While trying to decide what to do with this blog, I ran into a few concerns.
- What should my litmus test for a potential member of this blog be?
- Should I favor one era of journalism, and journalists, over another?
- With several hundred years of reporting and media to choose from, how do I pick a wildcard?
I started by answering the first question. The test for membership on my blog is simple: If you’ve ever stood up to the status quo and denounced it as being unconscionable, even, or especially, at the risk of harm to yourself, you’re in.
The second question was a little tougher, but when considered in tandem with the first question, it became clear that this standard could apply across the entire history of the United States, so for simplicity’s sake, I chose most of my members from a more modern era. The reasoning for this was that it would be easier to find a wider range of quotes, pictures, and even video to feature on my blog versus digging into archives and posting fuzzy, almost-undecipherable pictures.
The third question turned out to be easier than I thought it would be. I picked an individual who tackled a subject that was important to me. Piece of cake.
The use of these three questions narrowed my search down considerably, but there were still any number of historically brave individuals who met that criteria, so I had to break it down by position and pick my poison.
Publisher – Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin
When it came to publishers, Ruffin had my vote from the beginning. The only other real consideration was Pulitzer, whose tabloid-esque antics while trying to sell more papers ended up patently disqualifying him from the position.
Reporter – Morley Safer
Picking a reporter was difficult. There have been so many great voices over the generations, and not picking Walter Cronkite took a great deal of effort. Morley ended up winning my vote due to his efforts on exposing the atrocities of the Vietnam war.
(Pictured above: Walter Cronkite holding a lot of kittens. How could anyone not love this guy? Still, he didn’t make my list.)
Photographer/Cartoonist – Thomas Nast
If I’m being honest, I’d be hard pressed to name a photographer that doesn’t work with a fictional superhero whose body of work changed my life, e.g. Peter Parker, Jimmy Olsen, etc. Every once in a while you might see a picture that affects you at a guttural level, but rarely do people recognize photographers based on their style or subject matter, so if I’m going to pick someone whose art changed the journalistic landscape for the better, it has to be Thomas Nast for taking on moneyed interests and blatant corruption in politics.
Wildcard: Edward R. Murrow
My wildcard pick boiled down to a simple question: Who, in the history of America, would I love to meet face-to-face so I could give them the finger? The answer, of course, was Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, which made Murrow my pick by proxy.