THEY DON'T WRITE, DO THEY?

 By Ba Ipe

FAMOUS American broadcast journalists like Walter Cronkite, David Brinkley, Tom Brokaw, Barbara Walters, Dan Rather, and a host of others wrote books during the span of their careers, and even in their retirement. Their books contain interesting details, enabling them to preserve them in their written works. In brief, they have respect for writing. Incidentally, many broadcast journalist were writers before they made the transition to broadcast journalism, which is more lucrative than working and writing as reporters in newspapers or news agencies.

Walter Cronkite, a revered name in U.S. journalism since he was once proclaimed “the most trusted man” in the U.S., wrote three books. I have a copy of his book, which I bought for a song in a sidewalk book sale some years ago. His book “A Reporter’s Life” contains interesting details, which included his transition to a broadcast journalist from a wire service reporter stationed in the old Soviet Union. Later, he established a venerated name in CBS and the whole U.S. broadcast journalism. He made a successful transition when television was a nascent technology.

Cronkite’s book contain some sidelights of his major coverage including the 1945 Nuremberg Trials, Vietnam War, Apollo 11’s landing on the moon, among others. He witnessed how Chief Prosecutor Robert Jackson fumbled in his cross-examination of Hermann Goehring, the second highest German Nazi official, during the Nuremberg Trials.

I also bought a copy of Brinkley’s book “Beat: People, Places, and Events That Shaped My Time,” which contains his memoirs of the major events he covered in his career in NBC and ABC. His humor was wry and dry but profound and poignant to a large extent. Brinkley interviewed Ferdinand Marcos during his dictatorial years. He was a tough interviewer, who was never afraid of raising the most intimidating questions to the late dictator.

Brokaw’s book” Boom: Voices in the 1960s,” likewise brings memories of the major events that took place in the tumultuous decade. They included the Vietnam War, the rise of the Hippie culture, the Civil Rights Movement, the emergence of SDS, among others. I have noticed the profundity of many Brokaw’s views on these episodes of American history.

Barbara Walters’s book “Audition” details her competition with other broadcast titans like Cronkite, among others, to bring out the best in the coverage of many world events. I found it most interesting and profound to read because she even wrote how she lost her virginity and how Cuban dictator Fidel Castro took a liking on her, putting her ahead in the competition. Her narrative on her daughter’s rebellious ways and reformation to become an NGO leader is also most telling.

Maria Ressa, a Filipino journalist and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, wrote two interesting books on the rise of terrorism in Southeast Asia: “Seeds of Terror: An Eyewitness Account of Al-Qaeda's Newest Center (2003) and From Bin Laden to Facebook: 10 Days of Abduction, 10 Years of Terrorism (2013).” She worked for CNN for two decades before forming rappler.com.

But Maria Ressa is an exception of the host of Filipino broadcast journalists, who hardly have the appreciation, much less the passion to write and leave something to posterity and history. Knowing that Filipinos are not a reading people, they too have developed the abhorrence to put their thoughts into writing.

The late Rafael Yabut, Johnny de Leon, and Rod Navarro once dominated the airwaves for three or four decades, but are now half-forgotten because they have left no memoirs. This is not good for journalism and the country as well. I could not stand those pseudo-journalists like Boy Abunda, who are all talk but no ideas. I wonder if he reads, or writes. Well, that's too much to ask for a semi-literate guy, who specializes in gossips.