‘Scotty’ had JFK’s ear; that access is long gone

I’ve been reading -- and thoroughly enjoying -- “Scotty,” John Stacks’ recently published biography of the late James “Scotty” Reston, the New York Times columnist who was, as Stacks says, “the most admired journalist in the world” for almost two decades. But I keep wondering, unhappily, why there are no Scotty Restons in the press today.

I don’t mean to suggest there are no first-rate columnists. The New York Times alone has three: Thomas Friedman, William Safire and Paul Krugman. But none of those three, and no other columnist, anywhere, commands anything remotely approaching the influence and respect that Reston (and Walter Lippmann) once enjoyed.

From the early 1950s to the late 1960s, presidents, Cabinet members and congressmen listened to what Reston said and read what Reston wrote and cared about what Reston thought. Indeed, Stacks’ book opens with President John Kennedy, battered by Nikita Khrushchev at the Vienna summit in 1961, turning 10 minutes later to discuss what Stacks calls “this bleak, frightening encounter” not with his secretary of State or any other member of his administration but with Reston.

No journalist today would have that kind of access, that kind of trust or that kind of power. Why not?

“I think the main reason is that the number of players has exploded,” Friedman said when I put that question to him. “With three television networks and all those cable outlets and the Internet, everyone has their own commentator, and it’s just much harder for any one columnist to have as much influence as a columnist did in Reston’s day.”

Friedman has a point. But the changing nature of the relationship between the news media and the policy makers is an equally good explanation.

“There was, at the heart of Reston’s style of journalism, a sense of common purpose with the government and political leaders,” Stacks writes. “The press and the government, although with different interests and different priorities, were often seen by Reston as collaborators in one enterprise, the preservation of the United States of America.”

Any reporter today who saw himself as a “collaborator” with those in government would be pilloried by his colleagues -- as Roger Ailes of Fox News was recently when it was revealed that he had sent President George W. Bush a note recommending “harsh” action in the aftermath of Sept. 11.

Even reporters who seem merely enthusiastic about a particular candidate -- as several were in the case of Bill Clinton before he was elected president -- are seen these days as betraying their journalistic obligation to be detached and impartial.

But today’s journalists, while no less committed to the preservation of the country, operate under a legacy of government duplicity -- Vietnam, Watergate and Iran-Contra, to name just three examples -- so they see their patriotic duty not as collaborating with the government but as challenging the government.

Even for his time, Reston was too close to some political leaders, and his access led him, on occasion, to accept too readily their self-serving lies. (Henry Kissinger was probably the foremost beneficiary of Reston’s misplaced trust.)

But those shortcomings were the byproducts of the essential decency that gave Reston his influence and his access to the corridors of power.

“He was trusted to report and write with a sense of balance and humanity,” Stacks says. “He was often critical of policies and policy makers but rarely harsh in these judgments.” He was “a revered voice of reason and good sense.”

Those characteristics, I think, are what ultimately separate Reston from most of today’s commentators -- and that distinction may well explain, better than anything else, why today’s commentators don’t enjoy Reston’s influence or respect.

TV: Noise trumps reason

In the contemporary arena of opinion-mongering the power, reach and intimacy of television have long since replaced the printed word. And the commentators who star on television are unlikely to be accused of balance, humanity, reason or good sense. They are, in fact, almost invariably harsh in their judgments. Their strident tone, snide comments and name-calling exchanges resemble dormitory food fights more than reasoned arguments.

Viewers don’t nod their heads in agreement or murmur acknowledgment of an insightful analysis, as readers once did while reading Reston; instead, they’re shouting back at the screen. “You idiot,” “You moron” and “Shut up” are common responses.

No wonder.

Watch Chris Matthews on MSNBC’s “Hardball.” He seems to be a template of sorts for the modern-day commentator: He talks so fast and so loudly and interrupts his guests so frequently that it’s difficult for anyone to actually discuss a single point, never mind a complex argument on a sensitive issue.

The putative pundits in shows like “The Beltway Boys,” “Crossfire,” “The McLaughlin Group” and “The Capital Gang” follow a similarly shallow and confrontational formula. (Fred Barnes and Mort Kondracke are not dummies, but can you imagine Reston and Lippmann billing themselves as “The Beltway Boys”?)

The participants in these shows offer instant opinions -- up, down, right, wrong, in, out -- and they scream at each other, all vying to see who can make the most provocative, outrageous comment, the one-liner most likely to be repeated in the media echo chamber that is our nation’s capital.

Respected print journalists have told me, somewhat sheepishly, that when they appear on these chat-and-shout shows, they often find themselves saying things they’d never say in their own columns.

“There’s a show-biz imperative to spout off,” one Washington journalist said. “You don’t survive on these shows if your aim is to

The producers of these shows are interested in attitude and edge, not knowledge and insight.

Reston was not just a thoughtful analyst -- the inventor, really, of what’s come to be called “news analysis” in the printed press -- he was also an excellent reporter. But the commentators who star on television are so busy talking--on TV and in speeches-- that they have no time for reporting.

In fact, as Margaret Carlson, longtime writer for Time magazine and a regular on “Capital Gang,” once told me, “The less you know about something, the better off you are” on these shows.

Balance and nuance are to be avoided at all costs. I know this from personal experience. Because I’ve been writing about the news media for almost 30 years, I’m periodically invited to appear on television. Usually, a producer will call beforehand for a “pre-interview.”

If I answer one or two of their questions by saying, “Well, it’s not that simple” or “There are a couple of different ways to look at that,” I know the producer’s “Thank you very much” really means, “You won’t be hearing from us again. Ever.”

Tom Friedman likes to say there are “two kinds of columnists -- those in the heating business and those in the lighting business.” Friedman, like Reston and Lippmann before him, is in the lighting business. He tries to illuminate an issue by marshaling well-reasoned arguments. But television is a hot medium, and the payoff for commentators today -- ratings, book contracts, huge speaking fees -- is in the heating business, and the hotter, the better.

Verbal confrontation-cum-conflagration feeds the egos of the commentators, and it may be entertaining in a mindless sort of way, kind of like mud-wrestling. But it neither gives the commentators any real influence nor provides the audience or the policy makers with any true insight.

In the final passage of “Scotty,” John Stacks says, “I firmly believe that this nation would be better served if there were again Scotty Restons mining the inner workings of government and telling us the truth about what they pry loose.”

Amen.

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David Shaw can be reached at david.shaw@latimes.com.