Saturday, April 11, 1998

Higher profiles, diminished voices

By Bob Greene

SANTA ANA, Calif. -- "The telephone in Franklin Roosevelt's bedroom at the White House rang at 2:50 a.m. on the first day of September. In more ways than one it was a ghastly hour; but the operators knew they must ring. Ambassador Bill Bullitt was calling from Paris. Mr. Bullitt told Mr. Roosevelt that World War II had begun. Adolf Hitler's bombing planes were dropping death all over Poland."

Those words appeared in Time magazine, Sept. 11, 1939. Who wrote the words? Readers of the magazine had no idea.

Time, with very few exceptions, never ran bylines back then. The men and women of Time didn't speak -- the magazine spoke. The voice of Time was one of the most powerful, omniscient voices in the history of print -- to some inspiring, to some intimidating, to all a voice to be reckoned with. It was a voice without a name -- which made the voice bigger. It was Time's voice, and Time's voice only.

Time published its 75th anniversary issue recently, full of reprinted dispatches like that one, speaking with authority and confidence bordering on arrogance: "Winston Churchill is tough. The first important thing he does when he is awakened at 7:15 every morning is light a cigar. His mind requires and retains whole libraries of facts. His spirit loves good food, good drink, pretty and witty women. His body tolerates terrific burdens. He wears out whole squads of secretaries. He talks down platoons of men who have hated and now love him. He is no umbrella-fancier, and he carries a cane not to support his 65-year-old body but to prod, strike and point with."

Anyone would have been proud to have reported and written those words -- but no one got to be, at least not publicly. The world of magazine journalism has changed drastically since then -- and so has the world of politics. Which is pertinent to think about in these days through which we're passing.

Magazine journalism today -- at Time, at Newsweek, everywhere else -- is filled with the names of the men and women who write the stories. They sign their pieces, they sometimes get their pictures in the magazine, they appear on television to talk about (and promote) their articles.

The newsmagazines were slow to switch from unsigned pieces to bylines, but once it started the game changed forever. The voice of a magazine -- that single voice -- was no more. The individual voices of the writers took over.

What's the difference? After all, there were always writers putting the stories together -- what's the difference whether the readers know their names?

The difference is that, in an odd way, the voice of Time magazine was huger when it was a single voice. Egos? It's not a matter of ego -- you can bet the co-founder and top man at Time, Henry Luce, had an ego to match anything in journalism today. But it was the magazine that spoke, as surely as if it had a mouth and tongue -- and the fact that the millions who read the magazine every week did not know who composed the words made Time an almost mythical presence in American homes.

Which brings us to politics. You may have noticed, during the recent crises at the White House, that the three most prominent "senior White House advisers" have names and faces. Ann Lewis, Paul Begala and Rahm Emanuel appear on any TV show that wants them any time there is a new controversy. In decades past, what advisers had to say would have been attributed to nameless "high-level White House sources." Today, they go out there and talk.

And they are ... smaller. By letting people see their faces and hear their voices, they make themselves tiny. In the old-style print political stories (in the old Time magazine), their words would have been anonymous, cloaked in the mystique of the White House -- cloaked in gravity.

America sees these three and sees not the majesty of the White House, but three grown-up yet still overeager student council members. It is difficult to take what they say especially seriously; these three stand before the cameras appearing rehearsed and programmed, and the entire stage is made little. They have faces now, the high-level White House sources. It's probably a mistake.

An inevitable mistake? Most likely. We live in a different world. In many ways, it's a more honest world. When someone writes a story for a powerful magazine, the person has a name, and is accountable to the readers. When someone wants to influence the nation's view of what transpires in the White House, the person has a face, and is accountable to the public. It's more forthright. Real.

Sort of like the Wizard of Oz, when the curtain was drawn back. Humans are seldom as large as institutions; humans, inconveniently, are life-sized.

Chicago Tribune