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Book Review: Reporters Who Made History: Great American Journalists on the Issues and Crises of the Late 20th Century by Steven M. Hallock

Reporters Who Made History: Great American Journalists on the Issues and Crises of the Late 20th Century. Steven M. Hallock. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2010. 332 pp. $54.95 hbk.Steven M. Hallock, an assistant professor of journalism at Point Park University in Pittsburgh, looks at fifty years of American history through the words and memories of ten journalists who covered it.For each decade, Hallock has selected two journalists with a wide range of experiences and backgrounds. They include men and women who were print editors and reporters, syndicated columnists, and broadcasters. Hallock weaves together personal interviews as well excerpts from their memoirs and stories to tell about the most important events of the late twentieth century.Although the book is titled Reporters Who Made History, not all of those featured made history themselves and not all were reporters when they made their mark. For example, Ben Bradlee was an editor, and Ellen Goodman, Georgie Anne Geyer, and David Broder were columnists writing about the political and social upheavals of their time.Hallock asked each journalist to name the most important events of the late twentieth century in the areas of crime, politics, society, law, entertainment, sports, medicine, and foreign affairs. He also asked them to comment on changes they saw in the journalism profession. Their answers are not too surprising: the Civil Rights movement, the Cold War, the Red Scare, the ascendancy of television, and the fall of communism top the journalists' list of important developments.More interesting are the journalists' reflections on their careers. While much of it has been previously published in biographies and memoirs, pulled together in this study themes emerge that are instructive to today's young journalists: the men and women in this book exhibited a passion for reporting the truth, a willingness to work hard and take risks, and enjoyed a fair amount of luck. Hallock tries to situate each journalist within his or her time period by reporting the news headlines on the day each was born. Although at times this device feels a bit tedious, it does serve to remind the reader that even journalists are shaped by their times.After an overview chapter, Hallock starts his decade-by-decade study in the 1950s with former New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis and White House correspondent Helen Thomas. Lewis discusses the nascent Civil Rights movement and his coverage of the Red Scare, including his Pulitzer Prize-winning series about a Maryland man who lost his job after being deemed a security risk. Thomas, meanwhile, describes her start as a political reporter during World War II and the advent of the Cold War and offers her views on the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations. Hallock's book predates her retirement following controversial remarks on Jews and Palestinians. …