"The fault I find with most American newspapers is not the absence of dissent. It is the absence of news," wrote I. F. Stone in 1963 -- a cryptic assessment of the newspaper business 45 years ago. Even then, Stone said, there were only a handful of papers worth reading. His remarks were part of an essay in which he reflected on a successful decade of publishing his own diminutive, but highly regarded newspaper, The I.F. Stone Weekly.
So, 'Happy Memories' to all who will pause a moment and observe the 100th anniversary of the birth of Isidor Feinstein Stone, and good wishes to those who work in his footsteps! His work is sure
to resonate with all who read and write in the blogosphere. Those in NYC can participate in an actual birthday celebration at NYU tomorrow, should they choose.
In spite of the harsh words cited, Stone was no crank of a newspaper critic. You can read all about it at ifstone.org (linked to above) or just follow below to learn a bit more about the man behind the words.
When he began his own independent political paper, Stone had been a print journalist for twenty five years -- all his working life. This son of Russian immigrants, began working on the rewrite and copy desk of the Philadelphia Inquirer while studying philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania. He harbored ambitions of teaching philosophy until he realized the pull of the newsroom was much stronger, than any desire to teach. Leaving the university, he worked for papers in New Jersey and New York, published four books of investigative journalism, served as the Washington editor of the weekly magazine The Nation, and worked again in New York before beginning his own Weekly.
Stone cited a succession of newspaper people as friends and mentors, but went on to explain that the success of his Weekly might be attributed to its ability to fill a vacuum.
"All the so-called communications industries," he wrote, "are primarily concerned not with communications, but with selling....The average publisher is not only hostile to dissenting opinion, he is suspicious of any opinion likely to antagonize any reader or consumer.....All this makes it easy for a one-man four-page Washington paper to find news the others ignore, and of course opinion they would rarely express."
By any measure one might use, The I. F. Stone Weekly was successful. It was launched in 1953 with 5,200 paid subscriptions ($5 each) and with the help of some small loans and gifts from friends. Working as a team, Izzy and his wife, Esther, produced The Weekly as an economical "mom and pop" operation, and it paid for itself from the start. When it ceased publication in 1971 it had 70,000 subscribers; they were still paying $5 each and the Stones were reaping a handsome profit, their paper grossing $350,000 which has been estimated in 2007 dollars as over $2,000,000 per year.
Although 70,000 subscribers represents a tiny drop in the bucket of the newspaper reading public, The I.F. Stone Weekly had a long reach beyond what the numbers might suggest. Writing in The Nation in 2003,
Victor Navasky (publisher emeritus of the magazine) said "It’s the way ......he did his journalism that magnified his influence.......time and again he scooped the most powerful press corps in the world." How he could do it, Navarsky explains here:
His method: To scour and devour public documents, bury himself in The Congressional Record, study obscure Congressional committee hearings, debates and reports, all the time prospecting for news nuggets (which would appear as boxed paragraphs in his paper), contradictions in the official line, examples of bureaucratic and political mendacity, documentation of incursions on civil rights and liberties. He lived in the public domain. It was his habitat of necessity
No one would have believed him, concludes Navarsky, without all the documentation.
In his own words, Izzy Stone put it this way:
I made no claims to inside stuff...I tried to give information which could be documented so the reader could check it for himself........ Reporters tend to be absorbed by the bureaucracies they cover; they take on the habits, attitudes, and even accents of the military or the diplomatic corps. Should a reporter resist the pressure, there are many ways to get rid of him......But a reporter covering the whole capital on his own, -- particularly if he is his own employer – is immune from these pressures. Washington is full of stories.....The town is open. One can always ask questions...
When it began publishing in 1953, The I. F. Stone Weekly led the attack on McCarthyism, and then on the racial discrimination in the U.S. It would go on to expose the futility of the Vietnam War. When Stone ceased publication for the sake of his health, he continued writing in The New York Review of Books, and also again for The Nation, until his death in 1989.
There is so much more to enjoy and emulate about the life and work of Izzy Stone. Myra McPherson, his most recent biographer (All Governments Lie, 2007) said he was buoyed by a childlike ebullience, calling it remarkable that "he reached the age of eighty-one without growing old."
His legacy endures. We who encounter it can feel enriched; and instructed.