Muted Thunder by Neal

The Artillery of the Press: Its Influence on American Foreign Policy, by James Reston. Harper, $3.95

In the September 1965 issue of Commentary, George Lichtheim set down his “over-all impression” of the foreign news coverage of the New York Times: “a compound of ignorance, provincialism, and plain incompetence.” There were three reactions to his pronouncement. First, a deafening chorus of “I wish I’d said that” up from the legions of the Disestablishment. Second, from the more audacious phenomenologists, conspicuously Henry Fairlie, some quiet demurrals to Lichtheim’s methodology. And third, from Times Square, silence. Criticism of the Times, even from the most prestigious and disinterested parties, has traditionally been beneath Timesian notice. In the official view, it is not news. In the unofficial view, it is not possible. It is with some surprise then, and increasing interest, that one moves through this slender volume from the highly professional typewriter of James Reston, Associate Editor, New York Times. It is, in part, an answer to Lichtheim. Lichtheim’s sharpest thrust was made in this half-paragraph: “The editors in New York plainly are not | interested in anything save ‘spot news,’ and the correspondents in the field for the most part are unable to produce anything else. Analytical coverage is no part of their training. They are expected to discover what is going on, in the most literal sense. If there is no ‘crisis’ . . . they feel there is nothing to report.” Now Reston. He first notes that with the implacable advance of television, there is little future in the spot news business for the daily newspapers. The daylight to which they must run: interpretive reporting. Newspapermen must write about “what is going to happen in addition to what governments do”; they must pay “more attention to the causes rather than merely the effects of international strife.” In fairness to Reston, it should be noted that he has made this point before. His has long been represented as the modernist point of view within the Times hierarchy, the traditionalist position being that the Times is the paper of record and should confine itself to the Homeric task of getting down in grey and white everything that happens to everybody. That is its claim to greatness and. a cogent one it is. But Reston’s reservations are significant nonetheless, especially under the circumstances in which the book appears. He wrote The Artillery of the Press for the formidable Elihu Root lecture series of the Council on Foreign Relations and could not have been delivering them other than as a usually reliable spokesman for the New York Times. If the Times has come to agree with Lichtheim, however, it may have done so imprudently. It will be generations before radio and television will be anything more than supplemental to the full written record, no more so for the citizen who struggles to stay well-informed than for the researcher, the compiler, the historically curious. Comprehensive news records may come in different packages—they may be fed to us electronically as we sleep, or projected on the backs of our eyeballs by submicroscopic computers—but they will be needed. For it is precisely “spot news,” so much despised, which is our stay against illusion or, worse, ideology. Reston makes two other points of more than passing interest. The first is, roughly, that there is a greater danger of the accumulation of excessive power in the government, and primarily the Executive, than in the press. Just so. And he correctly reasons therefrom that the “rising power of the United States . . . requires not a more compliant press, but a relentless barrage of facts and criticism, as noisy and accurate as artillery fire.” Fine. But what Reston does not note, and what the Council on Foreign Relations, for instance, would refuse to acknowledge is that the most influential segments of the press are invariably in favor of the augmentation of Executive powers. That is: Reston, Lippmann, Pearson, ad filum viae. It is not the Kilpatricks, Buckleys, and Chamberlains who are curtailing the relentless barrage. Reston’s other point has a little dipsy-doodle. While remarking the natural tension between newsmen and newsmakers, and while admitting even that to govern effectively is sometimes to govern secretly (the life of this eternal verity may have been foreshortened by the recent CIA disclosures, which Mr. Reston could not, presumably, have foreseen), Reston calls passim for greater cooperation between reporters and officials in discharging their respective obligations. Reporters can in time, he is confident, learn to make use of the official’s talents and special capabilities. And vice versa. In the embrace of peaceful cooperation, the reporter will become “more of an ally of the government official than a competitor.” In this bright tomorrow, apparently, the artillery of the press will be stilled. We will hear only the hum of improved interpersonal relations. But here we trip over the myopia of Reston’s previous point. To an alarming degree, the artillery of the press has been stilled. Can anyone conceive of a reporter this side of the law with better relations with government officials than James Reston? Can anyone remember the last time that Reston or any of the other big guns forced the government to retreat from a position of power already occupied —or even argued energetically to deny to it a plot of virgin land?

About the Author

Neal B. Freeman

Neal B. Freeman, businessman and journalist, was a director of National Review Inc. for 38 years.

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The Artillery of the Press: Its Influence on American Foreign Policy, by James Reston. Harper, $3.95

In the September 1965 issue of Commentary, George Lichtheim set down his “over-all impression” of the foreign news coverage of the New York Times: “a compound of ignorance, provincialism, and plain incompetence.” There were three reactions to his pronouncement. First, a deafening chorus of “I wish I’d said that” up from the legions of the Disestablishment. Second, from the more audacious phenomenologists, conspicuously Henry Fairlie, some quiet demurrals to Lichtheim’s methodology. And third, from Times Square, silence. Criticism of the Times, even from the most prestigious and disinterested parties, has traditionally been beneath Timesian notice. In the official view, it is not news. In the unofficial view, it is not possible. It is with some surprise then, and increasing interest, that one moves through this slender volume from the highly professional typewriter of James Reston, Associate Editor, New York Times. It is, in part, an answer to Lichtheim. Lichtheim’s sharpest thrust was made in this half-paragraph: “The editors in New York plainly are not | interested in anything save ‘spot news,’ and the correspondents in the field for the most part are unable to produce anything else. Analytical coverage is no part of their training. They are expected to discover what is going on, in the most literal sense. If there is no ‘crisis’ . . . they feel there is nothing to report.” Now Reston. He first notes that with the implacable advance of television, there is little future in the spot news business for the daily newspapers. The daylight to which they must run: interpretive reporting. Newspapermen must write about “what is going to happen in addition to what governments do”; they must pay “more attention to the causes rather than merely the effects of international strife.” In fairness to Reston, it should be noted that he has made this point before. His has long been represented as the modernist point of view within the Times hierarchy, the traditionalist position being that the Times is the paper of record and should confine itself to the Homeric task of getting down in grey and white everything that happens to everybody. That is its claim to greatness and. a cogent one it is. But Reston’s reservations are significant nonetheless, especially under the circumstances in which the book appears. He wrote The Artillery of the Press for the formidable Elihu Root lecture series of the Council on Foreign Relations and could not have been delivering them other than as a usually reliable spokesman for the New York Times. If the Times has come to agree with Lichtheim, however, it may have done so imprudently. It will be generations before radio and television will be anything more than supplemental to the full written record, no more so for the citizen who struggles to stay well-informed than for the researcher, the compiler, the historically curious. Comprehensive news records may come in different packages—they may be fed to us electronically as we sleep, or projected on the backs of our eyeballs by submicroscopic computers—but they will be needed. For it is precisely “spot news,” so much despised, which is our stay against illusion or, worse, ideology. Reston makes two other points of more than passing interest. The first is, roughly, that there is a greater danger of the accumulation of excessive power in the government, and primarily the Executive, than in the press. Just so. And he correctly reasons therefrom that the “rising power of the United States . . . requires not a more compliant press, but a relentless barrage of facts and criticism, as noisy and accurate as artillery fire.” Fine. But what Reston does not note, and what the Council on Foreign Relations, for instance, would refuse to acknowledge is that the most influential segments of the press are invariably in favor of the augmentation of Executive powers. That is: Reston, Lippmann, Pearson, ad filum viae. It is not the Kilpatricks, Buckleys, and Chamberlains who are curtailing the relentless barrage. Reston’s other point has a little dipsy-doodle. While remarking the natural tension between newsmen and newsmakers, and while admitting even that to govern effectively is sometimes to govern secretly (the life of this eternal verity may have been foreshortened by the recent CIA disclosures, which Mr. Reston could not, presumably, have foreseen), Reston calls passim for greater cooperation between reporters and officials in discharging their respective obligations. Reporters can in time, he is confident, learn to make use of the official’s talents and special capabilities. And vice versa. In the embrace of peaceful cooperation, the reporter will become “more of an ally of the government official than a competitor.” In this bright tomorrow, apparently, the artillery of the press will be stilled. We will hear only the hum of improved interpersonal relations. But here we trip over the myopia of Reston’s previous point. To an alarming degree, the artillery of the press has been stilled. Can anyone conceive of a reporter this side of the law with better relations with government officials than James Reston? Can anyone remember the last time that Reston or any of the other big guns forced the government to retreat from a position of power already occupied —or even argued energetically to deny to it a plot of virgin land?