenio and went back to the meal box popped into the chair of lord sober one of the barbers they gave him two dollars a few minutes later another satisfied customer barber said i didn't mind cutting that little boys hair and he didn't mind the extra two bucks in claire eisinger word an entire social system built on a pressing an exploding blacks had been outlawed with the stroke of a pen lyndon johnson's hand held at him that harry truman's hand stated he is now it's true the devil always the men's his views and we

keep learning fifty years later that in the united states of ferguson we have continued to create intentionally discriminatory ghettos engineered at the local state and federal levels over many years of what boston redlining sleazy real estate practices and economic segregation the sins of our fathers including our founding fathers were part of our dna and it has taken over two hundred and fifty years to try to dig out the last remnants of that original sin and we still haven't finished the us the civil rights act fifty years ago was the curling legislative achievement of a revolutionary year in the transformation of american policy toward people of color and as

mike said i had the good fortune to be there at the peak of lyndon johnson's career and to learn early what the late john edwards and friend of mine fine southern journalist meant when he wrote in his remarkable magnificent book speak against the day the generation before the civil rights movement in the south which tells the story of how it is that history takes a lull to move the wheel the parsippany shoulders great courage from so and great sacrifice for many our greatest leaders do not will history as much as they know how to marshal their experience and public support to respond when events converge with the momentum of their own and that's how the civil rights act of nineteen sixty

four it came to be though we knew of history have been pushed further the evening we arrive back in washington from dallas just hours after kennedy's death lbj worked for three years in the vice president's week in the executive office building just a few steps from the white house the oval office was no longer kennedy's but it was not yet here's and he waited until mrs kennedy had left the white house some days later after initial period of warning before he moved in it he was constantly on the phone that evening and meetings the staff and visitors and now i forget contemporary something like that we were preparing to leave for the vice president a residence inn north where fourteen i was gathering up papers memos notes news clippings and telephone numbers from his desk and i realize

that he was looking at something on the wall at the other end of this large office i waited and i said reddit ago with the president he didn't answer right away just kept looking off in the distance they're nodding toward that war he said see that by board over there i didn't throw me there were two black boar deer another minute and he said every president before us have less something on that bike or their handwriting is all over it it's our unfinished business silence then he stood up but

his jacket and said let's go and i followed him out that the world oil held by just a little bit so i could sneak one more glance of that or nothing at the residence that night he talked into the small hours of the morning with jacqueline the horace busby cliff carter and the performers were for the moment his ad hoc staff gathered around his bedside with mrs johnson drawing by need to get some sleep over on the other side of the bed one lamp one lamp bird on the table next to the president and as we were dispersing each of us to our own sun room i heard him say to himself more than to pass the civil rights bill by summer the civil rights bill regarding

the second of july after six months tencent political battle you can imagine and you can read about it in a number of important books been published in the life to your loss in the library a list of both of ours highly recommend to you including clay rise but the point is if i could have seen what he was seeing that evening on the blackboard i would've understood just how much of the writing there was harry truman's of course john kerry's was all over it in june of that year june of nineteen sixty three kennedy sent a strong civil rights bill the congress giving black americans equal access to all public accommodations listener mary went up in the in the spraying and it was so weak but still a threat to the south and it was easily bottled up in the committee proposal was was was or stagnating but the strong militarily then send up

later in the summer gave the attorney general the power to take southern state governments to court if they did not integrate this cruise and this was crucial because it would mean individual black citizens would not have to stand up alone in the south and filed a suit in the local court to be segregated local school you could get beaten and you could get lynched or they're so there was the kennedy bill the lbj was reading that five days later speaking to a joint session of congress and to the country president johnson said we have hope long enough in this country about equal rights it is time now to write the last the next chapter and to write it in the books of law but before there was kennedy's bill and martin luther's call and then the dolphins call and martin luther's movement they're worth harry truman's

courage and political savvy written all over that boredom i could have time tonight to turn your comeback for the day before the next tune of forms and finish this speech i worked a lot so we're going to mine and johnson later and national in nineteen sixty three during the campaign when he was running as vice president you can he told me more about that like port and about harry truman but there was harry truman's courage and political savvy written all over that backed by board underlined as lbj reddit regarding on the day he became president in nineteen forty four to fault truman was up to the job and purity of an expected him to do anything for black people quite the contrary white supremacists in the senate reckoned he would be an ally and preserving their duel system of government he'd been there a colleague in the senate for over ten years before becoming president in

nineteen forty four and although he rarely voted with him on stage wright's they heard and crack jokes in private about colored people a common practice in the cynical crew as it was in johnson's on his return from franklin roosevelt's funeral south carolina senator burdick may back was heard to say new president knows how to him niggers les paul's right here we're asking some rescue try something tried to recreate in your mind the state of race relations in this country at the time harry truman took the pulse oath of office in april nineteen forty five took the oath of office as the cherry blossoms along the potomac were bursting into glory the weight of our entire political system was directed and excluding by people from the democratic process and perpetuating white supremacy it was an accepted way of life

apartheid americans throughout the south black americans could not vote because of poll taxes literacy tests and outright intimidation the armed forces segregated corporate america segregated schools segregated bathrooms whites only theaters whites only hotels whites only cafeterias and restaurants whites only drinking fountains whites only in america so wouldn't his old colleagues in the senate the un reconstructed racists who kept congress and procedural changes as strong as the changed towards iran other ancestors had kept slaves in bondage why wouldn't they think all hairy would help them preserve their way of

life the root of white supremacy he had after all been born in the segregated state in a county that had been a bastion of the ku klux klan in these plans one according to the historian william rennick others didn't just lay catholics jews and negroes laid everybody truman's grandparents on both sides own slaves as mother martha never forgave seriously never forgave abraham lincoln for spinning away or what you will hear at the truman library the story of how when she came to visit her son in the white house he told or whether we're going to give you a special treat a chance to sleep in the most famous ruin the white house the lincoln room and in the very badly which abraham lincoln slept she said i wouldn't sleep in the bed that mean huge there's also a story that she said her mother mala best please have my backpack i'm going ho the family denies that the new york times has said he couldn't confirm it but you get the point that the

people who fought this accidental president had been conditioned to be racist were row critics call him a nasty little tart with a bad temper but failed to see that that temper came from the outrage of injustice michael gardner gets at this in a very good somewhat controversial book or harry truman and civil rights which i know has been much discussed among true scholars and that its elaborate the subtitle is moral courage and political risks and i strongly urge you to given as gifts in the coming holiday season carter describes truman used this as the twentieth as the country's twentieth century pioneering civil rights president who took a large political gamble walking her crusade against racial discrimination suit after he took the oath of office imagine again unless you to work a little

bit like the match and again what was happening in america in nineteen forty five hundreds of thousands of black veterans are coming back from fighting the racist regime of hitler in europe and the japanese warlords in the pacific coming back to the rule of white supremacists in the very democracy they had been fighting to defend throughout the south and frankly the border states they were met by reinvigorated ku klux klan determined to keep the bike veterans in their place harry truman you're low here was a veteran of an earlier and brutal war and according to gardner he knew what it meant to serve one's country in mortal combat and he was appalled to hear what was happening the black veterans throughout this country a black veteran named isaac woodward who had served fifteen months in the pacific was still in uniform after being

honored the discharge from the army was pulled off a bus in south carolina and shrubs so viciously by patrolling with a big club that he was permanently blinded president truman ask attorney general tom clark to do this on something about it but the policeman was acquitted by an all white jury to the loud cheers of the quarter enroll in georgia in broad daylight a score of white men and bush for blacks to robin young men one an army veteran and their wives and executed or four of them in tennessee police riot of augusta but they were told to many veterans in louisiana an la porte and dismembered about six black men were lynched in harry truman's first year in the white house when truman heard these chilling story especially of terrorist atrocities against

returning veterans gardiner rights he could not and would not look the other way decided to take a stand and within days of his swearing in he had met with the executive directive in the way city the first president ever including roosevelt to do that and soon announce his commitment to a permanent fair employment commission which roosevelt had refused to do he nominated a black attorney general american attorney to you know save custom court another unprecedented act and as the violence against blacks now been throughout nineteen forty six he issued an executive order creating the first presidential civil rights committee and instructed its members to come up with ways by which the white house and congress could correct civil rights abuses two months later that committee report released a politically picks pro which blows a presidential civil rights report that would chart the course of federal civil rights

reform for the next two decades right down through an imploding lyndon johnson's administration it called for ending segregation based on race creed color national origin that call for an end to lynching they called one into the poll tax the calls went into the segregation of the armed services for creation of a permanent civil rights commission a joint congressional committee on civil rights and the civil rights division at the justice department and he created an uproar across the country harry truman was way ahead of the american people and we are way ahead of congress still in the grip of corporations frustrated by the inaction on a single day in july of nineteen forty eight the president signed two executive orders outlawed discrimination in the federal government and integrating the armed services which brought about the most significant change in

american life and anything that had been done before that the red cross even agree tune into its bias against blogger relations firm by people and we were about to discover that every american's blood is rare and in july of nineteen forty seven on a hot humid sunday harry truman johnny marr stop the steps of the lincoln memorial to speak for the closing session of the thirtieth annual conference of the indelible a cpa the first president to address that organization since its founding in nineteen thousand and nine i got a copy of the speech in my new book about his region part of it is history and american independent film end in a big leather chair

many of our people still suffer the indignity of insel the herring fear of intimidation and i regret to say the threat of physical injury and mob violence the prejudice and intolerance in which these evils are routed still exist the conscience of our nation and the legal machinery which enforces it had not yet security aide said listen for freedom from three are we cannot wait another decade or another generation to remedy these evils we must work as never before to cure them now every person should have the right to a decent old since nineteen forty seven every person should have the right to a decent hold the right to an education the right to adequate medical care the right to a worthwhile job the right to an equal share in the making of public decisions through the ballot and the right to a fair trial in a fair court we must ensure that these riots only goal turned to be enjoyed by

every surface many years later johnson would look right and here's the irony harry truman integrity but he campaigned as he governed anti government campaign and through nineteen forty eight he government and campaign according to these print and in nineteen forty eight when he was running for president as a champion of human rights lyndon johnson was running for the senate ardently opposed but truman's agenda and yet they would become the two white men in particular who did the most to create the more equal society we have to date that's half of the speech i'm gonna stop there because i know

half first half journalist bill moyers recent talk the tale of two presidents he spoke at the temple on the plaza as part of the bennett forum on the presidency sponsored by the truman library institutes join us for next week's kbr percent support that second half of his top he's joined by us senator bob kerrey the two of them talked together about presidents truman johnson and american politics today this event was recorded by kbr as charlie smith on november first two thousand fourteen i'm kate mcintyre you're listening to kbr presents on kansas public radio for the rest of today's program we'll hear from another acclaimed journalist paul steiger was managing editor of the wall street journal for twenty six years under his watch the wall street journal newsroom once sixteen pulitzer prizes in two thousand a stagger left the world of print

journalism and founded pro publica an independent nonprofit online investigative journalism platform pro publica has already won two pulitzer prizes including the first ever pulitzer awarded to an online only journalism entity steiger was the recipient of the william allen white national citation awarded each year to a distinguished journalist steiger received his citation on february seventh two thousand fourteen at william allen white day he spoke on the golden age of journalism at the university of kansas alderson auditorium in memorial union <unk> white without question was where the leaders of the great revolution in journalism which parallels in some ways the revolution taking place today and in fact in her latest marvelous book the bully pulpit theodore roosevelt william howard taft in the golden age of journalism historian doris kearns goodwin applies that gleaming

golden label to the early decades of mr white's era it's that it was a golden age whether it was the golden age is something we could argue about indeed on some internet writers and publishers have taken to contending recently that our current era is the best ever for american journalism this only a brief time after others took to declaring that the loss of billions of dollars of advertising revenue tens of thousands of jobs at major newspapers was driving us into a journalistic wasteland at least me to what i'd like to talk with you about the day my goal isn't so much to determine what was the golden age of journalism although i have a candidate would help make the case for a moment my real interest city where we do a period of incredibly rapid change is what you really want in a new golden age let's start by taking a close look at the period that doris goodwin whether historians perspective describes as american journalism's finest hour it began she tells us in the eighteen eighties in eighty nine as a time in some ways like her own

with major changes in the economy evolving first rapid growth of industrialization and then in at ninety three crashed the produced huge unemployment hardship through it all there was a major search and inequality where we hear a lot today the urban poor lived in squalid tenements factory workers endured personally low wages six day will work weeks dangerous conditions on the job in the ability of owners to parliament will the giant trucks and the more powerful railroads manipulative freight rates another prices to squeeze growers and small entrepreneurs in the air and driving many into bankruptcy and seizing their businesses or less meanwhile the rich live in mansions with servants and took their children and grand jurors of europe america the land of the system formerly industrious merchant an emancipated slaves increasingly took on notions of class a brilliant and gregarious student at harvard new york mentioned

waller teddy roosevelt worried that some of her classmates he thought to be friend might be from families of insufficient staffing at the same time roosevelt had a passion for public service at a liking for journalists alike many political and business leaders that are now in fear being criticize or misquoted by reporters rather he boldly a certain he could make common cause with us so in the assassination of william mckinley and it no one made a forty two year old roosevelt our nation's youngest president he'd already built a network of reporters and writers to whom he gave extraordinary access whose advice he sought and sometimes violent and you often helped explain his positions favorably to the public the key to tiaras journalistic that were was a group of big store extraordinary writers assembled by one's penniless irish immigrant as a smuggler to work on a magazine called simply reports then as now technology at change the newly protected process of total

engraving was built cheaper and faster than traditional woodcuts and sam mcclure make good use of that he also used his powerful talent as an editor to inspire the great writers you've collected in particular he sent them on missions to dig deep into the secrets of the powerful and to reveal them and enthralling narratives the approach was that rare in american journalism because soon with the public made of course financial success and with competitors who sought to imitate the approach walking together in the january nineteen oh three records but truly extraordinary issue i don't wanna leave my hands on a copy of itself was contained free powerful expos a lincoln steffens on the corrupt mayor of minneapolis ray stannard baker on misbehavior in the nascent labor movement and the first installment of what is just a revered as one of the greatest piece of investigative reporting ever ida tarbell mammoth inquisition into rapacious business practices by john d

rockefeller standard oil trust it took a long years but our bills chapter and verse reporting serve as a guide for federal government lawsuit to break up the trust the suit finally broken read rocco's legions of lawyers and political supporters to win at the supreme court by that time however the magazine had collapsed in part because of the coors moods and unpredictable rages at the staff and its insistence that the poetry editor published submissions by a young woman with whom he had an affair for much of the first half of the twentieth century this kind of work they did from prominence its practitioners had made a strong record and established our reporting and writing novels that influenced how journalists work today but i can think of at least one period in which the accomplish the accomplishments of journalists to pass things the period i would nominate as the true golden era in american journalism was from the mid nineteen

fifties to the mid nineteen seventies it had three separate major strands the civil rights struggle over integration of schools and public the soul is in the south the vietnam war and what it once again there was interaction with technology in this period the ability to take television outdoors and get footage on the air rose progressively and in all three cases civil rights vietnam and watergate tv combined with pressure to multiply the power of each form of reporting in addition during this period there was a much greater role for aggressive spot news reporting a dramatic and sometimes violent events often a considerable personal risk to reporters and photographers it brought home to the public appalling behavior by people in authority including shared sheriffs in the american south and a few soldiers in vietnam the trigger for major credit tv coverage of the civil rights movement was unanimous nineteen fifty four supreme court decision outlawing school segregation reversing the separate but equal decision of fifty years earlier

and generate outrage among many white southerners than rather go forward plans to implement the ruling arkansas governor orval faubus and september nineteen fifty seven suddenly word of the state's national guard troops to block the plant entrance of nine black students into the city's all white central high school months later president dwight eisenhower idolized the guard troops are swiftly in force the overall watch over this set up a decade of struggle all across the south between segregationist white said german blacks who demanded their rights not only to integrate schooling but also to vote and to use the same bus seats restaurants and lunch counters restaurants and other public facilities as on white stone in little more than a decade they won most of their objectives by combination of their own efforts and by the actions of a horde of journalists some from the black press but many southern born and raised whites who rejected the white supremacist use of their parents and cousins the race beat a two thousand and six book by two journalists sons of the

cell gene robertson and hobo as a fine guide to this history and many of the brave and colorful characters who lived among them besides roberts himself work once it made the new york times' karl fleming of newsweek haynes johnson of that of the washington star and three pulitzer prize winners at the atlanta journal constitution gene patterson ralph mcgill and jack nelsen jack was later my bureau chief in washington and the la times on the television side with john chancellor and richard thaler any nbc dan rather and nelson bennett cbs and many others they're network status didn't spare them larry and he hit his head bashed in by an alabama state trooper nearby cameraman washing blood sport from polaroid's head couldn't believe he'd survive rather had a shotgun poked into his ribs bulge never heard the story before they sound and pressed the pistol against the man's head and persuaded him to pull back the shotgun

reporting conveyed what smoke or tear gas or the lack of equipment in the right place prevented the cameras from catching cameras pointed in the right direction captured action that sometimes need a reporter's cameraman could spot and at times there was the perfect probably a referendum on march seventh nineteen sixty five bloody sunday some five hundred demonstrators start to cross the edmund pettus bridge near selma alabama they're opposed by an equal number of writer quips state troopers plus a sheriff's posse some of them on horseback the police commander orders the marchers to disperse believe marches kneel to pray the police charged running over and through the marchers hammering them with clubs repeatedly chasing the ones who ran and hammering them some more and all this in for a few of the cabins of all three networks which aired the footage sunday abc interrupts the primetime show in judgment at nuremberg the oscar winning film by german war crimes to air a detailed coverage of the billions

all across america the public is aroused and how rage president lyndon johnson as bolthouse congress to approve a massive civil rights bill when considered a long shot a few days earlier they can't wait to full coverage of the vietnam war wasn't as comprehensively consistently success of that civil rights struggle in the south the television and print media took on significant new challenges and for the most part met them the war was increasingly controversial as the manpower and expenditure demands grew the public wanted more information faster and they wanted to be more definitive were we win or lose it didn't make any difference both print and tv reporters recognize that there were sometimes being spun my government breeders and they became are really more skeptical in some cases of the skepticism was overblown most notably in the covers of the tet offensive early in nineteen sixty eight north vietnamese and viet cong forces briefly captured some cities and other strategically important places but they were quickly rejected because we will cost of yemen

was hard the reporting that treated her as a major defeat for the americans was probably wrong whether better coverage would change the outcome of the war or the nineteen sixty eight election i can say encased success return by nineteen seventy one with the pentagon papers case the new york times and the washington post reconfirmed the rights of the press to polish national security related information without prior restraint by winning their case before the supreme court and the coverage of the watergate break in dominated by bob woodward and carl bernstein of the washington post was an even greater success president richard nixon was shown on the critically to abuse his office for personal political game and ultimately was forced to resign this brings back to where we started which is the following question what changes can reasonably look for in the current state of american journalism for the qualified as a new golden age one it matches or even exceeds the tumors have been talking about

what seems clear to me is that we're not there yet some people to be sure that we already are henry blodget of the business insider website last summer famously said journalism has entered the golden age and any help would post a backup for his case and quite a few people agreed with them his argument basically is that the combination of the web social media and the smart will make it possible for anyone with a talent to just start producing journalist he says that while some newspapers have closed or contracted others are hanging in there and more native digital news platforms are starting and growing encourage you to read his tire argument is easily one of ivory was some of it but not all on the plus side i too i'm thrilled with what the new digital tools can do in capturing data join knowledge from it and it's playing in distributing that knowledge i'm also delighted that the barriers to entry of shrunk so dramatically instead of spending millions of dollars of progress

usually spend a few thousand a laptop that website you're a publisher still creating armies of lone wolf single person bloggers doesn't get us to a golden age it can get a can give us kept photos maker's giggle this group's involving a regional factor to a trench an analysis of finance or politics or sculpture video of miley cyrus or tyler taylor swept nuzzling their latest boyfriends or possibly some movie and book reviews were trusting all nice to have but not game changing if you're going to reliably produced journalism that improves the world maybe you don't need a village but you need some collaborators need lots of reporters editors data journalists order it sounds like i'm trying to restore the primacy of the print newspaper i'm not that train has left the station instead it's time that we embrace the dominance of the way not just say digital first

meet these platforms are rising frequently on the internet some like buzzfeed are amassing huge traffic and edging toward profitability if i really young journalist and journalism students here that's the kind of team but what a joy unless of course they get a job or pro publica for the wall street journal finally a less you have a hefty trust fund like the billion dollar won the guardian just got you need to find a way to get paid in the brief time i've been able to spend with you here i've seen a lot of town a lot of energy a lot of determination whatever enterprise the students here lenders tells to you should not be afraid or ashamed to ask how you're going to get paid it's no great mystery the sources have to be advertising subscription fees donations or some combination of them were bursting out a sentence i hirsch and dan rather and richard a wary eye ida tarbell the center

part of it so that we know when they all made a difference it's time for a new generation of reporters in what you do speculation with paul steiger founder of pro publica and the recipient of a two thousand fourteen william allen white national citation awarded at the university of kansas before that acclaimed journalist bill moyers from his recent talk in kansas city to join us next week for part two of moyers top when he's joined by former us senator bob kerrey i'm j mcintyre kbr present is a production of kansas public radio at the university of kansas