Inside JMS

Kevin Stoker

Welcome to the Inside JMS Podcast where we tell the stories of the faculty and staff of the Hank Greenspun School of Journalism and Media Studies. I'm Kevin Stoker, I'm the director of the school. I'm here with Dave Nourse.

Dave Nourse

Great to be here, Kevin, as always.

Kevin Stoker

He's a assistant professor in residence here. We have Stephen Bates with us today. Stephen is a full professor who basically is an expert in First Amendment law. But really most interesting is the recent work he's been doing on the Hutchins Commission. Stephen, welcome.

Stephen Bates

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Kevin Stoker

Well, Stephen, first of all, you know, we can get in and talking about your research and the the current book you're working on. But I kind of want to hear a little bit about your background, how did you end up going in to loss going to law school? How did you end up getting into this field? And, actually, and then let's talk about that great career you've had so far.

Stephen Bates

Okay. I went to college, graduated from college, didn't have anything to do to make any money. So I decided to go to law school, which solve the problem of having not enough money by going deeply into debt. enlace school I studied First Amendment law, sort of intensively. And when I got out I, I had already co written a book with Edwin diamond about political advertising. And then I wrote a collection of anecdotes about journalism called if no news and rumors. And then I puttered around DC and had government jobs, but finally ended up as a journalist as a literary editor of the Wilson quarterly in DC, which is a was a federal, federally run quarterly magazine associated with the Smithsonian Institution. And from there, I got a job offer to come here and I was happy to do so in 2006

Kevin Stoker

Well tell me, so when your undergraduate were you into journalism as an undergrad? And I know you went to Harvard. So tell me about that. Were you writing at that time because Harvard didn't necessarily have a journalism program? So you're What was your major?

Stephen Bates

I majored in government, which is what they call political science. There is no journalism major there. Agnes Nieman gave them a lot of money in the 1940s to promote journalism, and they decided they didn't want to have a journalism school. So they created a fellowship for mid career journalists instead. But I just studied a lot of political science. I took a year off in the middle to work in politics. I was the press secretary for Massachusetts, for the first George Bush, George HW Bush during his primary campaign against Ronald Reagan back in 1980.

Kevin Stoker

Wow. So where are you from? Originally?

Stephen Bates

I grew up in West Texas, a town called Pecos. But I was born in San Luis Obispo, California.

Kevin Stoker

And so you went to high school there and West Texas now, West Texas, being very familiar with West Texas, that you're going to go from West Texas to Harvard. How did that happen?

Stephen Bates

I was thrilled. Best best passage I ever went through. I went from a town that was about 100 miles from a bookstore to living across the street from a bookstore that was open till 11pm every night. So it was it was terrific.

Kevin Stoker

So as a kid, if I'm going to describe you how you were as young man, were you a bookworm is that you know what, and what books were the excited you what was it that really kind of got you? You know, if there's anything that really inspired you what, what was it?

Stephen Bates

It was journalism, really I in high school, got a job with the local five days a week newspaper and did that during summers as well as after school. And then at one point, I got a job as news director of the local radio station, which was a Podunk little station. So I had a media empire.

Kevin Stoker

And, and but books, was there anything and it was it was journalism, then. Did you read a lot of books then and Eric? I mean, how did you prepare to become a journalist? Just right,

Stephen Bates

just right. And just have editors tell me I was doing it wrong and try to try to do it better? Yeah, yeah. It really was college before I did a whole lot of reading of any sort.

Kevin Stoker

Was it? Was it hard? I mean, you kind of given kind of given the impression that you were ready to leave. But was it hard to go away all the way across the country to Boston to go to school?

Stephen Bates

No, it was a cent. I was. I was delighted to get out of Texas.

Kevin Stoker

So tell me about it. So you get to Harvard, in your kid from a West Texas, small West Texas town, a place where you see your dog running away for the next three days. And you get to Boston where they have all these bookstores. worse, and it's trees and all these things. It had to be a bit of a culture shock.

Stephen Bates

It gave me a lot of options I hadn't had before, including bookstores, including movie theaters, there were fabulous old movie theaters there then. And first semester, I saw five movies a week, the Harvard Square theater had a new different double feature every day, seven days a week of Casablanca and old classic movies. So I filled in a lot of gaps in my education.

Dave Nourse

Stephen, I'd love to hear a little bit more about what led you to your graduate studies and pursuing a law degree. And specifically, what was it that interested you about the First Amendment? Was it the year that you spent working as a press secretary? Was it that you just always had a keen interest in journalism and freedom of the press? A combination of both?

Stephen Bates

Yeah, it was my experience in journalism and my interest in IT. When I was in high school, actually, there was a high school newspaper, and I worked on it for one semester, and was told I couldn't do it again, because only students in the journalism program could do it. So I decided to start a literary magazine on campus. And the principal told me I couldn't distribute it. And so I got in touch with a new organization then called the Student Press Law Center in Washington, a guy named Chris Fager. And he later told me, he had just gotten that job. The phone wasn't ringing, he was thinking, is this worth even having. But I got in touch with him and said, I've been told I can't distribute this literary magazine on campus. He said, that's an obvious violation of the First Amendment. So he sent me a letter explaining all that. I took it to the school board, and the school board members read it and pondered it. And finally, one of them said, you know, the Supreme Court knows what's right for New York City and for Washington, DC, but they don't understand Texas. So they just ignored it. How did you feel? I was a little surprised and more. So once I got to law school and learned you're not really supposed to do that. But, you know, it's lawn to themselves there.

Dave Nourse

That is fascinating. I mean, that really is the story that I can understand might help pave the path for the road, you ultimately went down. It just just having that personal experience of saying, this is the law. And then somebody turning around and saying, but we don't care. That had to have been a formative experience.

Stephen Bates

Right, exactly. I wrote a book later about religious freedom. And I found the same thing in East Tennessee where 30 years earlier, the Supreme Court said school prayer is unconstitutional. And they were still doing it.

Kevin Stoker

And probably took a lot of Moxie. To contact somebody from across the country, an expert in things that seems to be seems to be something characteristic that you have the MOCs be willing to, to just not take no the first time and move forward and find a way to to accomplish what you desire.

Stephen Bates

Probably the high school was glad to see me go to Boston as well.

Kevin Stoker

They probably felt you belong there. They probably brag about you now.

Stephen Bates

They might, they might.

Dave Nourse

Stephen, let's talk a little bit about what you've been doing recently. You just got back from sabbatical where you were very productive. Maybe you can tell us a little bit about how you spent your time.

Stephen Bates

Well, I published a book about the Hutchins commission a couple of years ago. And so I continued to do some spin off articles and things related to that, as well as do some interviews and guest appearances and classes and things from that. I ended up spending a lot of my sabbatical year in a town called Carpinteria, California, which my family had some connections to. And I collaborated with a fellow there named Vince burns on a book about part of Carpinteria called red cotton point. It's in the images of America a series of old antique photo books. So that was, that was very interesting and an opportunity to use a lot of family photos. I also worked on a monograph that's kind of a spin off from my Hutchins commission book about efforts to study the press between the 1920s and the 1950s. That important journalists and publishers vetoed, where they said, We don't want you to study us, whether the U is sigma Delta Chi or Columbia School of Journalism, and they essentially vetoed efforts to probe the performance and behavior of journalism. Wow.

Kevin Stoker

So how did it come about that? Henry Luce would then fund The Hutchins commission when his peers were didn't want anything done well,

Stephen Bates

picked up. One of the four things I look at actually is Henry Luce. He went to Columbia School of Journalism and wanted them to use time incorporated money to study public opinion about the press, and Arthur Sulzberger vetoed it. The publisher, The New York Times. That doesn't surprise me. Right?

Kevin Stoker

So tell us about how you got into studying the Hutchins commission. What was it that that kind of opened that

Stephen Bates

door? When I was in college, I found some of their books, they published four or five books in used bookstores. And I thought it was sort of interesting, this analysis of journalism from the 1940s. And I got to thinking more and was interested in the process as well as in the outcome. This was a dozen intellectuals from different academic fields, who spent a couple of years collaborating together on a restatement of freedom of the press and responsibility of the press. And on the one hand, it's kind of I think it's the leading collaborative effort of American journalists, certainly in the 20th century. But on the other hand, it's kind of ludicrous to think that that's a good way to go about full philosophical analysis by bringing together a roomful of people, but they did pretty well.

Kevin Stoker

Right. And tell us about the book that you ended up writing and tell us about that process of getting Yale University Press to publish it?

Stephen Bates

Well, I I first looked at the Hutchins commission when I was a fellow at the Annenberg Washington Program in the 1990s, which then was headed by Newton Minow, the former chair of the FCC, and I sort of came back to it and poked at it periodically, over about 25 years time. I ended up doing extensive archival work, I think I had close to 100 archives that I consulted, either by email or in person. And I think I told a pretty comprehensive story. One of the challenges was not telling too comprehensive a story not producing an 800 page book about what is actually a 100 page report of the Hutchins commission. So I did a lot of pieces. It's kind of spin off from that, where I would go in greater depth into something like Colonel McCormick, the publisher of the Chicago Tribune and his reaction to it. But I sent it around to different presses, and Yale was interested and I'm delighted I was able to connect with them.

Dave Nourse

What surprised you about the process? I mean, this has been 25 years, this is a significant amount of time that you've been thinking about this. But when you sat down to actually do it, what surprised you?

Stephen Bates

Well, personally, I went back and forth between thicken. It was a kind of not just honorable but pathbreaking project on the part of the Hutchins commission, and ticking Who are these people, and, you know, a little bit audacious of them to restate freedom of the press for anybody, but also to think the way to do it was by bringing together 12 people in a room. So I ended up thinking that it was quite a worthwhile and somewhat noble endeavor, the report they produced, which is called a free and responsible press, who is good, but the transcripts of their deliberations, I think, are fascinating seeing 12 of the great minds of the 20th century, kind of duking it out and trying to figure things out. And in the process, doing it in good faith. They were having open, honest debates in which they sometimes change their minds about policy issues, not about fundamental philosophical principles, but about their ideas. A lot of them went in thinking we needed to use a lot more antitrust law to break up giant media companies. And they ended up concluding that wasn't a great idea. Why is that? They realize that size sometimes helps media produce better journalism. It helps insulate media from boycott threats, and things like that. And to the extent they wanted to restore the kind of individual idiosyncratic voices of the 19th century, it took some size, it took a big media outlet. They didn't happen to like the voices that were dominating in the 40s. They didn't like Colonel McCormack or William Randolph Hearst. But they had to admit these were people who had ideas that they clung to so fiercely, they were willing to lose some money to get their ideology across.

Kevin Stoker

As you look at today, does that seem to be the case today?

Stephen Bates

One of the things Henry Luce said was the first obligation of the press is to make a profit answer vibe. That seems to be the biggest challenge to the press. Now. One of the analytical approaches that Hutchins commission came up was a distinction between what they called Truth About the fact meaning truth in context to make sense of it. And a common carrier meaning kind of an open channel where anybody can say anything. At the time, they were worried that there wasn't enough common carrier that a lot of people couldn't get their voices heard. To the extent there's a problem now, it's probably the opposite, that the common carriers a bit too common that it's too easy for people to get their voices heard if they were here. Now, I'm pretty sure they would be worried about that. They didn't want to eliminate gatekeepers. They just wanted better, more open minded gatekeepers. That's great.

Dave Nourse

Stephen, talk to us a little bit about what do you teach? And I think, we know what you teach. But let's say to somebody who's listening to this, who maybe hasn't taken any of your classes, what can they expect?

Stephen Bates

The principal class I teach is the First Amendment law class media law for students in our program journalism students. It is principally about journalism. Although I touch on IMC and advertising regulation. It's I've tried different ways of teaching at it and ended up with a kind of combination of lecture and discussion that seems to work well. There was a time when I tried calling up students called as, as was done to me in law school, and they didn't appreciate that very much. It's a bit of a challenge to explain complex concepts that take three years of law school in one semester. And it's a bit of a challenge to keep up with some classes, some subject matter doesn't change much. The law does. The Supreme Court does, hands down new decisions. There are a couple justices now who think they should the court should rethink libel law, and make it easier for plaintiffs to win. So it does require keeping up with events.

Kevin Stoker

Well, and you are in the unique position of having worked with some of the members of the Supreme Court, or at least one of the members of the Supreme Court. And And recently, Ken Starr passed away. Tell us about that experience working on the star. The Starr report

Stephen Bates

in I think about 1996, the think tank where I was working the Annenberg Washington Program was closing down. I had spoken as a guest speaker before a class of Ken Starr's that he was teaching at NYU, at the time. And he had me back to his class and I spoke and I told him, I was might think Tech was closing. And he said, he thought maybe they could use me for a couple months. And I ended up staying for I think, four years, including through the Lewinsky business. I was part time for a lot of it. And, in fact, what's working at the Wilson quarterly for the last part of it is, as book editor there, but I did I, my office for a while was between Brett Kavanaugh and Rod Rosenstein, who, you

Kevin Stoker

know, we often talk about what's key in a career or mentors? Who are your mentors? Well,

Stephen Bates

Ken Starr was very gracious and generous with everyone who worked with him, and tried to nurture people and help them out. But I guess for mentors, I'd have to go back to college, there were two particular people, a political scientist who I studied with named Abigail THERNSTROM, who later connected me she was kind of a journalist as well, to New Republic and places like that. And to foundations and to literary agents, was a great help to me. The other was an MIT professor named Edwin diamond, who was a former journalist, senior editor of Newsweek. And he and I hit it off, and we collaborated when I was an undergrad on some articles for for TV Guide, and then later collaborated on a book together called the spot, which is a history of political advertising.

Kevin Stoker

You know, you were in the middle of everything going on there in Washington. Why go back in? Why, why go into academia? I mean, you had, you were, it's kind of like, a journalist who's in the action in the newsroom. But you were in the action of the political realm where things were happening, were being in the know was important. And then all of a sudden, all the way to University of Nevada, Las Vegas, what was it that that, you know, caused you to make that that change, and it's a big change.

Stephen Bates

Well, I left the star office in 1999, and kind of returned to writing and journalism as literary editor of the Wilson quarterly. And I was I was doing that and in 2006, the UNLV opening came along and I applied for that, thinking that as I was approaching 50, that I probably should have gotten into academia long before that that would be a good match for me. And I was, I was delighted to get the position. As it happened. The Wilson quarterly closed a few years later. So I feel like I got the last chopper out.

Dave Nourse

Stephen, what's next for you? You've been, as we talked about very productive over your sabbatical, but you're a full professor, and you can kind of set your own agenda. What are you looking at doing?

Stephen Bates

I'm interested in expanding on some of the research I did on the Hutchins commission looking at a figure from the 1950s, who was to a substantial extent the brains behind Joe McCarthy and whose story has not fully been told. His name was JP Matthews, his wife was actually the junior researcher on the Hutchins Commission, which is how I came across him. He was sort of the the file master of the read baiters. He had immense files on everybody showing, if they appeared on the masthead of a communist newspaper or the letterhead of a communist front. He had documents on it. One thing that's appealing about doing something about him is his papers ended up at Duke. So there are incredible archives there. And I was in touch with his family with his son who gave me access to a lot of personal papers, including the papers of of his wife, Ruth Inglis, which included her diaries and appointment books and all sorts of things, including that she was going to the New York Public Library to research and try to find dirt on different publishers and people on television and things like that. So that's sort of appealing. Yeah, that sounds like a rich archive. It is. I think there's there's an interesting story to be told there, including about about McCarthy's kind of recklessness and reliance on other people to give him facts.

Dave Nourse

So I think I have the question, I'd like to close out with Kevin, and it goes back to when you made it to Cambridge. And we're fortunate enough to see five movies a week. Which, which of these movies maybe made a lasting impact on your what kind of stands out? It's, I'm so glad that I saw this and you remember it to this day,

Stephen Bates

I took a class on film history, and the first semester was a little slow until the talkies came in. But it got pretty good then and I was introduced to a lot of films I would never have seen Chinatown was one of them. There were guest speakers who had come to Harvard. That said, Tim Minnelli came and talked about films that he had directed. John Lithgow came who was a Harvard graduate who had just done a film. So there were just all sorts of opportunities. In that direction. I took a screenwriting class from the man who wrote bullet and The Thomas Crown Affair, the original ones as so I was interested in that world as well as the journalism world.

Dave Nourse

Fascinating.

Kevin Stoker

Well, is there anything we haven't asked you that we, you know, to get to know you better, something about you and your, your, your story that that you think might be valuable for audience to hear, you know, especially potential students or others who might run across your bio and think I may want to take his class?

Stephen Bates

Well, I think it's a fascinating time to study journalism. And certainly to go into journalism. There are a lot of new challenges, financial included, but there are also a lot of new opportunities in places to get one's writing out there. So it's just a fascinating time to study it. And it's a fascinating time, I think, to study the First Amendment as well as it tries to accommodate the changes in media technology, and the ways in which people can now get their voice heard across the country around the world without being a member of the press.

Kevin Stoker

Well, Stephen, thanks. Thanks. We so appreciate your time.

Dave Nourse

We do. Thank you, Steven.

Stephen Bates

Thank you