3rd Edition

1968 Year of Media Decision

Edited By Robert Snyder Copyright 2001
    190 Pages
    by Routledge

    192 Pages
    by Routledge

    Thirty years ago American political life was all relentless, painful, and confounding: the Tet Offensive brought new intensity to the Vietnam War; President Lyndon Johnson would not seek re-election; Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy were assassinated; student protests rocked France; a Soviet invasion ended "socialism with a human face" in Czechoslovakia; the Mexican government massacred scores of peaceful demonstrators; and Richard M. Nixon was elected president. Any one of the events of 1968 bears claim to historical significance. Together they set off shock waves that divided Americans into new and contending categories: hawks and doves, old and young, feminists and chauvinists, straights and hippies, blacks and whites, militants and moderates. As citizens alive to their own time and as reporters responsible for making sense of it, journalists did not stand aside from the conflicts of 1968. In their lives and in their work, they grappled with momentous issues--war, politics, race, and protest.

    Preface

    Part I: War

    1. The Turning Point That Wasn't
    Daniel Hallin
    2. Justified Doubts
    David Halberstam
    3. Unfortunate Stupidity
    Winant Sidle

    Part II: Politics

    4. Reassessing the Winners and Losers
    Jules Witcover
    5. Dumping Johnson
    Curtis Gans
    6. Good Copy
    Dan T. Carter
    7. Enemas for Elephants
    Robert Shogan

    Part III: Race

    8. The Kerner Legacy
    Pamela Newkirk
    9. Goals for the Year 2000 and Beyond
    Loren Ghiglione
    10. Optimism, Pessimism and the Kerner Report
    Randall Kennedy

    Part IV: Protest

    11. A Generational Divide at Columbia
    Robert Friedman
    12. A New Birth in France
    Claude-Jean Bertrand
    13. The Czech Press—Fighting for Change
    Madeleine K. Albright
    14. The Nightmare of Tlatelolco
    Raymundo Riva Palacio

    Part V: Cultures, 1968 and 1998

    15. The Transformation of Time Magazine
    James L. Baughman
    16. The Best of Times
    Richard Reeves
    17. Climbing Down from Olympus
    Andrew Tyndall
    18. Finding Ourselves in the New Journalism
    John J. Pauly
    19. An Unexpected Aeratio
    Todd Gitlin
    20. From Underground to Alternative
    Abe Peck

    Part VI: 1968 in Books

    21. Heresies of Liberalism
    Godfrey Hodgson

    For Further Reading
    Index

    Biography

    Snyder, Robert