This is Literature: Journalism During World War II

Somewhere in California.  Recently, Andy Rooney called some very fine journalists  “operatives”.  He was paying tribute to print journalism.  His point was that the newspaper was superior to radio and television broadcasts but hearing him call Edward R. Murrow an “operative” bothered me. 

It seems to me that calling Murrow an operative is really no different from calling John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway, E.B. White, or John Hersey an operative.  After all, these writers were reporters during World War II—just like Ed Murrow.  And their extraordinary words (like his) have left an indelible mark on journalism.

The Journalism

Even today, when the guns of Europe have fallen silent there is a haunting cadence to their dispatches.  Take this passage from a broadcast Murrow delivered at 10:30 PM on September 10, 1940:

“We looked in on a renowned Mayfair hotel tonight and found many old dowagers and retired colonels settling back in the overstuffed settees in the lobby.  It wasn’t the sort of protection I’d seek from a direct hit from a half-ton bomb, but if you were a retired colonel and his lady you might think the risk was worth it because you would at least be bombed with the right kind of people…”

This passage—so seemingly straightforward, yet so filled with nuance—is the sort of thing one might expect to find in a work of literature.  Classical literature perhaps.  But this passage was read out loud and was heard—by millions—on the radio.  And so we call it journalism and its author a journalism operative.  Or, if we’re being polite, a reporter.

On the other hand, there’s this passage:

“The troops in their thousands sit on their equipment on the dock.  It is evening, and the first of the dimout lights come on.  The men wear their helmets, which make them all look alike, make them look like long rows of mushrooms. … The numbers chalked on their helmets are almost like the license numbers on robots.”

This passage was filed with the New York Herald Tribune in 1943.  It appeared in print and was read by hundreds, perhaps even thousands of people.  Which is why we call this passage literature and why its author, John Steinbeck, is called a writer. 

The Literature

But were Steinbeck’s words more powerful, more immediate, more lyrical than Murrow’s?  Did the Murrow piece fade with time?  Can we no longer “hear” it simply because Murrow is not reading it to us from an ocean away?  Or is the only real difference between literary quality of the two pieces, the technology that was used to broadcast them? 

Because if it is the latter (and I suspect it is) then what we (or, in this case Andy Rooney) are saying is that the newspaper, simply by virtue of being a newspaper, is more literary than radio.

It’s a judgment with which I disagree.  I have read many incredible newspaper reports, magazine stories, and radio transcripts filed during World War II and many, perhaps most, seemed like literature to me.  A literature, moreover, whose emotional force still has the power to grab me; pull me into the moment.

The Tribute

So no, Andy Rooney.  Edward R. Murrow was not a mere “operative”; he, like John Steinbeck and countless others was an incredibly passionate and—dare I say it?—classical writer.  We should pay tribute to those writers who dared bring the war with all its agony into our homes, not disparage them.  Which is why I will close with the words Edward R. Murrow made famous during the Blitz.

“This is London.”