John C. Merrill is a national institution and treasure in the field of journalism in the United States. He has taught college journalism for one-half century and authored more than 30 books in that time.
Merrill's latest book, "Twilight of Press Freedom: The Rise of People's Journalism," will be published by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates this fall. Merrill has worked as a reporter, wire editor, feature writer, columnist and has lectured on every continent.
Merrill, 76, a professor emeritus at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, recently announced his retirement from college teaching. He consented to a Q&A with SJR in late May while preparing for a departure to Singapore this summer for more of his global journalism lecturing.
SJR: Your new book has the title, "Twilight of Press Freedom." How can night be descending on press freedom when so many historians are hailing the end of totalitarianism around the world?
Merrill: This new book traces a growing anti-Enlightenment rhetoric in the West throughout the 20th Century. Most press criticism now, inspired to some degree by Marxism, attacks libertarian journalism as harmful to society and as a failure. These critics are anxious to end the tradition of a vigorous, individualistic journalism. They favor society over the individual, responsibility over freedom, orderliness over autonomy.
Two recent Ph.D. students and I have been working on this study for several years. We contend that the institutionalized press in this country is going to lose much of its autonomy to "the people," the lawyers, the corporate managers and the business office. The communitarians and the public journalists are already playing a big part in this.
SJR: How does public or so-called civic journalism play a role in this twilight of press freedom?
Merrill: Public journalism is a clear manifestation of the kind of thinking that loathes individualism and autonomy in journalism. There is all this rhetoric about harmony and a good society being more important than journalistic freedom.
Public journalism advocates look at the press as arrogant, as having too many privileges that no other institutions have. They want more codes of conduct, more standards of behavior--more accountability from journalists in upholding social order.
SJR: What kind of inroads is the public journalism view making on traditional thinking about the press?
Merrill: In academia, it's all over the place. It's the new elitism. I'd say that eight out of 10 of new scholarly books on journalism take the public journalism line. It's coming out in works by Jay Rosen, by James Carey, by Clifford Christians--at my own university by Professor Ed Lambeth.
SJR: In our own research at SJR, we find some schools' faculty are turning their backs on public journalism, while other schools are embracing it as part of the curriculum. What have you found?
Merrill: At my own school here at Mizzou, the concepts and philosophy of public journalism are taking over. It's being taught in the classroom. It really burns me up. It bums me up that Pew Trust money can come in here and change the journalism curriculum with these ideas.
Can anyone imagine the outrage if the U.S. government or a right-wing group came into a university program with money and said: "Here's what you should be thinking about. Here's the way things should be taught."
SJR: What bothers you the most about public journalism?
Merrill: What bothers me most is bringing in politicians, civic leaders and "the people" to decide what is going to be reported and how. All of this is supposed to make public life go well. It's an abdication of professional responsibility in favor of convening and being part of the parade. A journalist's role should be to stand apart and just give a picture of what is going on in society.
SJR: Many rank-and-file reporters in the press say public journalism is just a fad that they have to put up with for a while. They point to public journalism advocate Cole Campbell's departure from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch as a setback--perhaps the beginning of the end for public journalism.
Merrill: It's here to stay. It may change its name a few times. I don't think the loss of Campbell from the St. Louis daily is necessarily a setback for public journalism. He now goes on to Florida's Poynter Institute with a forum to indoctrinate more students and professional journalists with this kind of thinking.
SJR: Many younger journalists today seem more concerned about "convergence" than public journalism. They fear the new media jobs will make them "information gatherers" to serve the newspaper, TV and the Internet all at the same time. They fear "burnout" trying to do all this.
Merrill: What worries me about convergence is the idea of an even more superficial news product being put out. The people who are pushing convergence answer the questions put to them a lot like all the public journalists answer questions.
Public journalist "Buzz" Merritt came to our campus and he answered a lot of tough questions by saying, "It's too early in the development of public journalism to know that yet." Ask the convergence people about its effect on news and the reporters and they say, "It's just too early in the development to answer that."
SJR: Journalism schools seem more and more confused about what to teach with all this going on. Do you agree with Berkeley's Ben Bagdikian that journalism schools should teach journalism and should never have brought in public relations and advertising as part of the curriculum?
Merrill: Bagdikian is absolutely right. It confuses the mission of a journalism education. Should an advertising graduate or a public relations graduate say, "I'm from the school of journalism." It doesn't make sense.
Things are more problematic than that. We now have deans at some journalism schools who've never, ever reported. We've got schools dropping their journalism history requirements in favor of postmodernism study, or communications theory or conflict-resolution. There's less and less journalism going on.
How does conflict-resolution belong in a journalism curriculum? When did journalists become resolvers of conflict? I thought their real role was to stir up conflict--afflict the comfortable. All of this makes me think I'm getting out of journalism teaching at the right time.
SJR: Examining the titles on the 32 books that you've published on journalism, and it looks like you've been fighting the ideas of public journalism long before this new movement even had a name. What has been your favorite book?
Merrill: My favorite has to be "The Imperative of Freedom." It came out at a time when a lot of books were glorifying the work of the Hutchins Commission. Of course, the Hutchins Commission championed this notion of a socially responsible press. I felt there needed to be a voice raised for journalistic autonomy.
Of course, I realize there's never been absolute journalistic autonomy. "Noam Chomsky and others would say journalists are just tools of capitalist newspaper owners. That's simplistic. Our system has provided a range of journalistic autonomy up to now. I've visited and studied journalism in 80 other countries, and the U.S. has always come the closest of any to affording journalistic autonomy.
SJR: Your 1977 book, "Existential Journalism," seems to have become popular again and was recently reprinted. What is an "existential journalist?" Can such a reporter thrive in the new "civic culture" of a public journalism newsroom?
Merrill: An existential journalist doesn't thrive in any newsroom really. Existential journalists are very independent, individualistic and they resist like hell the effects of corporate journalism. There's not much room for them now, especially with public journalism, where we're all supposed to go out and hold hands and make the flowers come up. Some of the journalists I would cite as examples of existential would include the late I.F. Stone, Torn Wicker, William Greider, Molly Ivins...
SJR: In "Existential Journalism," you cite the influence of Sartre and Camus on writers and journalists. In your 1994 book, "Legacy of Wisdom: Great Thinkers and Journalism," you again mix philosophy and journalism.
Merrill: I took a master's degree in philosophy about 14 years after I received a Ph.D. from the University of Iowa. I think philosophers like Mill and Locke, Voltaire, Nietzsche and Kierkegaard have a lot to say to journalists. In "Legacy of Wisdom," I don't overlook the collectivists. Karl Marx had many original ideas and his critique of capitalist society for journalists is indispensable. But he and the other communitarian philosophers are just wrong.
Since writing "Legacy," I published "The Princely Press: Machiavelli on American Journalism" in 1998. It's evident that many media industry owners and some journalists have become Machiavellians. They use journalism for their own ends. The end justifies the means.
SJR: William Randolph Hearst probably stands out as the ultimate press tycoon and Machiavellian of the past in journalism. What about today's media moguls-Ted Turner or Rupert Murdoch or Michael Eisner of Disney?
Merrill: There is no doubt that the concentration of media power in a few hands is problematic. I think that is more of a Noam Chomsky critique. I think it's inevitable that in each-era of a capitalist system you are going to have these kinds of powerful figures.
Even with the big concentrations of media power today, I don't think the effect is any more pernicious than it was in the era of Hearst, and it may be less. We have so much more public information today about everybody. We know a lot more about what these big media people are up to than we did in the era of Hearst.
SJR: Your 1983 textbook, "Global Journalism," which was revised in 1991 and 1995, is one of the few survey books available for teaching international journalism. But it seems to be out of date as fast as a new edition is put out.
Merrill: It's a challenge to put out this kind of book. With the rate of world change today, it's probably impossible to put out a book that isn't somewhat dated as it comes off the presses. Actually, my first text of this kind was "The Foreign Press" published in in 1964 with Bryan and Alisky. "Global Journalism" was the first to cover journalism, continent by continent.
SJR: A survey book like "Global Journalism" also has the potential for getting an author in trouble on the political correctness issues. Your text has been criticized by some for its portrayal of Africa and the Middle East.
Merrill: The fact is that Africa is just a basket case when it comes to print journalism. It has been stymied by all of its many languages and dialects that impede the development of the print press. On the positive side, radio and satellite television are very powerful in Africa. And, it is much harder for the authoritarian government to censor and control the information that comes out this way.
SJR: Nevertheless, you are not optimistic that better media technology and more communication are going to make the world a better place to live. You make that point in "Global Journalism" and differ with many other media scholars. Some say that the fall of the Soviet Union was inevitably brought about by an information onslaught that exposed its many contradictions.
Merrill: I'm not sure that we can say that an increase in information has helped the people over there. Can anyone say that the former Soviet Union is now a better and safer place to live? I'm not convinced that more information always leads to better understanding and progress..
Quite frankly, the more I know about a lot-of people, the more I just dislike them. "Ignorance is bliss." "Tall fences make good neighbors." These sayings came out of somewhere and from some experience.
With modern communication, the Arabs and Israelis know a lot about each other now. It's hard to say whether this is going to lead to peace and harmony. One thing is for sure--the countries of the Middle East are getting stronger and stronger: If there is another war, I can assure you that it's not going to be as one sided as it may have been in the past.
SJR: You've lectured on the mass media-and joumalism in more than 60 countries around the world. Do you have any favorite places or memories from these experiences?
Merrill: I can never forget my experiences in Africa, lecturing under a tree with lizards running around on the ground. I have to admit that it's easier living and lecturing when you have creature comforts and you don't have to worry about the water. I've enjoyed lecturing in England, Belgium, Switzerland and Germany. I'm looking forward to Singapore.
SJR: Do you have any major projects planned for your retirement years?
Merrill: I don't plan to write any more books--I've wasted enough trees. I'll continue to go to other journalism schools to lecture on public journalism or whatever they want. I've got a reputation as kind of a curmudgeon. I don't mind it, and I can be a curmudgeon on whatever they want.
Don Corrigan is a professor in the School of Communications at Webster University and he also edits three weekly newspapers.
Books by John Merrill
"Handbook of the Foreign Press"--1955.
"Gringo: The U.S. As Seen By Mexican Journalists"--1963.
"The Foreign Press" (with C. Bryan and M. Alisky)-- 1964.
"The Elite Press"--1968.
"International Communication" (with H.D. Fischer)-1970.
"Dimensions Of Christian Writing" (with D. Bell)--1970.
"Media, Messages & Men" (with R. Lowenstein)--1971.
"The Imperative of Freedom"--1974.
"Ethics and the Press" (with R. Barney)--1975.
"International & Intercultural Communication" (with H.D. Fischer)--1976.
"Existential Journalism"--1977.
"The World's Great Dailies" (with Harold Fisher)--1980.
"Philosophy--and Journalism" (with Jack O'Dell)--1983:
"Global Journalism: A Survey of the World's Media--1983.
"Basic Issues in Mass Communication" (with E. Dennis)-1984.
"The Dialectic in Journalism"--1989.
"Modern Mass Media" (with J. Lee and J. Friedlander)--1990.
"Macromedia: Mission, Message, and Morality" (with R. Lowenstein)--1990.
"Media Debates" (with E. Dennis)--1991.
"Journalism Ethics: Philosophical Foundations for Joumalists"-1997.
"Legacy of Wisdom: Great Thinkers and Journalism"--1994.
"Media Controversies" (with D. Gordon, C. Reuss and Mike Kittross)-1995.
"The Princely Press: Machiavelli on American Journalism"--1998.
"Twilight of Press Freedom: Rise of People's Journalism"--2000.
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