Book Review: Media Marathon: A Twentieth-Century Memoir

September 1996
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Media Marathon: A Twentieth-Century Memoir

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Reviewed by Christopher Harper ([email protected]), New York University, for J-HISTORY.

Published by J-HISTORY Book Review Project, ([email protected]). Posted 4 September 1996.

Book Information:

Erik Barnouw. _Media Marathon: A Twentieth-Century Memoir_. Durham: Duke University Press, 1996. 264 pp., epilogue, chronology, and index. ISBN 0-8223-1728-1 (cloth), US$ 22.95.

A critic once wrote that Erik Barnouw was the author "from whom the rest of us steal instead of doing our research." Barnouw's three-volume _History of Broadcasting in the United States_ (New York: Oxford University Press, 1966-70) remains a classic.

Born in Holland in 1908, Barnouw immigrated to the United States 11 years later. He worked as an actor, union official, and long-time professor at Columbia University. _Media Marathon: A Twentieth-Century Memoir_ offers insights into Barnouw and the people he knew, including Dwight Eisenhower, Thorton Wilder, and Tallulah Bankhead.

Each prominent figure, as well as some less prominent ones, receives a chapter in the memoir. My favorite chapter appears toward the end of the book when Barnouw chronicles his relationship with Akira Iwasaki, one of Japan's best film producers. Within days after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Iwasaki and a team of camera operators descended on the sites of the nuclear explosions to produce a documentary on the scientific impact on the people and the land.

At first, the American military allowed the filming to continue after it took control of the region. Then, the Americans ordered Iwasaki to turn over all three hours of his film to be destroyed. Despite his protests, Iwasaki received no explanation for the decision. Fortunately, the original film seized by the Americans was not destroyed. In 1968, the American government found the film and planned to turn the seized original back to Japan. Barnouw read a news clipping and managed to obtain the film for Columbia University Press. In 1970 Barnouw produced the film Iwasaki wanted to make, a riveting documentary about the horrific effects of an atomic bomb.

"Knowing so little about the 1945 events, I had not dwelt on what names might be missing (from the credits)," Barnouw writes. "Now we know that one Akira Iwasaki had set the stage for us." The two men met in 1972 and corresponded until Iwasaki's death in 1981.

Barnouw chronicles many of his adventures and accomplishments, including his leadership at the Library of Congress to oversee its division for motion pictures, broadcasting, and recorded sound.

At times, the memoir simply documents his experiences, and there is little assessment of those events. The first few chapters need a strong editor to make the author provide greater context for modern readers about the events Barnouw describes. For example, he writes about a policy of NBC's "Cavalcade of America" in the 1940s that "never focused on a black leader." While most readers understand the racial divisions of those times, the historian, Barnouw, needs to provide today's readers with more information about why NBC had made such a decision and its implications.

Other chapters about the less prominent individuals such as convicted killer Camilo "Bud" Leyra provide some of the best reading. In 1950s, Barnouw oversaw the production of a documentary series on the U.S. Constitution, including a segment about Leyra, who had been convicted of killing his father and mother. The verdict was overturned because Leyra had been questioned for more than three days with almost no sleep until he confessed.

At the end of the book, Barnouw provides a depressing analysis about his craft, particularly the future of television: "(I) do keep wondering what sort of society will emerge from...new-age television. What kinds of humans will it help to shape? A crucial question, I am sure. As (friend and critic) John Leonard has put it, 'Television is clearly more serious than venereal disease.'" This reviewer hopes that both Leonard and Barnouw may be right about the past and the present but are wrong about the future.

Christopher Harper ([email protected]) is an associate professor in the New York University's Department of Journalism. His book, _News in the Digital Age_, will be published in September 1997 by New York University Press.

Copyright (c) 1996 by J-HISTORY, all rights reserved. This work may be copied for non-profit educational use if proper credit is given to the author and the list. For other permission, please contact the J-HISTORY Steering Committee ([email protected]).

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