William Safire's Passing and the Decline of American Journalism

Today's Google News has the wedding of reality TV star Khloe Kardashian and Los Angeles Lakers' forward Lamar Odom getting more hits than the passing of New York Times columnist, William Safire. Now granted, Khloe and Lamar have more blogger followers, including Perez Hilton's "wedding deets" to share with those not privy to be in Los Angeles.

This suggests, albeit unscientifically, that the death of an esteemed giant in American journalism is less newsworthy than a second-tier celebrity wedding. The media weren't reporting the wedding of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, but two people who have been dating for a month and decided to get hitched before basketball season begins.

We're so awash in infotainment sludge that we can't distinguish the truly irrelevant from the significant.

Safire, 79, was a conservative columnist for the New York Times. He was a fish out of water, to say the least, and many of the Times reporters were not happy with his swimming around for thirty years at the liberal newspaper of record. The Sulzberger family knew better.

Part of journalistic appeal, especially in opinion writing, is to provoke reader interest through saying something that jolts a reader's perspective out of somnolence. Safire did just that with his political columns that undoubtedly raised the blood pressure of some liberal readers, and with his "On Language" columns, which soothed the souls of etymologists and grammarians.

I recall a most memorable political column he published in the Times shortly before he retired. It was called "You Are a Suspect".

It was against type for this former Nixon speechwriter. The date was November 14, 2002, a year after 9/11, and before the invasion of Iraq. The USA PATRIOT Act had already passed with barely any debate. I immediately shared Safire's column with my journalism students at Cal State Fullerton. I told them, "This matters to you."

Here is what Bill Safire wrote in part:

If the Homeland Security Act is not amended before passage, here is what will happen to you:

Every purchase you make with a credit card, every magazine subscription you buy and medical prescription you fill, every Web site you visit and e-mail you send or receive, every academic grade you receive, every bank deposit you make, every trip you book and every event you attend -- all these transactions and communications will go into what the Defense Department describes as "a virtual, centralized grand database."

This is not some far-out Orwellian scenario. It is what will happen to your personal freedom in the next few weeks if John Poindexter gets the unprecedented power he seeks.

Remember Poindexter? Brilliant man, first in his class at the Naval Academy, later earned a doctorate in physics, rose to national security adviser under President Ronald Reagan. He had this brilliant idea of secretly selling missiles to Iran to pay ransom for hostages, and with the illicit proceeds to illegally support contras in Nicaragua.

A jury convicted Poindexter in 1990 on five felony counts of misleading Congress and making false statements, but an appeals court overturned the verdict because Congress had given him immunity for his testimony. He famously asserted, "The buck stops here," arguing that the White House staff, and not the president, was responsible for fateful decisions that might prove embarrassing.

That Safire column sparked Congressional action that stopped Poindexter's push for a big net approach to data collection.

Safire didn't always get his facts right. He was pilloried for his many columns that linked al Qaeda's Osama bin Laden to Saddam Hussein as a rationale for the invasion of Iraq. (See David Corn's "The Propaganda of William Safire")

Safire attended Syracuse University and gave its commencement speeches in 1978 and 1990. I now teach public diplomacy and global communications at the Newhouse School here at SU.

Safire's relationship with Richard Nixon began at a public diplomacy venue. In 1959 Safire was a publicist and his client Herbert Sadkin, president of All-State Properties, built the famous modern American home featured at the American National Exhibition in Sokolniki Park, Moscow. Safire coaxed Vice President Richard Nixon into attending the exhibit opening on July 24, 1959, also attended by Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev.

The two men got into some back-and-forth conversations about the merits of Soviet communism versus American capitalism that came to be known as the "The Kitchen Debate." Nixon's proud defense of American know-how raised his public profile both at home and abroad. He later asked Safire to join his inner circle, and Safire served the president in the White House, along with Patrick Buchanan, Diane Sawyer and David Gergen. In 1973 Safire began writing for the New York Times, where he remained a columnist until 2003.

If you want some advice for what to pay attention to in the news, read more about the "life deets" of self-proclaimed libertarian conservative Bill Safire and not about the wedding of Khloe and Lamar. Relevant knowledge is good and powerful.

Dr. Nancy Snow is the author of six books, including Information War and Propaganda, Inc. She teaches in the S.I. Newhouse School at Syracuse University, New York. Reach her at www.nancysnow.com.

 

 

Follow Nancy Snow on Twitter: www.twitter.com/drpersuasion

Comments

[gmgl]

William Safire never was and never will be a journalist. He was a right wing propagandist. That is all.

It warms my heart that the wedding got better coverage than this man, who killed so many innocents through his merciless support of so many ill considered wars.

[unitron]

If someone's political leanings are so obvious, are they really a journalist? They certainly can't be called a reporter.

[Blackorpheus]

One doesn't wish to speak badly of the recently departed, and I have nothing bad or good to say about William Safire's life. But as a political commentator he had little to offer. His column in the NY Times was almost always staunchly (and sometimes illogically) conservative. And he was a persistent autodidact who became obsessed with "correct" grammar and usage, constantly hectoring his reader on the subject, even as the language was altering before our eyes.

Like most "live" languages (opposed to, say, Latin, ancient Greek, and Sanskrit), English grammar is in good part descriptive rather than prescriptive; that is, if an increasing number of people use a theoretically incorrect conjunction (like) rather than the "correct" as, "like" becomes acceptable. But not for Safire, who also addressed more arcane (less relevant) aspects of grammar.

Between his conservative politics and reactionary grammar gospel, William Safire's column was tediously predictable.

[kickatthedarkness]

Remember this column?

www.nytimes.com/2001/09/13/opinion/13SAFI.html

"The most worrisome aspect of these revelations has to do with the credibility of the "Air Force One is next" message. It is described clearly as a threat, not a friendly warning — but if so, why would the terrorists send the message? More to the point, how did they get the code-word information and transponder know-how that established their mala fides?

That knowledge of code words and presidential whereabouts and possession of secret procedures indicates that the terrorists may have a mole in the White House — that, or informants in the Secret Service, F.B.I., F.A.A. or C.I.A. If so, the first thing our war on terror needs is an Angleton-type counterspy."

That must be why Establishment "journalism" is in decline: it is full of "conspiracy theorists".

http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2008/10/09/the-protection-racket/

[SEQUOIABISON]

He was able to use his masterful command of the English language to hide behind, when he was spewing his venomous conservative philosophy of greed is good.

[Pinkie e]

Sequolabison.. Yeh...Wouldn't it wonderful if we could just get rid of all of those terribly venomous conservative journalist . Why even bother to have a different opinion ? I just can't wait for the day that EVERY news venue is liberal. Lets see now,were almost there, we have MSNBC,CBS,ABC,CNN,NBC,PBS, New Y Times, Boston Globe,LA Times, Chicago Trib, Washington Post, Atlanta Constitution etc. And that other network FOX bhaaaaaa who do they think they are having the gall and audacity to be different and give you another side. Grrrrrrrrr

[sisco2008]

The commentary on this article fully reflects how shallow and polarized this nation has become.

[LMPE]

Safire was another right-wing ideologue.

[Yellowbird]

The reason Wm Safire doesn't rate much attention at passing is because most Liberals are decent people and don't cuss on the internet like the right wing does.

If we were the type to vent and cuss, call people names, and stir up animosity, this would surely be the moment.

But as you can see, we are a more polite bunch.

[GaryA]

This guy supported Neocons. What makes him a libertarian? And this guy was part of the mainstream press. Everyone knows that the mainstream press is not a real press, or real journalism. This guy had as much credibility as Tim Russert. That means zero credibility.

[BigTuna]

Diane Sawyer was a Nixon adviser? Learned something new today...

[wewin]

She is portrayed in Frost Nixon.

[ElLoboNocho]

The very idea that Safire voluntarily worked for an antisemite, profoundly disturbed President, should disqualify him a priori to opine on any subject other than etymology. The average classics professor at a mid-Western university could provide more erudite commentary on the semiotics of language. Safire was the first rightist Semite, preceding Podhoretz, Kristol, et. al. to gain undeserved intellectual standing. I never understand why the Ochs Sulzberger clans adopted this mediocre orphan "scholar"

[NHBill]

ole'

[gdogs]

The decline of American journalism is directly related to the lack of concern that our nation's youth has about what really matters in the world. All that matters these days is "celebrity". It's a trend that has been growing for at least 15 years, and finally culminated in the election of a man with no real qualifications to the office of President of the United States. Lets face it, Obama was elected because the media turned him into a famous face. A large percentage of the people that voted for him didn't know his record. They just knew he was "celebrity", and that was good enough.

[BigTuna]

"lack of concern that our nation's youth has about what really matters in the world"

Oh, bullshit. Unless you're elderly and consider someone in his 50's as still young, it has very little to do with the age demographic. You think 20-somethings are the ones keeping People magazine and Extra in business? There is a large swath of the American public that avoids critical thinking, and there are no age limitations for membership.

[peakbagger]

I do believe it all started with Ronald Reagan ... pretty face with nothing behind it ... and we are still paying the price of his policies ... thankfully his mismanagement is becoming clearer day by day

[thebobbob]

It has been a concerted effort of the right wing to discredit "The Press" and the MSM. By labeling it "Liberal" they could discount press reports as mere partisan attacks. "What would you expect the "liberal" press to say". With the removal of the fairness doctrine a phony, parallel press could be created as "balance" and provide the Orwellian named "fair and balanced" reporting we now see from Murdock News, The Moonie Press and Fox.

Journalism hasn't declined. A professional, independent press is anathema to Corporate Fascism and had to be discredited. It was decline by design.

[Jimboy17]

Yes, let us blame everything on the youth. It is the youth who built, then corrupted the political institutions, they who made the culture industry what it is, they who run the ad agencies, they who tuned in, turned on, dropped out, and then sat back like fat lazy bastards and ate the earth whole.

No, it is rather the aged, tired, angry, effete and useless sods who birthed them who are to blame. To blame for not inculcating values, for not righting the wrongs, for not making a better world than the one they found. Youth are always targeted, because they are the easiest, most vulnerable, and most easily dispensed. We used to sacrifice them on the altar of war. Now we do so at the altar of mammon.

[mravka]

Work. Tell it like it is.

[Timmrock]

We are a nation of dumbed down dimwits. Congratulations Khloe!