I.F. Stone

The I.F. Stone's documentary from 1973 gives a very detailed look into the life of Izzy Stone during the last couple years of his weekly. He created a newspaper that was "radical in viewpoint but conservative in format." His works became so popular, I think, because it was so professionally produced and looked very good. If you put quality content in poor packaging it probably will not sell very well.

The documentary paints Stone as an incredibly intelligent man with an incredible drive to work. In the beginning he produced the paper almost single-handedly. I think the culminating image to his nature was that of him walking down the street and placing all of the mail into the street postbox. He could handle things himself, he handled them well, and it was probably best done without intervention.

I think one of the greatest things he did was stand up against Joseph McCarthy before Edward R. Murrow ever took up the microphone against him. While Murrow had CBS to back him up, little Izzy Stone fought all by himself. So many people were negatively affected by the witch hunt McCarthy had brought to the United States and Stone dared to go against the crusade immediately. He faced being labeled a communist but contended with the government anyway.

His views were progressive, yet he criticized all parties when they required criticism. He was very inclusive and pro-equality as Peter Flint points out in his New York Times obituary. ''Once you put ifs and buts in the Bill of Rights, nobody's civil liberties will be secure.''

Stone certainly had his opinions and he voiced them strongly without holding back. Opinions can sometimes go against the "pure nature" of journalism that we learn about in classes. At Ithaca College I have learned that true objectivity is impossible, but I do still think that striving for it in terms of content is beneficial.

I do not think that the documentary showed enough of Izzy Stone's faults. Like so many documentaries I have seen that focus on a single person, they always seem to show the greatest side of the person and ignore the negatives. We did not watch the entire film but I can't imagine the pieces we missed had a lot of critique. Everyone appeared to love Stone and everything that he touched. 

Stone's own nature was to question things, the opening line of the documentary being his own:

"There are certain basic assumptions you must make. The first is that every government is quite capable of lying"

So why not question Stone himself? He did a lot of thorough investigative pieces that certainly benefited society at large but he was clearly very opinionated. I would like to see more analysis on how his personal interests went into his work and how they affected what topics he wrote about in his weekly.

From what I understand though, Stone feels like he belongs among the top journalists of U.S. history. His tenacity, ethics and quality of writing stand as one uniquely in the history of journalism. It is amazing that so many youth at the time could trust the words of an older newsman, but he did it.

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