Neuharth: Press must be more fair to remain free

By Cheryl Arvidson
The Freedom Forum Online

10.13.00

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Allen H. Neuharth speaking at the University of South Dakota yesterday.

VERMILLION, S.D. — Freedom Forum and USA TODAY founder Allen H. Neuharth said yesterday that if the news media hope to regain credibility, stop the slide in their reputation and retain freedom, journalists must once again put accuracy and fairness at the top of their reporting agenda.

"The First Amendment protects us all, even student journalists, even when we don't know exactly what we're doing," Neuharth said at a speech on the University of South Dakota campus marking the 50th anniversary of his graduation. "We in the media, on campus and out there in the real world, must make certain the press becomes more fair if it is to remain free."

Neuharth drew on his trove of memories, professional accomplishments and travel throughout the United States and the world to deliver a speech that was at times nostalgic, at times visionary, but always laced with a reality of observation that traces directly back to "the sacred soil" of his native South Dakota.

"It is true that some of us in our search for fame and fortune get away from our home base," Neuharth said. Noting that he now lives in Florida and receives most of his checks there, the 76-year-old Neuharth said there was one check he could find only in South Dakota, "and it's called a reality check."

"It's a reality check among old friends and surroundings that remind me of much humbler days and from people who can tell when the emperor has no clothes. To me, South Dakota really is sacred soil," he said.

Neuharth recalled arriving on the Vermillion campus 54 years ago as part of a "rag-tag" group of 1,000 World War II veterans whose ranks swelled the student body here nearly threefold.

"We brought with us from that war all its tension, its fears, its uncertainties of man's inhumanities to man. We were looking for some sanity in life, some truths we could accept and live with, some traction for ourselves on what we hoped would be the road to success. We found them all here," he said.

He praised his "homespun professors," including one now in his 90s who was in the audience, for teaching the important lessons including the need, "in college as in life," to have fun and that public service in any field is a noble calling.

University of South Dakota President James Abbott makes remarks after receiving from Freedom Forum Chairman Charles Overby, far left, a $2 million check for renovations to create the Al Neuharth Media Center. Neuharth and USD Foundation Board of Trustees Chairman Dean Belbas, right, listen.

"This is where we learned to call a spade a spade or a pitchfork a pitchfork, and more importantly, how to dig and shovel our way to success," Neuharth said.

Neuharth said as he jumps ahead to the state of USD in year 2000, he finds it uniquely situated to continue its growth and its improvement and become "one of the best small-sized public universities in the country."

He concluded his remarks by looking ahead 50 years and expressing hope that the university's journalism and mass-media programs will produce graduates who can meet the challenges and seize the opportunities created by the massive technological developments that are turning the world into a huge, electronically linked global village.

"What a mind-boggling opportunity for those who make news and information, communications and knowledge their business and their priority in the years ahead," Neuharth said. "It is my hope that the University of South Dakota will provide some of those leaders who will meet those challenges, seize those opportunities and reap those rewards. Thank you for letting me come back home again."

One of the keys to that mission will be a new Al Neuharth Media Center that will house all the university's media and news operations. The media center will be housed in a 72-year-old campus building that will be totally renovated in a $4.5 million project, with $2 million of the funding coming from The Freedom Forum.

During a question-answer session, Neuharth was asked whether he thought journalism education and journalism in general differed from one part of the country to the next. He said that without question, there are different approaches to journalism and journalism education around the country. Those regional differences, he said, were particularly evident — and damaging — in the post-Watergate years when many young reporters left journalism school determined to be the next Bob Woodward or Carl Bernstein and bring down a president as those Washington Post reporters did.

"My own feeling is that a generation of cynics came out of journalism schools in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and that's part of the reason why the profession of journalism is in such trouble now and why our popularity has been sliding," Neuharth said. "That happened because when Woodward and Bernstein brought about the resignation of Richard Nixon, too many young students on colleges and university campuses said the way to gain fame and fortune is to be another Woodward and Bernstein.

"So they went out and looked for dirt under every carpet in front of every public official's desk or office and every business person's desk or office. And even though they didn't find it, they pretended they did. That was a generation of cynics that did great damage to the profession of journalism."

Neuharth said the movement was "more pronounced" on the East Coast and West Coast than in the Midwest, but was destructive to press credibility nonetheless. Only in the last five or six years, he said, have journalists and journalism education begun to return "to the old 'who, what, when, where and why' that we learned 50 years ago." He said in his travels across the United States during the last two years on NewsCapade, it appeared that "the managers of most commercial newspapers and some but not all broadcast stations ... are now more determined to practice more responsibility."

"You will find, in my judgment, the fairest journalism and the most accurate journalism in the heartland, where everything is better than it is on the East Coast and the West Coast," Neuharth said. "I think there has been a lot of progress in the heartland and in some places in the South, but there is still a lot of work to be done east of the Potomac, east of the Hudson and on the West Coast."

Earlier in the day, in another tribute to Neuharth, Freedom Forum Chairman and CEO Charles L. Overby gave the $2 million check to the University of South Dakota to renovate the existing Telecommunications Center and turn it into a state-of-the-art media center named after Neuharth. Accepting the check were USD President James Abbott and Dean Belbas, chairman of the USD Foundation Board of Trustees.

The Al Neuharth Media Center will house all student activities and entities on campus related to media, including the Volante student newspaper, which Neuharth edited as a student here; the television and radio facilities of South Dakota Public Broadcasting; campus radio and television stations, and The Freedom Forum's Neuharth Center.

The entire $4.5 million project is expected to take two years to complete. The rest of the renovation will be financed through the USD Foundation. Officials said the project would begin immediately because plans have already been approved by the South Dakota Board of Regents and the USD Foundation Board.

Overby said the grant, the largest in the more than 65-year history of The Freedom Forum and its predecessor, the Gannett Foundation, "says something about our confidence in the University of South Dakota."

He said The Freedom Forum trustees wanted to honor the legacy of Al Neuharth but also provide a tribute that would help future generations of young journalists.

"We didn't want to look to the past and just provide bricks and mortar, but provide a dynamic center that will offer important plans and help to future graduates for the next 50 years," Overby said.

"I'm honored and thrilled that my name will be associated with this media center — not a building, but a media center," said Neuharth. "And I hope that out of this facility will come people who will go on in the state of South Dakota, the country and around the world to do much more than some of the past graduates who've done so well, like Tom Brokaw and others. I'm confident that that will happen here."

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