At the 1939 World’s Fair, Daniel Schorr tried out RCA’s newest technology: The television. After seeing himself on screen, he remembers walking away somewhat skeptical of the device’s potential.
“It’s a nice stunt,” Schorr said. “But it won’t go very far.”
Now the senior news analyst for National Public Radio, Schorr realizes his judgment was a bit off. But that doesn’t stop him from wishing he had been right.
In a keynote address to a crowd of around 450 students, faculty and community members Tuesday, Schorr talked about the increasing fuzziness between reality and non-reality invading today’s news media, especially television.
Schorr’s speech highlighted the University’s Convocation, which took place in the EMU Ballroom. The centuries-old tradition of Convocation is the ceremonial beginning of the academic year, while also giving the University a chance to recognize faculty members for their accomplishments.
Schorr’s “work and life are the epitomes” of the learning pursuits engaged by all those in the University community, University President Dave Frohnmayer said in his opening remarks before Schorr’s speech.
In a career spanning more than a half century, Schorr covered many of the biggest events in the past 50 years and worked for a variety of media organizations, including CBS, and helped set up the Cable News Network.
He is also a journalist who has consistently worked to preserve honesty and integrity in reporting, to the point of being threatened with jail time for refusing to reveal the name of a source.
And so it bothers Schorr when he sees television news reporting increasingly based on twisting what is real and presenting “virtual reality” instead.
Take the fact that during Dan Rather’s report from Times Square last New Year’s Eve, a billboard in the background was replaced with a CBS logo, when in reality the sign advertised Budweiser and NBC.
This was just some of many examples given by Schorr of how “television is making an assault on reality.” His speech — entitled “Forgive Us Our Press Passes” and delivered without the use of notes — focused on this assault.
His critique also included the Internet, which blurs the lines even more. Schorr said with this technology, someone can be a writer, editor and publisher all in one.
“You can also have your own ethical standards,” Schorr said.
Schorr, for his own part, has spent his career telling people what they don’t know, and trying to distinguish reality from virtual reality, he said.
Some audience members seemed to appreciate his efforts. Near the crowd of people approaching Schorr for autographs after the speech, Elizabeth Steffensen, a Eugene resident and one of the coordinators for the Million Mom March, said she and her six children have spent a lot of time listening to the NPR analyst. She said if everyone listened to Schorr, some of the world’s problems could be lessened.
“He’s worth listening to for any problem [people] might have,” Steffensen said.
The final story he shared Tuesday shows exactly how much he has invested in telling the truth.
After CBS refused to air a Mike Wallace interview with a cigarette company “whistle blower,” it was later revealed that the company’s president actually owned a cigarette company.
It was only after this conflict of interest had gone public that CBS decided to air the interview. By then, however, Schorr saw the real moment of action — the moment when Wallace could have made a stand for his journalistic integrity — had been missed.
In the film “The Insider,” which dramatized the incident, the character playing Wallace was asked why he didn’t threaten to resign if the segment was not aired. Schorr said the character answered: “And wander for the rest of my life in the wilderness of NPR?”
Schorr’s response to that comment at the end of the speech painted the difference between the two men, consequently drawing a line between Wallace’s field — television — and Schorr’s, which is now radio.
“You’ve got it wrong, Mike. You’re wandering in a very affluent wilderness,” he said. “I have found the promised land.”