Just Stand Up!

From Elle Woods in the film "Legally Blonde," to anti-bullying campaigns, to the cancer research-benefit tune by Christina Aguilera, Missy Elliot, and Miley Cyrus among others, popular culture is constantly reinforcing (albeit often hypocritically) why it's important to "just stand up!"

Yet it is actually journalist George Seldes who we should be thanking for entrenching this value in society--especially those of us who call ourselves journalists.

Part of why I have found Seldes so interesting in both our class discussions and readings is because he transcended the independent and mainstream media like no one else. He was perhaps the first writer to do so well independently that the mainstream media had to ask for him back--and more than once. And when they did dismiss him, when they did send law enforcement after Seldes to intimidate him, Seldes turned to his private writing and role as a media critic. It was almost like the mythical creature Medusa: no matter how many heads you cut off, George Seldes had such a wide-range of skills that he could constantly come back, reinvented, better than ever.

More than just his versatility, the fact that Seldes lived through 104 years of international conflict, change, and journalistic growth made his writing all the more authoritative regardless of who he was reporting for. Seldes' reporting career really began on the battlefields of Europe before transitioning to the "witch hunt" for communists in the U.S. following WWII.

Speaking of which, I was shocked (or at least appalled) to find in "Press Critic George Seldes Leaves a Legacy of Courage" that in his 2004 obituary, the New York Times simply said that "In Fact" "ceased publication in 1950," when it really as an official vendetta by both the mainstream media and government that caused Seldes to close up shop. To me, this is discouraging in that the mainstream media continues to this day to be the 6-year-old on the playground, not telling the whole truth because it's not their way or because it will prevent them from "winning" a game. The fact of the matter is that Seldes contributed to mainstream papers WHILE writing independently, and, at this point, the mainstream media has, at least in their eyes, already "won the game;" they shut "In Fact" down. At this point, the Seldes vs. Mainstream Media is decades old, so was it really merited to still carry this grudge? Or could the New York Times have, if only in death, given Seldes one more time to "stand up?"