 Good morning and welcome to Moments with Melinda. My guest today is Mitchell Stevens. Hi Mitch. Hey Melinda, great to see you. It's great to see you all the way from New York City. Thanks for joining my show today. I'm so excited to interview you. Let me tell my viewers a little bit about you. Mitch Stevens is Professor Emeritus of Journalism and Mass Communications at New York University's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. Mitch is also a respected journalist and historian with several original published works. Is that about it? A lot more about you, but that's pretty succinct. So Mitch, let's start by sharing with my viewers a little bit about growing up in New York City. Oh yeah, I actually live right now about eight blocks from where I was born. So all my travels over the years have added up to eight blocks at the moment. But I made a suburban trek and I actually went to high school out on Long Island and it was great. We lived, I had a 1950s childhood where kids could run around and ride bikes and build carts and that sort of thing. Talk to me a little bit about your parents and your family. Yeah. My parents were amazing. My dad was a labor union newspaper writer, so that's where I got the journalism side. And he was very active in the civil rights movement. He was on stage during the march on Washington. He claims to have been the one who made up the number of people who was there when some reporter asked. And my mother was, you know, after not being able to finish school and staying home as a housewife went on, got her PhD and became a professor of education. So that's where I got the professor's side of my career, very proud of me. So would you say that your parents were the inspiration for you to go into journalism? Yeah. You know, we used to discuss what we called then Red China at the table. We were known in the neighborhood as the family that talked about Red China. So I grew up with current events and news and I have stones weekly coming in through the mailbox and the New York Times, of course, in the house. So Red China, I mean, your parents then were progressive liberals and tell my parents who might not know what Red China is, what that is. Yeah, well, it doesn't mean they supported Red China necessarily. But yeah, my dad had a real left wing background and and both of them were progressives for their whole lives, always working on causes and planning things and particularly civil rights movement. And your father was involved in the labor union, right? The labor union movement. Yeah. He was a labor newspaper editor. He was involved in organizing the hospital workers in New York City who were then being paid $60 a week. And how dare they go on a strike? What about the patients? You know, yeah. Well, what about somebody else helping pay for the patient care? Right. So I wanted to talk a little bit about your role and your involvement in the 60s intellectual revolution that transformed our social democracy, which oftentimes pundits compared to what's going on right now that, yeah, those 60s people, the rebellious ones, all this stuff. You were part of that, as was I. Talk a little bit about being in New York City and being part of that 60s revolution. Well, it was a wonderful time to be 16, 17, 18, 19, 20. There was so much going on and we thought we were reinventing the world with our marijuana and LSD, with our rock and roll in particular, and with our protests against the Vietnam War, which, you know, they were, I would have gotten drafted if I didn't come up with some way of getting out of it. So and everything felt new and kind of wonderful. And as my kids like to point out to me now, it was kind of not that hard to find a job, probably in the end. And things were a little looser. There are a lot fewer people in this country than a lot fewer people in the world. There was more room. And I'd like to think I did it in its fullness. I was at Woodstock and at most of the big demonstrations. Well, I remember the demonstrations at Columbia University. I had a professor who came in with literally broken bones and in cast. And I mean, the riots in New York after Martin Luther King was murdered. And that's when I became an activist was it. And would you say that that that the 60s revolution really did bring in the consciousness around civil rights, women's rights, disability rights? Earth Day was founded around that time in 72. Yeah, yeah, you know, I certainly was no leader of any of this stuff. But I was, you know, in the crowd and. And I think it was important. And I think the world changed and the world started wearing blue jeans for what it's worth, the world got a lot less formal. And I think our generation had to do with that. I'm embarrassed by the fact that the boomers nowadays are conservative as a whole, not my friends, but a lot of people. And that some of that spirit is gone or being taken up by newer newer generations, our children. Right. Well, I certainly was burning my bra. So I wanted to just talk to you a little bit about you received the Distinguished Edward R. Murrow Award for Best Student in Broadcast Journalism from UCLA. That's quite an that's quite an honor. Yeah, that was great. And Edward R. Murrow is a hero of mine. That's right. Yeah, obviously. What was going on at the McCarthy period and what's going on now? Edward R. Murrow. Yeah, stood up against that. And yeah, I just wanted to commend you for that that wonderful award. So, Mitch, talk to us a little bit about your book, The Rise of the Image, the fall of the word, which you wrote in 1998. You stated in the intro and quotes that perhaps we will soon locate our video at sites on the World Wide Web. And seven years later, YouTube was created. That's in quotes and it's on your Wikipedia page, by the way. Today, with life being a series of emojis and texts where you don't even spell out words, I think you hit the nail on the head. Does this make you sad that the importance of words may be declining? What's your what your feelings about this? No, in that book, I was more celebrating the image than than mourning the word. I got there. It started in a bathtub in Spain of all places. I got, you know, an idea. People don't have a lot of ideas. That was mine. And the idea was that video television, we mostly called it in those days, could could actually be an important intellectual tool, artistic, but also intellectual and that the secret was not slow, serious television, which just showed people talking like we're doing now. Not that that doesn't have its place. Wonderful to watch people exchange ideas and talk, but that there was something beyond that and the idea was based on the fact that print, the novel, for example, was once looked down upon as not really an intellectually important tool and it took a while for people to really discover the best uses of the printing press and writing before it had a similar history, all of which I detailed in that book. And my idea actually when I went to graduate school, I had that idea in my head and I was trying to do some experiments with I guess it was film in those days, not video, but and and then when I wrote the book, I did more experiments online and now that I've sort of done with writing books and done with teaching, I'm trying to do more experiments with that video. And there are a lot of people doing that. I think I was right. There are a lot of people doing videos that are not just somebody talking but are trying to use this medium, used all the incredible potential of this medium to say things maybe with a fluidity, maybe with a depth, maybe with a reach that that may that print strains for and that in our conversations, we strained for. So so that was my that was my my my idea. My only read you were ahead of your time. I think I was. I did predict that video would take over the Internet, which seems to be happening. So what so so what's your take on this whole tear down of tick tock and social media with our kids and older people are age talking about how it's going to destroy society and humanity. And then, of course, we have the AI, which is a whole different conversation, but maybe not what's your take on that of where we are as a society coming down hard on social media and our kids. Well, I think, you know, I was in a good position to evaluate that because I was, you know, my parents got their first TV set right about when the average American got their first TV set in about 1955. And I was six years old and all of that started then. Television was going to turn my brain to mush. It's a vast wasteland. So, you know, when they start saying it about the Internet, when they start saying it about tick tock, I have a very large grain of salt. I am so with you on that. And I can't be that vocal, but my grandkids love the fact that I'm like, come on. I mean, I remember I wasn't there were shows that I wasn't allowed to watch when I was a kid. But I mean, television was going to be the demise of humanity. Yeah. And so here we are again, we're the older generation. The boomers are talking about how it's destroying our children's minds. And so I'm really glad you and I share that sentiment. And, you know, and the same mistakes are being made. One of the mistakes was being made about television is in the 1950s and 60s. Television was just a baby and people didn't know what to do. And they were imitating movies and theater. I once went and looked at in film. I once counted how many times people in old movies walk through doors. And the reason they walk through doors is because this was imitation theater. And in theater, to get somebody into a scene, you have to go through a door. Well, you don't have to do that in film. And now we don't need that scene of walking through doors. And I think a lot of what's going on in the Internet today and with things like TikTok and and video, we're still in the walk through door stage. We're still in the imitation stage. We're still taking baby steps and it takes longer than we think for a new form of communication to gain its strength. But I do think that we need to to relax a little bit on this. So I agree with you on that. Mitch, talk to my viewers about your book on atheism without God's toward a history of disbelief. So I've always considered myself an agnostic atheist. And I don't know if I'm allowed to be one or the other. So I sort of merge them together because I consider myself a spiritualist. But I really don't believe there's some, you know, white guy in the sky looking down, determining whether I'm going to go up and hang out with him or go down and hang out with the devil. I just don't go there. So I'm so curious because I think you and I again are lined a little mentally about this and maybe spiritually about this. So why did you write this book? Well, I don't really have a particular spiritual side. I am willing to accept the the possibility that this reality we're experiencing now might not be the be all and end all of reality. And there's a lot of really fascinating stuff going on in physics, for example, and quantum mechanics and stuff sort of challenging some of our our notions living on this one planet as one type of animal. But I was always interested going back to my parents who were non believers in in atheism. And I felt there hadn't there hadn't really been a good history of it. And and I love when doing history, I love to go back to the very beginning. So when I when I did a history of communications, you know, I'm talking about the stone tablets and and the early writing and how language started when I did a history of journalism. I was talking about town criers and and I did anthropological research. And when I did a history of atheism, you know, I went back to anthropology and found, you know, found stories of the guy who, you know, when the wizard made some red fluid come out of some four woman's stomach, found where he got the color red and mixed up the stuff that he made spurred out. And and, you know, some of the history of atheism, I find I found very heroic. There are some great people involved, Dennis Diderot, for example. And and it obviously coordinates to a large extent with the history of science. Darwin was probably did as much for non-belief as anybody in the world and was himself a non-believer. But in this country, as an atheist, there is a discrimination towards atheism. And how do you feel how Christianity is moved in the evangelical movement? What you think on that? Yeah, that was I think I think it's a Mark Twain line. The more I kept trying to improve things, the more it kept disimproving. But there was that, you know, but there always been America is a very religious country, as we know, an unusually religious country, and there have been periods of revive, of religious revival. And we did experience one of them happened to coincide when I was trying to sell this book, but, but things are changing now. And and there's been a real increase in the number of people who are willing to call them and admit that they don't have a belief in them. Have a belief in God and the United States. So I think it's changing among young people. And I think I think that's great. I think people, I think we human beings have a responsibility to figure out how to make the most of our our lives and how to do right by the planet without the crutch of thinking some big overarching daddy in the sky is going to make everything right for us at some point. Good point. Well, thank you for your work on that. So most recently, I think most recently, you wrote your book about Lowell Thomas, Voice of America, Lowell Thomas and the invention of the 20th century journalism. And Mitch, you you really took this very seriously. And you journeyed and traveled the footsteps of Lowell Thomas to write this book. Tell us a little bit about quickly about Lowell Thomas and about the journey that you took and spent those those years putting together his life to write this. Well, the journey I should note began with a man called Richard Moulton, Rick Moulton, who happens to be your husband. I guess you're aware of that. And who came to interview me once about this guy, Lowell Thomas, who I do a little about, not a huge amount. And he got me interested and I started working with him on when he was trying to sell the idea. And then I had the great pleasure of working on documentary about Lowell Thomas and ended up selling a book about Lowell Thomas, the first biography of Lowell Thomas, who was as well known as just about anybody in the United States, except for, you know, President Roosevelt and and maybe a couple of movie stars. He was huge in ways that no journalist today. He was probably better known in the United States than Walter Cronkite was at the height of his success. And a book came out after the age when everybody knew of it, which hurt sales. But he was a fascinating man and he was a traveler and I loved to travel. And I followed him in part with Rick to Himalayas, to to Tibet and followed him to Arabia, where he he was the one who discovered Lawrence of Arabia. So it was a great adventure and and a lot of fun. And he was a great spirit. We disagreed politically, but he was a great spirit. Well, he sort of kept his politicism, too, a little close to his chest. But for my viewers, who probably are around my age, you would remember the movie tone when you go to the movie theater and would say, brought to you from the world, Lowell Thomas. And he would give this great, this great film expose on what was happening around the world. Now, your book was a and the roadmap for Rick's film on Lowell Thomas. Now, my viewers, that film came out in 2019 and it received critical acclaim. It was broadcast on 93 percent of PBS stations across the country. Now, Mitch, you collaborated and partnered with Rick on this film and you wrote the narration. You were also in the film talking about Lowell's life. So tell us a little bit about the importance of this film and why you and Rick's joined up and partnered to make this happen. What what is the relevance of this film compared to teach humanity today? What was the purpose? Yeah, well, he kind of invented broadcast journalism. He was the first, you know, Cronkite knew that he was Cronkite's hero. Tom Brokaw, who was interviewed in our film, knew that Dan rather knew that he was he invented on the radio. He was the biggest name in radio for decades and certainly in radio journalism. And he also was the biggest name in in newsreels, which people would see as you were saying in the theater every week. And and a lot of the journalism that's practiced today, also a lot of the journalism that's under attack today for some good reasons, because it's kind of stayed and and maybe unintellectual in some way or shallow in some ways, but also for bad reasons, you know, this whole kind of Trump-like attack on fake news and stuff. A lot of that started in the 1930s with Lowell Thomas. So I think the book was quite important for that reason. And certainly the documentary, which, you know, which did attract a substantial audience. And I'm really proud of what Rick with some of our help accomplished in that documentary. Well, you were really inspirational and so important in making that happen. So how do you feel journalism today? I mean, why is there a major news network allowed to spoo the the, you know, the untruths that are happening across the country, encouraging people to believe in things that aren't true? I'm not sure, Mitch, if that would have been allowed to happen under Eisenhower or even under Clinton. I'm not I'm not sure if back in the day, the government would have allowed this to happen. And I'm wondering, I know freedom of speech, I get all that. But at some point, don't you think that spewing untruths? Maybe there should be some regulations on that because it didn't happen under Walter Cronkite or on Mr. Brinkley. They told the news as it was and you we all got it. And it was true. It was truth. And then we all had to make our own decisions. So what's your feeling about that? I think the legal framework on this is correct, which is there's no law against not telling the truth in a newspaper, on TV or anything like that, unless you're defaming somebody, unless you're and if it's a public figure, it's almost impossible to defame them. I think that's good because, you know, I'm old enough to remember when it was those of us on the left. Who were getting attacked for, you know, for criticizing the United States and Vietnam, for example. So I'm pretty much a free speech absolutist on that front. So that doesn't really bother me. And again, I'm used to attacks. Journalists are always being attacked for something or other. And they're always bad journalists as, you know, as the people on Fox News were. So that doesn't bother me that hugely. What, you know, what does bother me? And what I think we need is we need better journalism. We need deeper journalism. We need more intelligent journalism. And we always need that. And aren't you impressed with our young journalists today who are just doing such a great job getting uncovering things and sharing things? I'm kind of blown away. Are you feel comforted by something great? Yeah, look at the world we live in, you know, on this little device. I can find out anything that's happening anywhere in the world. And I can get, you know, it used to be to get Lowell Thomas or Walter Cronkite, I'd have to be in my house at this precise hour. Now I can I can always find the news. So I would say that we are a more educated populace. And and I'm glad that you that you that you shared that with me about about about untruths and that that comforts me and especially coming from you. Now, you and your wife Esther are world travelers. Talk to us a little bit about what you have learned because you have traveled around the world, 38 countries. And you wrote about it in Feed Magazine, Lonely Planet and other media outlets. Talk about your your your urge and your love of travel. But of course, your beautiful wife Esther, who I adore. Yeah, we were we were driving through the south. There's some states I'd never been to. And I remember driving along these ridiculously long drives. Esther has a great capacity for sleeping in cars, which is useful. And I could drive forever. And I just I love watching the road go by. I love I love sitting in a bus going driving through Turkey somewhere. I love, you know, driving through Tibet with, you know, I love seeing other people. I love seeing how people live. I have a tendency to sometimes annoys my wife. I have a tendency to want to go to the poor areas rather than the beautiful rich areas, because I feel like I'm getting back in the past when I go there. And and also I'm seeing the problems that need to be dealt with in this world more clearly. But I, you know, I'm I'm alive watching, you know, in a in a thatch roof hut in Africa. I mean, that stuff gets me in. And I also think, you know, we don't get a lot of time on this planet as you and I are finding out. And I kind of, you know, and we can't go anywhere else. This is kind of our cage, the earth. We're not making it to any other planets or any. So I figured I might as well explore the the area that's available to me. And I'd like at some point to think that I'd seen much of the world. Well, you have. And I love following, following your travels. You also are, I understand and I hope I'm correct that you are a triathlete. Yeah, well, I finally found an age group where I could do OK. But that's amazing. I mean, look at you. It's amazing. That's a that's a big deal. Yeah, it's been fun. Again, I was just I was a bad athlete for most of my life. And now here's something bizarrely that I'm that I'm good at. And it's or OK at really. And it's been fun. But you're doing it now. I now you moved you have moved into into your repurposing stage. From a professor of journalism at NYU, where you taught for many decades, you said 47 years. So what are you working on now, Mitch, what's your what's your current repurposing project? Well, I'm currently trying what, for me, is mostly something news. I'm trying to do video and I'm trying to see if I can put the ideas I had, you know, more than 20 years ago in this book, the rise of the image fall, the word that there's a lot of untapped intellectual potential in video and trying to see if I could make that happen. So I've actually done a few TikTok videos now and I've. And I and I, you know, I put things up on Vimeo and I don't know if there's really a role for this. It's not like I'm getting huge audiences. Not like writing the book was, but it's very creative. And I'm where my viewers see these videos. What's where can they go to see them? I'll put it up on that when I post this. We're I'll give you a link to my the link. And I'll put it up this on YouTube. So, Mitch, we're coming close to the end of our share with share with my viewers, your opinion about the state of our country today. And as a world traveler, internationally acclaimed author, beloved and brilliant educator, where's our world headed? And what do you tell our children? What do you tell your grandchildren who are heading into a into a you know, living on a planet that's heating up and with fascism sort of railing around the world? What what what is your vision and your your wisdom? I'm an optimist and, you know, which a lot of my friends find annoying. And, oh, Mitch, you always think it's going to be OK. But I do. And, you know, when somebody what one of my newer friends asked me, how come you know, where did this come from? And I realized it came from the first real trade book I wrote, a history of news. And I was studying news in all sorts of various times. And one thing just about any time has in common is the journalism thinks the world's about to end. Thinks it's the worst of times. People always think it's the worst of time. Back in the 60s, we were having all our fun. Everybody thought it was the worst of times. And there was a lot of reason for that. Assassinations, riots in the street, war in Vietnam. And, you know, there's certainly reasons for thinking things aren't great now. You know, the the president before this was hardly good for encouraging optimism. But what we have now, but what we have now is a planet that that may be unlivable for our grandchildren, our great grandchildren. I mean, we we didn't have that back then. We had political strife and social strife. But this planet that we're living on, you're about to head into a New York summer, which is why you need to come to Vermont. But it's it's that for the state of humanity, there is this crisis that that we've that as human humans, we've with the frogs in the pot, the pot's boiling and we're just sitting there going croak, croak, croak. So I want I so I know you're an optimist and I love that about you. But this is a this this is a time of real concern. I think it is. And maybe it's our time as humanity to move on. Maybe maybe it's the Earth saying, OK, we're done with you guys. You've been here for for enough enough time and you've basically destroyed everything. And so you need to leave now. Maybe that's maybe that's where we're headed. But I just wanted to get your opinion about that, because it's hard to be an optimist when when we're seeing that. Well, we're also seeing this incredibly rapid invention of electric automobiles, which are spreading at an amazing rate. I mean, the technology is coming faster than anybody thought for helping. And I think there is an awareness in the world, obviously not enough. But I think there is that something has to be done. And and I think it's being done. I don't think we're going to end life on this planet or human life. So your hope, your hope is like mine. It's in the youth. And I think we have a youth that is so extraordinary. And so your hope is in the youth. And that's sort of where I live. Well, Mitch, we're coming to the end of my show. But I want to let you know that the lightning bugs are flittering in the meadow and Mitch, I'll never forget the walk when you first came up to my home and we walked around the meadow and the whole meadow was a light with millions of lightning bugs. And it was just such an extraordinary magical night that I'll never forget. And so I just wanted to share that with my viewers that the lightning bugs are coming back. So you need to all get to to that magical place to watch them. And and for you, Mitch, that was a special day for Rick and I. And and no, certainly for me. And you have one of the most beautiful houses built by Rick. And and me and me and you. Yes. All of us don't have to come back. But I did want to let you know that the lightning bugs are on the meadow again. And so, Mitch, thanks for being on my show. This was great. I'm so glad my viewers got to meet you and to learn more about your life. And thanks for being with me. And to my viewers, I want to thank you for joining me and Mitch Stevens for this half hour in this moment. And thanks for tuning in. And I'll see you next month. See you, Mitch. Thank you, Melinda. This is great. You bet, my dear. Bye bye.