Word: kraft
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...Joseph Kraft wrote in his syndicated column the week after the convention: ... what about those of us in the press and other media? Are we merely neutral observers, seekers after truth in the public interest? Or do we, as the supporters of Mayor Richard Daley and his Chicago police have charged, have a prejudice...
...Kraft believes the press is out of touch with what he calls "Middle America," the mass of citizens who believed that Daley was right in ordering the demonstrators beaten. He concludes by questioning the privileges that the press has always assumed: ... those of us in the media would be wise to exercise a certain caution, a prudent restraint in pressing for a plenary indulgence to be in all places at all times as the agents of the sovereign public...
...Kraft is willing to admit that he has feelings on violence, but he is so scared that they are out of touch with those of Middle America that he dare not show them on paper. To Kraft, the legitimacy of reporting has become a function of the opinions of Middle America. Showing your feelings is all right, he seems to say, so long as those feelings are consensus feelings...
...Kraft's reaction to the press's anger in Chicago is shame. As a journalist schooled in the myth of objectivity, he seems to feel guilty after showing his feelings. And justifies his action by turning to still another meaningless journalistic cliche--that the reporter is the "agent of the sovereign public...
Like the university and most other non-governmental institutions in this country, the press is undergoing the turmoil of self-analysis. The result can be the hopelessness of Kraft or the joy of Mailer. In the prying loose, something very fine may appear--but only if the journalist remembers that he is a man with feelings (all the time, even on duty), and that those feelings are some of the most important things he can write about...