The American Journey of Eric Sevareid, by Raymond A Schroth:
Schmuhl, Robert
BEING GOD, TWO MINUTES A DAY THE AMERICAN JOURNEY OF ERIC SEVAREID Raymond A. Schroth Steerforth Press, $28,462 pp. Robert Schmuhl Almost a century ago, Henry Adams noted in a withering...
...At the age of six, while growing up in Velva, North Dakota, and helping out at the weekly Velva Journal, Sevareid decided he wanted to be a newspaper man...
...What the likes of Edward R. Murrow and Eric Sevareid started with such intelligence and creativity just over fifty years ago now rests in the well-manicured hands of Dan Rather, Peter Jennings, and lesser lights...
...Throughout the book, Schroth provides context for understanding why Sevareid's work meant what it did to a nation trying to cope with problems and its new role in the world...
...The Eric Sevareid that emerges from Schroth's absorbing biography is a complex, contradictory figure, forever ill-at-ease in a calling he elevated by the authority of his words and his abiding faith in America.ding faith in America...
...Reflecting on the experience and Sevareid's subsequent involvement in other events, Schroth notes that "his quest for news had become his quest for transcendent truth...
...The word "aloof appears repeatedly, and its suggestion of standoffishness describes Sevareid's basic stance...
...The author also shrewdly probes the limitations of broadcasting, especially television, writing at one point: "With Sevareid's retirement, commentary died, for seven reasons...
...At home he brooded," Schroth observes in a one-sentence paragraph, which poignantly reveals his subject's self-imposed responsibility to think through topics he discussed...
...Today Adams' s remark continues to have not only a wry ring but contemporary relevance to a newer American power center: broadcast journalism...
...Ironically, though, throughout his years at CBS, a sense of belonging to what was then the most respected network meant much to him, and he defended its news programming when others (like his idol, Murrow) saw justification for criticism...
...Wars, the business of government, political campaigns, and other stories kept Sevareid at the center of news for nearly half-a-century...
...Paradox and contradiction haunt Schroth's pages-and his subject's life-leaving a final impression that Sevareid's success in broadcasting was remarkable, if not miraculous...
...The tension between being remote yet also engaged animated Sevareid's professional life...
...Commenting so regularly and publicly evoked steady criticism and ridicule of "Eric Severalsides" and "Erect Severe-head...
...In touching scenes near the end of the book, Sevareid welcomes an interview with CNN, and a year before his death signs on to do periodic commentaries for a program on public radio...
...However, the biography keeps showing how Sevareid devoted himself to becoming an "intellectual reporter" and seriously tried to use broadcast airwaves to explain America to Americans...
...Commitment to the written word created one of the larger and continuing torments for Sevareid...
...Gulps and gasps punctuated his delivery, and once in 1947 the CBS radio network was silent for fifteen minutes because Sevareid was unable to speak...
...The radio reports, articles, and Not So Wild a Dream established Sevareid in the public mind as a thoughtful interpreter of current events, someone willing to look beyond the facts to offer historical or cultural meaning...
...Even during his almost four-decade career with CBS, he regularly published newspaper and magazine articles as well as books, including his evocative memoir, Not So Wild a Dream (1946...
...The remark also captures a key reason for Sevareid's troubled private life...
...Depending on their opinion of Sevareid, colleagues found him shy or rude...
...Released from what he saw as the grind of daily journalism, Sevareid spent his final years dabbling in media projects while toying with the idea of writing another memoir...
...In The American Journey of Eric Sevareid, Raymond A. Schroth provides the first interpretive biography of the CBS reporter-essayist, who was known (behind his back) by the nickname, "God...
...Television, a medium dominated by images and pictures, compounded the problem, leading Schroth to conclude that Sevareid "really did not belong in broadcasting, and much of his obvious unhappiness must have come from his knowing that...
...Schroth makes clear that Sevareid's work during and just after World War II shows the greatest accomplishment...
...The next several paragraphs make a persuasive, albeit disheartening, case that the mania for higher ratings, vivid pictures, and raised voices rendered sober, measured observations anachronistic...
...He was never comfortable behind a microphone or in front of a camera...
...Writers, too, are by nature loners, a condition running counter to the teamwork approach required in radio and especially television...
...His stature grew as CBS moved him into television, reaching its pinnacle during the fourteen years (1963-77) when he appeared almost nightly on 'The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite...
...Boyhood ambition endured throughout youth and maturity...
...Robert Schmuhl Almost a century ago, Henry Adams noted in a withering wisecrack that "the progress of evolution from President Washington to President Grant was alone evidence to upset Darwin...
...Sevareid found the pressure of (in his words) "trying to be profound for two minutes every day" a constant worry that affected his health and many aspects of his life...
...Schroth, a Jesuit priest and journalism professor at Loyola University in New Orleans, admirably portrays Sevareid as an outsize figure, physically and professionally, cursed with more inner demons than a mortal deity should have to bear...
...Popularity coming from celebrity brought lucrative lecture fees and book contracts, but the fame and regular exposure took its toll...
...But all the years in broadcasting and the scars from domestic problems sapped the energy and will required to produce another book...
...Lapses into journalistic banality aside, Sevareid occupies a place of his own during his years as a newsman and analyst...
...Sitting on the sidelines and watching the action from afar might serve a purpose sometimes, but big stories demand that a journalist be on the scene for the detailed reporting that leads to informed analysis...
...Personally troubled that he wasn't serving in the military, Sevareid assumed dangerous assignments as a war correspondent...
...For the next seventy-four years (until his death in 1992), Sevareid thought of himself as primarily a writer about topical matters...
...Schroth acknowledges Sevareid's penchant for making a simple symbol represent complex reality, and his utterance of "cosmic generalizations-sometimes slipping into blather...
...It took a grueling ten-day march of 140 miles to reach safety...
...En route to China in 1943, Sevareid's plane crashed in the jungles of Burma, an area behind Japanese lines and populated by head-hunters...
...He covered the Nazi takeover of France, the Battle of Britain, and the final days of fighting in Europe...
Vol. 122 • July 1995 • No. 13
