Daniel Louis Schorr (August 31, 1916 – July 23, 2010)
To say that no one will be able to fill Daniel Louis Schorr's place; that today's journalists are, by comparison, people with poor cognitive and analytical abilities, brightly capped teeth, and will blow goats for (a ridiculously low sum of) money... Well, it sounds as if I'm one of those guys -- you know; old, squinting, balding white hair, stooped over a walker; yelling at the neighborhood children: Get Off My Damn Lawn, Ya Goddam Kids!
I'm not. I do remember Schorr as the reporter for CBS News who had developed a strong reputation as an insightful and analytical truth-teller, if not one with a deeply ironic sense of humor. I vaugely remember CBS executives (according to Wikipedia) being angry after Schorr (incorrectly) reported in 1964 that the openly-professed Right-wing GOP nominee for President, Barry Goldwater, was going to "travel to Germany to join-up with the right-wing there," and visit "Hitler's one-time stomping ground" in Berchestgaden.
In 1971, after a dispute with White House aides H.R. Haldeman and John Erlichman, Schorr's friends, neighbors, and co-workers were questioned by the FBI (still run then by J.Edgar Hoover) in a full-scale background investigation. The cover story was that Schorr was under consideration for a high-level government position, which was a lie. During the Watergate hearings, Schorr read Nixon's "Enemies List" list aloud on live TV, and was surprised to find his own name on it. Schorr won Emmys for news reporting in 1972, 1973, and 1974.
However, in 1976 Schorr provoked controversy within CBS when he received and made public the contents of the secret Pike Committee report on illegal CIA and FBI activities during the 1960's and 1970's -- which included illegal spying on American citizens, 'black-bag' jobs and intimidation; and the CIA's infamous Phoenix Program of targeted assassination in Southeast Asia.
Called to testify before Congress, Schorr refused to identify his source on First Amendment grounds, risking imprisonment. While he did not go to jail, executives at CBS wanted him gone -- and Schorr ultimately resigned at age sixty in September of 1976.
In 1979, Ted Turner's cable news CNN, a brand-new concept in American media, hired its first on-camera employee -- Daniel Schorr, who reported news and delivered commentary and news analysis. His contract was not renewed in 1985, one of the two times he stated he had been fired (the other being at CBS in 1976). After that, Schorr moved to National Public Radio as its Senior News Analyst, a position he held for almost twenty-five years until he died today.
Listening to Schorr tell listeners in his slightly froggy, gravelly voice (a cross between a university professor's and a psychoanalyst's) what was what, who was to blame, and what the likely outcomes were in the more serious issues of the day.
Because of his background, I trusted him -- he did what truth-tellers are supposed to do, and was willing to take risks to bring the truth to light. And you knew he was telling the truth, because (like Walter Cronkite, another CBS journalist from the same generation) Schorr never truly exploited his own reputation as a competent professional. He simply reported facts that the three-ring circus media now ignores, or immediately gives a Rightist spin. I looked forward to hearing what he had to say: Oh yeah; Daniel Schorr -- okay, let's listen; what does he think about this?
And if they were uncomfortable facts; if they gave people living in a Republic too much information about what goes on behind the curtains of power... well, too bad. People who don't want to know can always watch the Little Rupert Fun Bundist Network, and get the Võlkischer Beobachter perspective on our times.
It's incredibly validating, empowering, to have someone in an officially-recognized role in the culture saying what many of us recognize but don't believe we have the credibility to say out loud -- because, who the hell are we; and who listens to what we say (as a Dog, I get that all the time).
In ancient cultures, Oracles were given a special place as divinators of the will of the gods, and the meaning of signs or times of apparent miracles and curses -- and where such "interesting times" might take us. The best of them told the truth; the worst used their positions to feed their own vanities and give them more personal influence.
Dan Schorr was clearly among the former -- just as clearly as the Hannitys and Becks and Lard Boys, the bright and happy know-nothing talking heads which bring us the nightly, corporate consensus that passes for news are clumped among the latter. I'll miss him.
And, get off my teevee, ya goddam kids.
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