Documenting the history of the modern press

As a member of the National Press Club, veteran documentary producer Jerry Krell ’57 (SFA) thought the organization’s members would be interested in learning more about the history of what has become a Washington, D.C., icon for newsmakers as well as news reporters.

As the National Press Club approached its 100th anniversary in 2008, the club’s leadership took Krell up on his suggestion to develop a history of an organization that also mirrored the nation’s history with a legacy of speeches and events linked to many of the 20th century’s towering figures in politics, culture and American life.

“The National Press Club: A Century of Headlines” premiered on public television in the Washington, D.C., area earlier this year and will be made available to public television stations nationwide.

The hour-long film, which won the top creative excellence award in 2008 from the International Academy of the Visual Arts, looks at the role of the Press Club in the development of journalism as a profession and shows how changes in society at large impacted and were reflected in this institution.

Footage of Watergate reporter Bob Woodward, former CBS anchor Walter Cronkite, legendary UPI White House correspondent Helen Thomas and others reveal facets of journalism as a profession and changes in the field.

“There was a transition from print to the electronic medium,” says Krell, “Radio and television reporters didn’t get into the club right away. The print journalists felt they were the real journalists. Then they let the radio reporters in and those from TV. Now blogging and the Internet are changing the game again. I was not trying to make an inside piece on the club. We were interested in how the Press Club reflected journalism both in Washington and throughout the country.”

Krell, who received the 2008 Alumni Award from the UConn School of Fine Arts in April, says events at the National Press Club also reflected changes in American society, such as the struggle of women and black journalists to gain equal opportunities in covering news.

As in his previous public television documentaries on differences in religious faith and other topics, Krell develops a real-time narrative by sifting through hundreds of hours of historic footage and more than 150 hours of original interviews with club members to weave the history of the organization as told by its members.

The filmmaker now is beginning work on the third installment of his religion trilogy, which compares similarities and differences in religious beliefs.

— Kenneth Best

Lee and Grant
William M.S. Rasmussen and Robert S. Tilton
(D. Giles Ltd.)

Generals Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant are without a doubt two of the most important and heavily published about figures in American history. Their often controversial characters, lives and careers are intrinsically linked with the American Civil War, and subsequent written histories on both individuals have frequently been shaped by the positions and roles both took up during that conflict. Tilton, head of UConn’s English department, and Rasmussen, curator of art at the Virginia Historical Society, have written a major reassessment of these two figures together and compared them over an extended period of time. Together with historic illustrations from a touring exhibition, this well-researched and well-written narrative provides a major re-assessment of the careers and historical impact of Lee and Grant.

The Race to Save the World’s Rarest Bird: The Discovery and Death of the Po’ouli
Alvin Powell ’83 (CLAS)
(Stackpole Books)

Thirty years ago researchers discovered a previously unknown species of bird in the rain-soaked and remote mountains of Hawaii. As they studied the creature—which sported a black mask and was called the po’ouli—they soon learned that its population was shrinking quickly, and they worked frantically to find out what was killing the species and how they might prevent its extinction. In this fast-paced account of their work, done in one of the world’s most inhospitable environments, Powell, senior science writer at Harvard University and first-time author, describes a stirring fight for survival. A real-life scientific adventure, the book offers a thought-provoking examination of how the country’s Endangered Species Act works — and how it fails.

Naked in the Woods: Joseph Knowles and the Legacy of Frontier Fakery
Jim Motavalli ’75 (CLAS)
(DaCapo Press)

Motavalli’s latest book recounts the untold story of Joseph Knowles, a 45-year-old part-time painter, ex-Navy man, friend of the Sioux, and onetime hunting guide who stepped—nearly naked—into the woods to live off the land and his own devices. From 1913 to 1916, Knowles issued dispatches describing accounts of bear clubbing and quiet contemplation, setting off major newspaper wars and fears of modernization. Motavalli, former editor of E/The Environmental Magazine, has a wonderful time with his subject, concluding, “He may have been at least partly a fraud, but he was nonetheless successful in communicating a powerful and useful message to an anxiety-stricken age.” Part adventure story, part cultural investigation, the book reveals a whole new dimension of our natural history.