If it weren’t for his mother, Steve Oney may have never become a journalist.
Growing up in the northern suburbs of Atlanta in the ’60s, he started reading the newspaper when he was just 6 or 7 years old at her urging.
“She was a very smart woman, valedictorian of her high school class, read Latin, but she didn’t do anything with that other than raise four children and help my dad as best she could,” said Oney, 70, speaking from his home in Los Angeles. “Yet she always made certain that we read the newspaper and that we were informed. She had this gut instinct about the importance of journalism, the importance of telling the world’s stories.”
Oney went on to work at the now-defunct Atlanta Journal-Constitution magazine for five years before moving to Los Angeles to work for other now-defunct magazines and to write books including “And the Dead Shall Rise,” a highly regarded account of the Mary Phagan murder at an Atlanta pencil factory in 1913 and the subsequent lynching of Leo Frank in Marietta.
Credit: Simon & Schuster
Credit: Simon & Schuster
His mother would no doubt be delighted with Oney’s latest project, “On Air: The Triumph and Tumult of NPR” (Simon & Schuster, $35), a deeply researched and reported history of National Public Radio. Dedicated to his mother, the book has been praised by both The Washington Post and The New York Times, which called it “a major work of media history.”
Its publication comes just as NPR has been in the news because of the Trump administration’s cost-cutting measures. On July 18, the Senate will vote on a bill, which the House has already approved, that would defund public media outlets like NPR.
As Oney’s book points out, it’s not the first time NPR has been on the brink of financial collapse. It starts with a prologue on a tense moment in the summer of 1983 when NPR was $9.1 million in debt and poised for implosion. A lengthy and contentious negotiation between the leaders of NPR and members of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the government agency that oversees distribution of public media funds, ensued. It was ultimately decided in NPR’s favor and they lived to see another day. But there would be more skin-of-their-teeth moments to come.
Credit: Casey Nelson
Credit: Casey Nelson
“NPR has always been a bit hand-to-mouth and things have always been tough there financially,” said Oney.
From what he calls the “chaotic, brilliant, yet flawed presidency of Frank Mankiewicz,” who shouldered the blame for NPR’s near financial collapse in 1983, to the long-running success of “This American Life,” which he calls “the apotheosis of everything NPR ever created,” Oney charts NPR’s highs and lows over the years.
Among them is breaking the gender barrier in 1972 when Susan Stamberg began co-hosting “All Things Considered,” becoming the first woman to co-host a national nightly news program and paving the way for the careers of veteran reporters Cokie Roberts, Nina Totenberg and Linda Wertheimer. He also examines NPR’s ongoing struggles to diversify its staff and audience in terms of race and age.
Particularly challenging to write was the chapter on veteran war correspondent Anne Garrels, who he said “did some of the best reporting out of Iraq of any American journalist,” but who stayed in Iraq long after her colleagues left, right up until the point when she had an emotional breakdown.
“I labored mightily to get that reported in every minute, excruciating detail that could both show the nobility of her battle and the triumph of her journalism and then the tragedy of what happened to her in the end,” said Oney. “It was probably one of the most difficult chapters to write.”
And he chronicles the birth of NPR’s unique sound.
“It’s difficult to remember what broadcast journalism sounded like before NPR, but it was mostly male, mostly clipped and loud,” said Oney. “Broadcast journalists talked at you. The revolution at NPR was engineered by Bill Siemering, the first programming director. And his breakthrough was that broadcasters should talk with you and the tone should be conversational.”
Credit: HANDOUT
Credit: HANDOUT
Should the bill to defund NPR pass, Oney has faith it will weather the loss. “Where the pain will be most felt is in local stations,” he said, resulting in more job cuts and the possible shuttering of small stations.
“But the elephant in the room, not just for NPR but for American newspapers, is people don’t get their news anymore from a network or a newspaper,” said Oney. “They get their news from social media.”
He points out that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich tried to cut federal funds to NPR in 1995, but there was a huge backlash from listeners, many in conservative red states, who said they depended on NPR for their news.
“Now the trick is going to be, how many people will say the same? How many people depend on their public broadcasting stations the way they did in 1995? The world has changed. It’s a cultural and economic shift, and NPR is more vulnerable now than it’s ever been because of that.”
Oney will talk about “On Air” in conversation with former WSB-TV news anchor John Pruitt at the Margaret Mitchell House on July 9. For details go to atlantahistorycenter.com.
He will also appear on a panel discussion about Leo Frank moderated by Lois Reitzes at the Atlanta History Center on July 10. For details go to thebreman.org.
Suzanne Van Atten is a book critic and contributing editor to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. She may be reached at Suzanne.VanAtten@ajc.com.
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