The Campus/Columbia Journalism'.s Class of '82
Goodman, Eleonore B.
~ 1 7 6 1 7 6 1 7 6 1 7 6 1. .7. 6. ~ 1 7 6 1 7 6 .1 .7 .6 .1. 7. 6. ~ 1 7 6 1 7 6 1 7 6 1 7 6 1 7. .6 .1. 7 .6 1 7 6 1 7 6 1 7 6 THE CAMPUS COLUMBIA JOURNALISM'S CLASS OF '82 by Eleanore B....
...The audience response to Burden of Dreams has been, for the most part, guffaws...
...How about the Methodists...
...to show a film director as a foolish man...
...one hears some impertinent mirth...
...Emily Smith, president of a prominent women's college and an avowed right-to-lifer, might be appointed head of the Department of Health and Human Resources...
...Not really...
...He is not without deliberate humor, but his fate with American audiences seems to be inadvertent comedy his most serious efforts come off as the funniest: scarecrow antics and madscientist mugging...
...Fitzcarraldo...
...One student wrote, "Second Attempt to Close Capital Feared...
...One professor allowed that "the line is blurry between what is fact and what is int e r p r e t a t i o n . " Then, only a few minutes later, he criticized a student for "reporting from a specific viewpoint" in trying to demonstratethat the secular media cannot cover religion effectively...
...Smith and present the charge...
...One young woman laments how little she knew about sex before there will be fewer counselors and more unwanted children due to the cuts...
...Friendly asks, "What about the Hves of the troops...
...You, the journalist, hear that 30 years ago Mrs...
...Herzog also spent time in front of Blank's camera, holding forth about himself and his art...
...Herzog fans will also remember Aguirre, the Wrath of God--probably his most successful film in the United States...
...In Burden of Dreams we see Kinski stubbornly refusing to touch this concoction--and although the audience hooted at that, too, I couldn:t help feeling that for once the poor man had a reason to mug...
...And Herzog has begun telling reporters that he wishes people would forget Blank's film when they see Fitzcarraldo...
...Chosen from among more than.900 applicants, we 174 students in the school's 69th class-some with several years of professional experience and others straight out of college--hoped eventually to join many of the school's 4,000 alumni who occupy preeminent positions in the country's broadcast and print media...
...According to the New Testament in the Bible . . . . Oh, that New Testament...
...We didn't hear her say it, anyway," they argue...
...Journalism provides both the glue that holds our society together and the lubricant that makes it work...
...So perhaps authenticity drove out verisimilitude, leaving us with a German Irishman ranting in German ~ German-speaking Peruvians...
...The 15 available interview spots filled up--quickly, silently...
...There is a great need for people to take a stand on the important issues of the day---nuclear arms and human rights...
...It's undeclared war and that's illegal...
...Most parents don't know the first thing about education--processes, philosophies, approaches...
...He posits a situation in which an editor receives information on an imminent preemptive strike by 40, 000 U.S...
...I sat through the wranglings and garbHngs of my classmates, who spouted off about matters of which they obviously knew nothing...
...A Wellesley graduate announced that "I want it all--100% personal lifeand 100% career" which includes "becoming a network anchor within eight years...
...As long as you have Dean Elliott's "fire in the belly," it does not much matter how tepid your thoughts...
...Journalism i s . . . a 'precariously intellectual v o c a t i o n ' . . . Yours will be the task to decide what is truly important.., to help set the national agenda...
...Yet even at Aguirre, which is a better film than Fitzcarraldo or Burden of Dreams...
...fill the hall...
...Playing the devil's advocate, Mr...
...Cries of "Blow it wide open...
...Congress is aware of the plan...
...one student shouts...
...when its object is a stronger character, it can develop the THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JANUARY 1983 .25 will reduce its effect by making that person want to come to the aid of the oppressed...
...Money and what people have or, more accurately have not done to acquire it is a theme that dates back centuries...
...Others summon their macho, however, and vow to persist...
...Does anyone know anything about the Episcopalians...
...A chorus responds, "They joined the army to kill and get killed...
...The instructor, a Times editor, said "feared" smacks of a Nixon-Agnew mind-set, writing next to it, "This word takes on a partisan tone, as though you are siding with the cops 26 THE AMERICAN SPEcTATOR JANUARY 1983 and against the demonstrators...
...Elliott, who refers to himself as "your friendly neighborhood dean," was standing at the podium in the World Room...
...And one student recorded the following after an interview with a colleague: "He told me, 'I am an egotist...
...They question the "newsworthiness" of this fact...
...Just know basically if it "s liberal or conservative, and then a smart person can go on from there...
...Anyone who claims to be objective about these things is lying...
...Friendly posits that if the Republican presidential nominee wins, Mrs...
...I think these critics are right about Herzog's theme, but not about the laughter...
...One '.'thought process" went as follows...
...The Class of 1982 has gone forth, in Ms...
...Several organizations gave informational and recruiting presentations...
...Smith's husband now believes their grown daughter is his child...
...Whatever the case, exercises concerning individual fights did not interest many students...
...Quite a few find their zeal for informing the public dampened...
...another observes...
...Compassion ran strong throughTHE AMERICAN SPEcTATOR JANUARY 1983 27 out the student body...
...The professor's word is made flesh...
...he continues...
...Witness the results of student-to-student interviews: * So often, oppression breeds hatred and resentment...
...The problem of bias was addressed only selectively...
...The students nod...
...In May, the same 174 of us gathered in the same room to receive awards...
...ccr~use the whole enterprise of ,~erzog's filmmaking tias a distinctly (RI~ '~.N SPECTATOR JANUAR'~ 1983...
...As the end of the year approached, personal concerns became paramount...
...There was a general sentiment among the students that journalism is more an affaire de coeur than a job requiring great mental discipline...
...the tale of a nineteenth-century Irishman who hauls a steamboat over a mountain in order to gain access to the rubber trade so that he may bring grand opera to Peru...
...like most thinkers, she names several...
...and when Jagger also left, the sidekick part was written out of the script...
...I report this to my professor and fellow students...
...But he doesn't see any reason why such idealism should s.tand in the way of personal success...
...Professor Schmidt, whom one student called "a welcome tonic to all the hyperbole and hypothetical hoopla," points otit that this act is punishable by a hefty fine and five years in prison...
...At a press conference held to discuss the effects of budget cuts on poor teenage mothers, four such mothers, complete with babies, explain how impossible their lives would become if funds for their social services were cut...
...Behind him was a stained-glass portrait of the Statue of Liberty, and from the open windows the urban roar of our "laboratory," New York City, filled me and perhaps others with anticipation...
...Herzog is a handsome fellow, photogenic even when kneedeep in jungle muck...
...The laughter, they suggest, is philosophical...
...He saw no need to moderate his view just because he had never heard a VOA broadcast: "It's common knowledge," he said...
...Later, word went out that the internship involved a $16,000 salary...
...She was reverently applauded...
...One professor, speaking half in jest but whole in truth, observed, "We raise a few questions and I ramble on indiscriminately...
...The resi of us covered nonpolitical or nonpartisan issues...
...most...
...But halfway through the first shooting, Robards contracted fimoebic dysentery...
...Not to mention the thought processes, and set of mind, that distinguish a journalist from a lawyer or a businessman...
...The United Technologies ad i posted, detailing the results of a survey of media leaders and finding them overwhelm, ingly liberal, disappeared within one day...
...In the first place, there are so many artists dealing with cosmic absurdity nowadays, the average audience can hardly be expected to do much more than yawn...
...And the majority of the audience are dazzled by his much-publicized "dreams," which include making his films as authentic as possible...
...Fitzgerald's words, "to write the tr.u-th" and to "see to it that other people don't write their own report cards...
...She has other heroes...
...A professor warned, "If you don't read the Times's editorials on election day, you're going into the voting booth blind...
...Over half the class followed this injunction by writing master's articles on such topics as "Deregulation and Worker Safety," "Elderly People's Politicization in the Face of a Budget-Cutting, Conservative White House," "El Salvador Solidarity Movement," "Lawyers Leaving Poverty Law," "Nonfundamentalist Christian Opposition to Reagan's Policies," "The Nuclear Prometheus," and even "The Effect of the Reagan Budget Cuts on Off-Off-Broadway...
...Student Evaluation On that opening day back in September, Dean Elliott explained, "One of the most important courses that all of you will take is Offered Fridays by Professors Fred Friendly and Benno Schmidt...
...Another silence...
...We have to remember that most people are incredibly ignorant of what's going on," one student declared...
...Some critics have pointed out that the real theme of Aguirre is not protest but cosmic absurdity: the human will cut free from the illusions of morality, asserting itself against the chaos of the universe...
...In one rambling, he remarks, "The Catholic Church has great PR, much better than the Protestant churches...
...On September 8, 1981, Dean Osborn Elliott, former editor of Newsweek, welcomed the Class of 1982 as we began our nine-month master-of-science program at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism...
...Frances Fitzgerald addressed us: "While being hated is not definitive proof that you're doing a good job, it is a pretty good indicator...
...One wrote, "It is unfortunate that the course focused as much as it did on the question of libel and right of privacy rather than prior restraints and the first amendment rights of broadcasters...
...Actually, it may have been Herzog's passion for authenticity that made Robards sick...
...And Burden of Dreams was released before Fitzcarraldo--timing which must have had Herzog's approval...
...Just-the-factsplease and get-the-other-side orientations strike me as a cheap copout on the journalist's role in society . A great problem in society is the fetish for objectivity...
...I wonder if anyone had anything more coming out of the class than he or she had going into i t . . . I did the readings...
...Smith had an aborYou go to Mrs...
...Later, off camera, she admits to a reporter that she had received counseling for two years before she decided to get pregnant and go on public assistance to keep her boygetting pregnant and says that friend...
...Stone, and Mark Twain...
...But her greater aim, she says, is, "i have no ultimate goal beyond being a really great reporter and writer . . . . " She believes that Columbia GSJ is the place to learn her profession as well as her journalistic idols, including writers James Baldwin, I.F...
...Much grumbling, however, was exchanged about the inadequacies of Columbia's reputedly outstanding "connection network...
...Friendly says...
...tion...
...It is called 'Media, the Law and Society.' In this course you will be exploring not just such legal matters as the First Amendment, libel law, and rules of privacy--butprobing deeply into the ethics of journalism and its central role in the workings of our Republic...
...A petition to "Save Lou Grant," which said that "Ed Asner's outspoken political stands is [sic] likely to have been a factor" in the program's cancellation, stayed posted in the student lounge for days...
...in the first week, we were admonished in speeches and course syllabi to "be opento new knowledge, ideas, and experiences," to "leave your private prejudices and preconceptions at home," and to "be compassionate or angry, but temper those feelings with the discipline of a professional...
...But he language has a certain rightness...
...My personal desires are above humanity,' he says with assurance...
...It' s easy," he griped in a recent interview...
...The only, people who work there," cautioned one professor, "are those who can't make it in any other part of the business...
...At a seminar entitled "Interpretive Writing of Social Trends, " the instructor, a former New York Times editor, begins the session on religion with some basic questions...
...The election is still months away, however...
...Friendly further posits that, in fact, the abortion was never performed and Mrs...
...Another student added, "If the lead isn't pejorative, after all, it's just boring...
...Why should they be consulted...
...By the end of the year, my fact-finding files were brimming with old copies of Time and Newsweek-the shortcuts to knowledge distributed by the faculty...
...the public, of course, is not...
...Another, the winner of a school award for general excellence, said in a seminar on education, "I have trouble with parental involvement...
...Someone mutters something about similarities to the Catholic Church...
...Individuals, the government, and the public will all hate you . . . . But the commitment to the truth implies a political," she fumbled, "I mean a very critical attit u d e . . , and it is important we keep the faith and keep the pressure on so that the changes we'd like to see as a result of our work might eventually happen...
...Finally he concedes, "You don't have to know the details of a religion...
...In the second place, there is the problem of THE by Martha Bayles Klaus Kinski, the German actor who plays both Aguirre and Fitzcarraldo...
...In a pinch, you can always look up the facts...
...In effect, I dedicated 11 Friday mornings to this nonsense and have nothing to show for it...
...Exposing crooked bureaucrats is fine, but he seems clear about what comes first for him...
...In one scene FitzcarrMdo is supposed to enter into a work agreement with an Indian tribe by drinking their ceremonial liquor, made by the women chewing a starchy root and spitting it out into a trough...
...The school motto reads, "That the people shall know...
...You have opted for a calling that is higher than Eleanore B. Goodman is a writer/ editor for Reddy Communications in Greenwich, Connecticut...
...There is silence among the 12 students...
...Things haven't worked out quite that way...
...Probably he expected the documentary revealing his struggles as a bold, unconventional artist to spark interest in Fitzcarraldo...
...with Mick Jagger as his simple-minded sidekick, might have led to the kind of film people laugh with instead of at...
...I must concede that Herzog's original casting of Jason Robards as Fitzcarraldo...
...During a severaledition editing exercise, we were asked to write headlines for a story on the May Day antiwar protests of 1970...
...And American audiences interpret it in political terms as a protest against imperialism, or perhaps the rise of Hitler...
...I attended the discussions...
...Printirtg the story would jeopardize the success of the strike and further imperil the lives of the U.S...
...Among these, the Voice of America announced plans to interview students for a one-year internship in Washington...
...I welcome you as public servants--for that is really what journalism is all about," said Dean Elliott...
...What to do...
...Does this mean Blank took unfair advantage, filming the great director from behind while he flaps his arms at six hundred Aguaruna Indians...
...When one student suggested that perhaps not every story warrants a negative presentation, the professor conceded, "Perhaps not, but then, who'd read a story like that...
...Emotionally, she admits that her parents forced her to have an abortion when they found out that her uncle had raped her while they "were at a prayer meeting," as Mr...
...Many loudly urge publication and continue to do so even when Mr...
...The issues in question are the line between public and private person and the public's right to know...
...7 .6 1 7 6 1 7 6 1 7 6 THE CAMPUS COLUMBIA JOURNALISM'S CLASS OF '82 by Eleanore B. Goodman Fred Friendly is addressing the student body on the limits of journalistic freedom...
...troops against a despot-led country about to invade a U.S...
...Based on the true story of Lope de Aguirre, a Spanish conquistador who went on a rampage of murder and mayhem until he was captured and shot in 1561, Aguirre is so authentic the Andean mist practically rolls off the screen...
...1oolo~ OQ o o l o THE MEISTERSLINGER Burden of Dreams is a documentary made by Les Blank, an American filmmaker, about the German director Werner Herzog's efforts to complete his latest film, Fitzcarraldo...
...jungle, where Fitzcarraldo's main sequences were shot...
...is the sort of jungle-adventure film they used to shoot in studios among potted palms, recorded macaw cries, and nonwhite extras from the unemployment office...
...The student lounge filled with scoffs and energetic agreement on the evils of propaganda...
...It could not have been made without Herzog's cooperation, allowing Blank to follow him into the Peruvian Martha Bayles is film critic for The American Spectator...
...troops...
...Herzog rightly declares such meth28 ods to be "claustrophobic," and leads his actors and technicians into a remote section of the Amazon where they will feel, along with fear and discomfort, afrisson of primeval awe which presumably they will translate into art...
...He plays every role, including himself in Burden of Dreams, as though he were Buster Keaton on a jag...
...Concerning bias, one student's comment is instructive: "I question the validity and integrity of the journalistic racket...
...Imperialist...
...Becoming popular is my main goal.' Criticizing his government for the way he says it robs the country, he wants to help get rid of the corruption he saw everywhere when growing up...
...Amid tirades against hypocrisy, the students vow to procure her medical files...
...ally in the region...
Vol. 16 • January 1983 • No. 1
