What People Know: Freedom and the Press
The power and status of the press in America reached new heights after spectacular reporting triumphs in the segregated South, in Vietnam, and in Washington during the Watergate years. Then new technologies created instantaneous global reporting, which left the government unable to control the flow of information to the nation. The press thus became a formidable rival in critical struggles to control what the people know and when they know it. But that was more power than the press could handle-and journalism crashed toward new lows in public esteem and public purpose. The dazzling new technologies, profit-driven owners, and celebrated editors, reporters, and broaqdcasters made it possible to bypass older values and standards of journalism.
Richard Reeves was there at the rise and at the fall, beginning as a small-town editor, becoming the chief political correspondent for the New York Times and then a best-selling author and award-winning documentary filmmaker. He tells the story of a tribe that lost its way. From the Pony Express to the Internet, he chronicles what happened to the press as America accelerated into uncertainty, and he argues that to survive, the press must go back to doing what it was hired to do long ago: stand as an outsider watching government and politics on behalf of a free people busy with its own affairs.
Reviews
"To its credit, What the People Know avoids the perils of droning pedantry. It is fast-moving and full of history and anecdotes. . . . Reeves wisely spends much of his energy focusing on the kind of corporate corruption of journalism that has not really permeated the consciousness of an American public willing to believe every conspiracy theory about the media except the most dangerous one." Mark Jurkowitz, The Boston Globe
"[Richard Reeves] deeply regrest what has happened to the American press in his lifetime. Newspapers have been the playthings of rich owners for decades; but now, much worse, they are small and expendable parts of huge entertainment empires. . .Can [the press] scramble back again? Only, Mr. Reeves, believes, if journalists recover their old role of being onlookers and outsiders, rather than imagining themselves as central players in the body politic. . .They do not need to wear those fedoras. But they do need to watch, and write." The Economist (UK)
"Richard Reeves is a respected veteran journalist who wants fellow journalists to concentrate on ferreting out the truth without fear or favor. That sounds like a mundane topic for a book. After all, what else would journalists be expected to do? But Reeves's What the People Know is anything but mundane because so many journalists either have no idea how to ferret out the truth, or seem to have forgotten that part of their job . . . [This book]-part personal reminiscence, part media critique . . . [is] worthwhile [reading] for anybody who cares about Reeves's illustrious career or the state of journalism." Steve Weinberg, Christian Science Monitor
Latest Column
Obama So Far: Good Job!
LOS ANGELES — This is about what I think, expressed cleverly by another columnist, Froma Harrop of the Providence Journal:
Column Archive
A Congressman Reaches Out -- And Ducks!
RESEDA, Calif. — Rep. Brad Sherman, a Democrat from the 27th District of California in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, is a congressman who is obviously not afraid of his constituents. Many are these days, but Sherman takes out advertisements in local newspapers urging people to come and reason with (or yell at) him at "Town Hall" meetings.
Naturalized On The Fourth Of July
LOS ANGELES — Among the charges leveled against King George III on July 4, 1776, in the Declaration of Independence was this one:
The Special Relationship Is Very Special
WASHINGTON — The 300th British soldier was killed in Afghanistan last week, which means that, proportionately, Great Britain is paying a higher price in manpower and money out there. That's 300 dead in a 10,000-troop commitment compared with the United States' 1,126 deaths with a commitment of more than 94,000 troops right now.
Let Us Now Praise Famous Conspiracy Theories
WASHINGTON — Last Saturday morning, Mike Allen's Politico Playbook, the early-morning blog Washington whisperers wake up to, began this way:
The California Winners: Corporate Power
LOS ANGELES — You can't fool all the people all the time, only about 48 percent. That, rather than the triumph of women billionaires, may be the abiding lesson of California's spring elections this year.
Where Does The Buck Stop?
LOS ANGELES — President Obama, in an impossible position, decided to take a page from the Harry Truman-John F. Kennedy playbook as oil fouled the Gulf of Mexico and the second year of his presidency.
The Republican Political Bubble
LOS ANGELES — In a rather charming video at randpaul2010.com, the Republican candidate for the United States Senate from Kentucky, Rand Paul himself, a libertarian by birthright, says that he was not named for Ayn Rand. The writer is acclaimed as a prophet by many libertarians, although she once said she would rather vote for the Marx Brothers than a libertarian.
Pentagon Papers II
NEW YORK — Henry Fairlie, the British-American contrarian who wrote for The New Republic and The Washington Post, among many others, derided the publication of the Pentagon Papers as nothing more than a summary of what Americans already knew about the war in Vietnam. To prove his point in those pre-Google days, Fairlie spent hour after hour plowing through newspaper, magazine and government archives, finding stories and public documents revealing the same information the Defense Department was classifying during the 1960s.
Events Are In The Saddle
NEW YORK — Let us now praise famous cliches.
California's Stimulus Package: Meg Whitman
LOS ANGELES — There is a sweet little proposition on this year's California ballot, 15 by number. Authored by state Sen. Loni Hancock, a Democrat from Berkeley, Proposition 15 would institute public financing for one state office, secretary of state.
Are We A Nation Of Crooks?
LOS ANGELES — In this country, you are innocent until proven guilty. OK, so Bernie Madoff is a criminal. But a lot of other people on Wall Street and beyond are only crooks — so far.
Obama In The Quagmire
WASHINGTON — Is Hamid Karzai really nuts? Or are we?
The Lady Of The House
SAN FRANCISCO — Nancy Pelosi was a Democratic Party activist practically from the moment she was born, the daughter of a Maryland congressman. But at 47, the mother of five children had never run for public office — and did not think she ever would. She had promised herself she would never even think about it until her youngest finished high school.
The Power Of Zero
DALLAS — Remember the good old days? Remember when a Republican senator, Olympia Snowe of Maine, said she heard history calling? Well, history did call and not a single Republican answered in Washington. Zero in the Senate. Zero in the House.
Obama's Secret Weapon: The Tea Partiers
LOS ANGELES — The Republican Party of California met in convention last weekend and listened to five candidates for governor and United States senator in the state's June 8 primary election. They fell all over themselves trying to sound like tea partiers.
Students Wake Up In California
LOS ANGELES — Thousands of California students, from graduate students to kindergarten kids, walked out of their classrooms last Thursday to peacefully (mostly) demonstrate against the decline of education in the Golden State. Could this be the start of something big? Something bigger than tea bags?