AFTER DEADLINE
50 years after hysterical 'Red scare' coverage, paper plays it straight
By Jim Kelly
Advertiser Executive Editor
I didn't know much about Honolulu civil rights attorney Harriet Bouslog before PBS recently ran a fascinating, locally-produced documentary about her life.
Bouslog stuck her neck out to defend people like John and Aiko Reinecke, who were hounded, harassed and fired from their jobs as teachers because of their political activities in the 1940s. She played a key role in ending the death penalty in Hawai'i. She defended hundreds of plantation workers who were arrested and persecuted simply for carrying picket signs. She endured hatred, scorn and ridicule because she stood up for little people being bullied by the government.
Some months ago, the producers of the documentary asked to use our library and to reproduce some of the headlines from The Advertiser from those days.
We were glad to help, even though the result wasn't especially flattering to The Advertiser. Throughout the 1940s and '50s, this newspaper was no friend of Bouslog or her clients. As the headlines and pages flashed on the screen, it was a reminder of what a reliable mouthpiece of the government The Advertiser was 50 years ago, caught up in the anti-Communist hysteria that was especially toxic in the Islands.
This newspaper gladly ran huge photos of some of the 39 people who invoked their constitutional right against self-incrimination at hearings of the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1950. Long before they ever went to trial, the paper convicted clients of Bouslog who were accused of violating the Smith Act by advocating the overthrow of the government. (Their convictions were later overturned). The news pages and the editorial pages became nearly indistinguishable, with each edition carrying dire warnings about the Marxist menace embodied by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and its leaders, especially Jack Hall and Harry Bridges. Anyone who questioned The Advertiser's positions was a "friend of Joe," as in Joe Stalin, and opposing views rarely made their way into news stories, columns or letters to the editor. Nobody accused The Advertiser back then of being "un-American."
Before 9-11, I would have watched a documentary about those tumultuous times and shaken my head, appalled at the paranoia and foolishness of the era. But it's hard to be so smug these days.
Some of the same kinds of fears our parents and grandparents felt about the "Red menace" have taken root in our own lives. And these fears aren't based on some vague notion of "Communist domination," but on the reality of the 9-11 horror, ongoing wars in Afghani-stan and Iraq and the certainty that others are out there plotting their next attack.
Most of the calls and e-mails I have received about our coverage of the war in Iraq and the post-war clean-up have accused us of emphasizing the negative, of "not supporting the president." Some accused us of being un-American.
Typical were the angry calls we received after we ran a powerful photo on the front page showing an American soldier crying over the death of a comrade in a firefight.
"You oughta call that rag the Baghdad Times," one caller growled.
So in 50 years, I guess we've gone from government shill to tool of the terrorists.
As I watched the Bouslog documentary and considered the newspaper's role in documenting that period, I thought about what some editor in 2053 might observe about our coverage of the war on terror. Would she chuckle at our naivete in giving so much space to those questioning the Iraq war, or would she think we were still playing the shill, emphasizing stories about military action and hyping the latest Orange Alert.
What I do know is this: our coverage of the world since 9-11 isn't perfect, but it reflects a broad range of news, analysis and opinion compiled by first-rate news services and newspapers and supplemented by our own reporting. If we miss a story or flub a fact, it's because we made an honest mistake, not because there's an agenda at work.
We debate story placement and photo selection. We cover people who are protesting the war and people who are out supporting the troops. We try to print letters to the editor that represent all sides of the debate, and give special attention to letters that question the newspaper's opinions and decisions.
I know that if today, instead of the Smith Act, some Hawai'i residents ran afoul of the USA Patriot Act, we'd gladly run commentaries from the prosecution and the defense. We'd chase down both sides of the story, and be careful not to pre-judge the outcome. We'd run letters of support and condemnation.
In other words, the inheritors of Harriet Bouslog's legacy of going against the tide would have as much access to the pages of our paper as those on the other side. Some readers would probably see that as un-American. I see it as doing what we're supposed to do — asking questions, finding answers and providing a forum for all sides of an issue.
When Harriet Bouslog died in 1998 at the age of 85, we gave her obituary prominent display and recounted her heroic contributions to our community. I was glad The Advertiser finally did right by her.
Jim Kelly is executive editor of The Advertiser. Reach him at 525-8094 or jkelly@honoluluadvertiser.com.
