America: Bring Back Bogart
In the film “Deadline—U.S.A.” (1952), an old immigrant woman brings to the managing editor of The Day, played by Humphrey Bogart, evidence about the murder of her daughter that will convict a gangster boss of the killing. Why bring this evidence to The Day rather than to the police, he asks her. She replies, “I no know police. I know The Day.”
The newspaper has served as the American classroom. It raises literacy, records history, binds the community and makes democracy possible. Today those responsibilities are said to have moved to new media—television, Facebook and Twitter. But can they carry the load?
Few public schools teach news literacy. A third of young adults receive no news on a typical day. Pre-college students spend over seven hours a day on entertainment media, while the reading of newspapers, books and magazines has declined.
One response to this is the News Literacy Project, a national endeavor involving 20 news organizations, 185 journalists, and teachers, in which middle and high schools and the media combine resources. Through workshops they teach students to read, create, write and speak critically in all media, both old and new.
They distinguish between verified information, spin and misinformation. Above all, they stress the relationship between media and democracy. As Bogart’s character says, “The free press is like a free life—always in danger.”
In the film’s last scene, Bogart pulls the switch that starts the presses rolling. The gangster boss phones Bogart to intimidate him and hears the presses’ roar. “What’s dat?” he yells over the din. Bogart replies, “That’s the press, baby. And there’s nothing you can do about it.”
Perhaps in the N.L.P. Bogart is back.