Unfortunately, there will never be another journalist like Daniel Schorr.
Friday, this country lost one of the last great newsmen, with the passing of 93-year-old Daniel Schorr. He was something extremely rare in today’s age. He was a broadcast journalist. Emphasis on journalist intended.
Schor was on hand for some of the greatest moments in history. He was the first Western journalist to interview Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev. Schorr’s flaunting of the Soviet censors while stationed in Moscow for CBS, got him kicked out of the country. He moved to Berlin in time to cover the Berlin Wall going up.
Upon his return to the United States, Schorr covered Pres. Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society,” After Johnson, Schorr was a diligent scrutinizer (read, “pain in the neck) of Pres. Richard Nixon. He even ended up on Nixon’s famous “enemies list.” Nixon went so far as to have the FBI investigate Schorr. That was one of the abuses of power listed in Nixon’s articles of impeachment.
Schorr also faced the threat of jail for contempt of Congress by refusing to divulge the source that provided him the Pike Report. The report investigated illegal activities performed by the CIA and FBI. Schorr’s own bosses at CBS refused to run the report, so he leaked it to The Village Voice. It cost him his job, but it shined light on a very dark segment of the U.S. government.
Those activities today would have him branded a “liberal voice of the mainstream media.” That brand and the changing way we consume information have put a stop to most broadcast journalism. There are no more investigations. There are no more hard questions without an agenda. Our information comes from blowhards on the left and blowhards on the right. And the clowns in between. Entertaining stuff, but how informative is it really?
Schorr’s death is another voice gone silent. And it is our fault that there are none like him filling that void. We have chosen what we want to see and hear and the media are only too happy to oblige. So the next time an entity gets over on us, we have no one to blame but ourselves.
Forgive us Daniel Schorr. We know not what we do.
