- When they come to write the history of
20th Century journalism, one of the first things historians will notice
is that Americans were obsessed with lists. <http://www.usatoday.com/2000/top100.htm Click here for the complete list of the biggest
events of the 20th century From everybody's Top Ten Movies of the year
to the recently contentious 100 Best Novels of the Century, or the Person
of the Century list being prepared by Time, the onset of the millennium
has become the grandest excuse yet to catalogue, enumerate and itemize.
But now comes a list even cynical journalists will find tough to ignore.
Nearly 70 of the nation's leading journalists and historians come out Wednesday
with the Top 100 news stories of the century, a list as interesting for
what is included as for what is left out. What story should have made
the list, but didn't? Tell us by <http://survey.usatoday.com/survey/top100.html clicking here The Story of the Century? The dropping
of the atomic bombs on Japan in 1945, which ended World War II and began
an era of nuclear brinkmanship that lasted almost 50 years.
The next nine in the list, prepared for the Newseum, a journalism museum
based in Arlington, Va., run through the traditional gamut of turning points:
First man on the moon in 1969; the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941 ; the
Wright brothers in 1903; women get the vote in 1920; President Kennedy's
assassination in 1963; the Holocaust exposed in 1945; the start of World
War I in 1914; the Brown vs. Board of Education ruling ending school segregation
in 1954; and the stock market crash of 1929. And story number 100? The
U.S. Surgeon General warns about smoking-related health hazards in 1964.
Except for an occasional Beatles on Ed Sullivan (1964) or Babe Ruth (1927),
almost all 100 constitute Great Events. Even though some, like the invention
of plastic in 1909 or Sigmund Freud's work on dreams in 1900, got little
coverage in their day. "The invention of plastic probably didn't get
banner headlines at the time, but look around you,'' says Eric Newton,
managing editor of the Newseum. "There are so many things made of
it, in retrospect plastic is looking pretty good." Notably absent
are many of the most sensational stories, which changed little in society
but sold the most newspapers. Readers will notice there's no mention of
Princess Diana here. No O.J. Simpson, no Leopold and Loeb murder case,
not even the poor little Lindbergh baby.
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- "My criteria were what was the impact
on society or on the world as a whole," says syndicated columnist
Carl Rowan, part of the panel. "Penicillin (No. 11), surely brought
tremendous change in the lives of millions. The GI Bill (No. 65) affected
millions of families and produced a greater and more prosperous middle-class
in America." "Aww, if I (filled out) the thing the next day,
I'd probably not put them in the same order," growls Ben Bradlee of
The Washington Post, who picked WWII as the most important event of the
century. "I guess maybe it is the war to end all wars. I can understand
someone who wasn't in it wouldn't pick it, but if you devoted a big part
of your adult life to it, it assumes an enormous urgency." Few sensations
make the cut "Sensational stories may attract people's attention but
they don't change the course of history or anyone's life," says Maria
Elena Salinas, evening anchor on the Spanish-language Univision network.
"I picked man-on-the-moon for number one, but the second one for me
was the Holocaust, the discovery of the camps. Fifty years later it's still
an issue, still very heavy on people's minds." The list is remarkable
for its ironies.
The resignation of President Nixon makes it to number 14; the impeachment
of President Clinton makes it only to number 53. Babe Ruth hits 60 home
runs in 1927 and makes the list at number 89; Mark McGwire hits 70 home
runs in 1998 but doesn't make the cut. The U.S. sending troops to defend
South Korea in 1950 makes the list at number 84; the U.S. sending troops
to defend Kuwait in the 1991 Gulf War is left off. The Chernobyl nuclear
plant explosion in 1986 makes it to number 98; the near-catastrophic meltdown
of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania in 1979 isn't mentioned.
The Beatles are there at number 58; Elvis is nowhere to be found. "I
felt I needed to have at least one cultural event on my list so my big
debate was between Elvis and the Beatles," says Barbara Cochran, president
of the Radio-Television News Directors Association. "In the end I
picked the Beatles because I though they had more of a world wide influence
than Elvis on Ed Sullivan, who probably had the most effect in this country."
History wins out The journalist voters were given a list of nearly 500
news events to choose from, then were told by the Newseum to make their
selections based on any criteria they chose.
It turned out they chose with history in mind, not necessarily circulation
figures and Nielsen ratings. "I learned how hard it is to choose,"
says Cochran. "And I was struck by how many technology stories there
were. How do you balance the first flight against, say, the creation of
the Internet?" For instance: Ever heard of ENIAC? It was the world's
first computer, as big as a building, but you can bet it didn't turn up
in 150-point-type headlines on the day the first computer nerd turned it
on in 1946. Yet ENIAC is number 42 on the list because it eventually led
to civilization as we know it today. Likewise, as the man said to Dustin
Hoffman in The Graduate, we just want to say one word: Plastics. Number
46 on the list. "One of the realities we live with is what we call
the one-day story, which is self-explanatory," adds Jerry Nachman,
former editor of the New York Post and now host of a public affairs show
in Los Angeles. "There's a whole bell curve between that and World
War II in terms of how long stories last. Some are white hot for a while
but they're still not going to be evergreen. They may have compelled some
percentage of the population for some period of time but they're not going
to have a lasting effect on history." True, the death of Diana in
1997 was an unparalleled global event, says Marc Kalech, a managing editor
at the New York Post, probably the nation's premier tabloid. But even tabloid
editors understand "it's not the same thing as walking on the moon."
Still, even at their most high-minded, the journalists who voted on the
list argued and agonized. Which is the point. "These lists are always
subjective, faulty, arbitrary, flawed in 100 different ways, but they're
enormously useful and positive for initiating discussion about things that
are important,'' says Tom Rosenstiel, head of the Project for Excellence
in Journalism, a new Washington-based think tank aimed at helping journalists
focus on standards. "If all this did was get people talking about
the most important things of century, then I say bravo."
The rankings certainly prove that news is not a science. Some stories -
man-on-the-moon, weapons that can destroy a planet - are obvious in their
importance. After that, it all depends on one's personal definition of
news. "This shows that top journalists are not unanimous," says
Newton. "If you put 15 journalists together, you might get 15 definitions
of top stories. The people who make these same kinds of choices every day
- deciding what to put on the front page, what's important, what's interesting,
what has great impact versus what everyone is going to be talking about.
Even with the benefit of hindsight, they can't reach agreement." Several
historians were asked to participate as well, including Arthur Schlesinger
Jr. He says he chose events based on "what was likely to be remembered
500 years from now."
"My number one was the moon landing because I think this century,
long after others have been forgotten, will be remembered as the century
when man burst the terrestrial bonds and began the exploration of space."
'An agreeable parlor game' As for list-making, "an agreeable parlor
game,'' Schlesinger says. "It does no harm, it's fun to compile and
read about and it makes people think historically, which is good."
Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Center for People and the Press, which
studies public opinion about the news, says professional journalists are
"event-oriented" but can also take a longer view. "The Lindbergh
baby (kidnapping and murder) story is a tremendously interesting story
- it was to the '20s as O.J. was in the '90s - but with or without that
story, would life have been the same? Journalists are trained to think
about what are the things people needed to know to understand the 20th
Century, as opposed to what was interesting to people at the time."
But journalists aren't going to have the last word on the news events of
the century now passing. The Newseum will be soliciting the views of consumers
of news - i.e., ordinary people - through its Internet Web site and through
on-site voting for a traveling exhibit about 20th Century news scheduled
for later this year. And USA TODAY.com is also soliciting opinions. "I'd
be shocked (if the public) had the same view as journalists," says
Kohut. "The public doesn't always look at things in such a broad way
as journalists."
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