Artful Snippets on a Somewhat Noble Profession   

Crusaders, Scoundrels, Journalists:
The Newseum’s Most Intriguing Newspeople

Edited by Eric Newton
Times Books
399 pages; $35

Try this quick quiz: Name the celebrated figure in journalism history who founded a publishing empire, made a fortune, and plunged into national politics.

The answer is Ben Franklin.

And Horace Greeley. And William Randolph Hearst. And Henry Luce. And even Frank Gannett, creator of the country's largest newspaper chain and a failed presidential contender.

History may or may not actually repeat itself, but journalism definitely has its patterns. A striking one, well documented in this grand new coffee table book, is an ever-present combustible mixture of entrepreneurship, public spirit and self-promotion.

From Ben Franklin forward, journalists have crusaded for both the public good and their own advancement. They have sailed through the tricky winds of private gain and civic service, simultaneously reaping the rewards of fame and championing the public interest.

Not every newsperson is a crusader and many are not scoundrels, but it wouldn't stretch the truth too much to appreciate a slight re-titling of the book: "Crusaders + Scoundrels = Journalists."

All these traits are amply illustrated in this breezy, anecdotal collection presenting 312 news personalities. Newseum Executive Director Joe Urschel calls them "a deliberately motley crew...by no means a hall of fame [but] rather, a reflection of what news and newspeople have been and can be."

Urschel, Eric Newton and their team of researchers have put together a fascinating and instructive collection of profiles. Those looking for heavyweight history will be disappointed: Most one-page entries are limited to a portrait, a paragraph or so of description, and a few sentences of excerpts. But the snippets are artfully assembled, with just the right reverently irreverent tone.

To start with, the book demonstrates once again that the news media have always been a blend of fact and froth.

The first paper in the Colonies closed after one issue--because authorities rebelled at a story about King Louis XIV dallying with his daughter-in-law. The first penny paper of the 1830s and the forerunner of modern mass journalism, Benjamin Day's New York Sun, hyped circulation with a spoof about man-bat creatures on the moon--which it defended as "diverting the public mind."

"You have neither ethics, scruples, decency or conscience," someone chastised columnist Walter Winchell. He replied, "Let others have those things... I've got the readers."

But courageous public service has always at least equaled the seamier side. Most readers will recognize the familiar cast: John Peter Zenger, Tom Paine, Frederick Douglass, Ida Wells, Lincoln Steffens, Ida Tarbell, Seymour Hersh, Mike Wallace, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.

Still, even in presenting well-known characters, "Crusaders, Scoundrels, Journalists" often delivers an unexpected morsel: After Tarbell's extensive investigation of Standard Oil, for example, citizens in Oklahoma's oil country hired a 40-piece band and threw her a parade.

The book excels in spotlighting lesser-known journalists who have served in their own gallant, often costly, ways. People like Jane Grey Swisshelm, the first woman from a major paper (the New York Tribune) to cover Congress. Later, in 1858, the presses of her own newspaper, the St. Cloud Visiter, were smashed by a pro-slavery mob. She responded by opening a new paper, declaring, "Dying is not difficult. Yielding is impossible."

Or Sara Willis Parton, who as "Fanny Fern" wrote about serious social issues affecting women during the mid-19th century, or Thomas Chester, the only black man to cover the Civil War for a mainstream paper, the Philadelphia Press. Or Tom and Pat Gish, whose Mountain Eagle in Whitesburg, Kentucky, stood up for coal miners, or Chicago Defender Publisher John Sengstacke, who prodded President Truman to integrate the armed forces.

Over and over, readers will encounter timeless quotes and images:

• When Gen. William T. Sherman is erroneously informed that three reporters have been killed, he replies, "Good! Now we shall have news from hell before breakfast."

• Chicago Times owner Wilbur Storey instructs a reporter, "Telegraph fully all news...and when there is no news send rumours."

• Kansas editor William Allen White defines the essence of Americanism as allowing "any other American, however stupid and however crooked and however malicious, to say what he pleases."

• Disney's Michael Eisner ponders how to succeed in the entertainment business and concludes, "I'd rather hire 10 good writers than one big-name star."

And the Wall Street Journal's Bernard Kilgore fumes about sloppy copy, "If I see 'upcoming' slip into the paper once again, I'll be downcoming and someone will be outgoing."

The book is fun. But it also underscores the enduring patterns that make the news business so intriguing: the never-ending tension between profit and duty, the irresistible amalgamating of news and gossip, the ambivalence that sources, subjects, readers and journalists all share about this shabby-noble semi-profession.

To its credit, this book is not just a history of journalism's past (a redundancy that surely would inflame Kilgore), but also a history of its future. No one knows exactly where this business is headed, but there seems little doubt that we will look back a century from now and still see journalism as both sexy and substantive, and journalists as both rascals and devoted servants of the republic.

This is a book to make you proud, but not too proud. I like the way former talk-show host Phil Donahue treats the solemn debate over what makes a journalist: "We should remember that the guy who ran into the bar at Chernobyl and said, 'Holy cow, this thing blew,' is a journalist."