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Nat Hentoff's Last Column: The 50-Year Veteran Says Goodbye
The Village Voice ^ | January 07, 2009 | Nat Hentoff

Posted on 01/08/2009 5:36:18 PM PST by nickcarraway

I've borrowed Woody Guthrie's 1942 song to report that this is my last column for the Voice. I'm not retiring; I've never forgotten my exchange on that decision with Duke Ellington. In those years, he and the band played over 200 one-nighters a year, with jumps from, say, Toronto to Dallas. On one of his rare nights off, Duke looked very beat, and I presumptuously said: "You don't have to keep going through this. With the standards you've written, you could retire on your ASCAP income."

Duke looked at me as if I'd lost all my marbles.

"Retire!" he crescendoed. "Retire to what?!"

I'm still writing. In 2009, the University Press of California will publish my I>At the Jazz Band Ball: 60 Years on the Jazz Scene, and, later in the year, a sequel to The War on the Bill of Rights and the Gathering Resistance will be out on Seven Stories Press with the title Is This America? And I'll be breaking categories elsewhere, including in my weekly syndicated United Media column, which reaches 250 papers, and my jazz and country music pieces in The Wall Street Journal.

I came here in 1958 because I wanted a place where I could write freely on anything I cared about. There was no pay at first, but the Voice turned out to be a hell of a resounding forum. My wife, Margot—later an editor here and a columnist far more controversial than I've been—called what this paper was creating "a community of consciousness." Though a small Village "alternative" newspaper, we were reaching many around the country who were turned off by almost any establishment you could think of.

Being here early on, I felt I'd finally been able to connect with what had first startled and excited me as I was reading my journalism mentor, George Seldes, the first press critic. When I was 15, I saw his four-page newsletter, "In Fact: An Antidote to Falsehoods in the Daily Press." He broke stories I'd never seen in any other paper, including The New York Times, stories that gave scientific data on how cigarette smoking caused cancer.

Seldes was also a labor man. You could find "In Fact" in some union halls, and for years, his name was blacked out of The New York Times because, in 1934, he testified about journalists' wages before the National Labor Relations Board just as the Newspaper Guild was trying to organize the Times.

"In Fact" reached a circulation of 176,000 and included newspaper reporters around the country who fed Seldes news that they couldn't get into their own papers.

Seldes was, to say the least, not an admirer of J. Edgar Hoover, and when "In Fact" died in 1950, one of the reasons was that FBI agents had gone into post offices around the nation and copied down the names of subscribers—and let them know they were known.

Seldes was also my hero when, after Senator Joseph McCarthy called him into a closed-door session to admit to his Bolshevism, the Great Red Hunter eventually came out of the room, looking unprecedentedly subdued as he told the waiting press that Seldes had been "cleared." George had intimidated Tailgunner Joe.

As a foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, Seldes, because of his stories, was kicked out of Hitler's Germany, Mussolini's Italy, and Stalin's Russia. Years later, he and I corresponded for a while, and then I finally met him in 1985 when he was in New York promoting his book, The Great Thoughts, about a gallery of freethinkers through the centuries. Some of his other books include Never Tire of Protesting and Lords of the Press.

At 94, Seldes was no longer in the news business, but as I came into his hotel room around nine one morning, he was doing what I do every morning: tearing pages out of stacks of newspapers. Instead of saying, "Hello," he grabbed a handful of clips, gave them to me, and said, "You ought to look into these stories!" Then, smiling, he said, "I'm getting old, yes, but to hell with being mellow."

In 1995, he died at the age of 104 in Hartland Four Corners, Vermont.

My other main mentor, I.F. "Izzy" Stone, was inspired by "In Fact" to start "I.F. Stone's Weekly," where mainstream newspaper reporters also sent stories that they couldn't get into their own papers.

One of the lessons I learned from Izzy was to avoid press conferences: "You're not going to get the real story there," he'd say. Instead, I learned from him to find mid-level workers in bureaucracies whom reporters seldom thought to interview. That's how, years ago, I reported for the Voice on the accurate drop-out rate in the city's schools.

Because of the "Seldes and Stone Journalism School" (I've never been in one that actually grants degrees), I got to do at the Voice something that led the late Meg Greenfield, The Washington Post's editorial page editor—for whom I wrote a weekly "Sweet Land of Liberty" column for some 15 years—to say on my receiving the 1995 National Press Foundations Award for lifetime distinguished contributions to journalism: "Nat Hentoff is never chic. Never has been, as those of us who have known him over the centuries can attest. Never will be. Count on it. He is not tribal in his views and is terribly stubborn. He challenges icons and ideas that are treasured in the community he lives in. He puts on his skunk suit and heads off to the garden party, week after week, again and again."

It was here that I was able to practice, since 1958, what I learned from my non-chic mentors. And I'll be putting on my skunk suit at other garden parties, now that I've been excessed from the Voice.

I was in my twenties when I learned my most important lesson from Izzy Stone: "If you're in this business because you want to change the world, get another day job. If you are able to make a difference, it will come incrementally, and you might not even know about it. You have to get the story and keep on it because it has to be told."

Still, there was one time when I was stunned at meeting a reader changed by what I'd written. One of my sons, Tom, is a partner at Williams & Connolly, a highly prestigious Washington law firm founded by one of my idols in the law, Edward Bennett Williams. Tom, a specialist in intellectual property and defamation, among other areas of law, once invited me to a large gathering in New York of lawyers from around the country who are also experts in those fields. Several lawyers in their thirties, it seemed to me, came to our table, and one, speaking for the others, said to me: "We're here because of you. We were in high school when we started reading you in the Voice, and you made the law so exciting. That, as I've said, is why we're here."

Other Voice writers have had that effect on readers—the late Jack Newfield, for one—and some are still being skunks at garden parties: Tom Robbins and Wayne Barrett. Their calls get returned quickly.

Around the country, a lot of reporters are being excessed, and print newspapers may soon become collectors' items. But over the years, my advice to new and aspiring reporters is to remember what Tom Wicker, a first-class professional spelunker, then at The New York Times, said in a tribute to Izzy Stone: "He never lost his sense of rage."

Neither have I. See you somewhere else. Finally, I'm grateful for the comments on the phone and the Web. It's like hearing my obituaries while I'm still here.


TOPICS: Breaking News; Culture/Society; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: atatt; hentoff; jazz; journalism; nathentoff; newyork; prolife; retirement; villagevoice
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To: rlmorel; Congressman Billybob
Hentoff is pro-life and one of the most best Jazz critics in the world.
21 posted on 01/08/2009 6:47:41 PM PST by Borges
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To: dirtboy; Darkwolf377

Spot on and well said, both of you.


22 posted on 01/08/2009 6:51:25 PM PST by Mr. Mojo
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To: Darkwolf377

Right you are.


23 posted on 01/08/2009 6:53:58 PM PST by jra
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To: VaBthang4
Never heard of him. Dont let the door hit you...

It would behoove you to correct that you have never heard of him, let alone read his better columns.

24 posted on 01/08/2009 6:57:10 PM PST by dirtboy
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To: nickcarraway

Maybe Nat will have time to read the three new books exonerating Joe McCarthy from the hate piled upon him by the deceitful media and the confused American people.


25 posted on 01/08/2009 7:04:16 PM PST by Theodore R. (GWB is neither "compassionate nor conservative.")
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To: dirtboy

So far, you’re the only one who’s said anything about Hentoff that proves that you know who he is.
Yes, Hentoff, almost alone among his “ilk”, is pro-life,
and as eloquent as anyone on the “other” side of the political aisle. And it was Hentoff who wrote a column
many months ago titled “Senator McCain, here is your running mate”, in which he proposed McCain choose Sarah Palin , who he called “an unstereotypical Republican” (meaning NOT a RINO), as Veep. NO ONE else was seriously talking her up, Hentoff was, because, most importantly , she was pro-Life. So all you early posters on this thread , I wish you would educate yourself as to who this man is: I have been reading him since the late 60s, and for a long time, he and J. Hoberman were the only things that made the Village Voice worth reading. Now it’s just Hoberman. I am also glad this was posted, because it reminds me I have something to send Mr. Hentoff. A dear friend of ours, a musician of note, died just before 9-11, and he and his brother grew up and were childhood friends and friends into adulthood with Nat in the 20s through the 40s in Boston: among our friends belongings left to us is an old 78 rpm record of one of Nat’s first radio broadcasts from Boston from the late 40s, I think. I always meant to send it to him, and now I will.


26 posted on 01/08/2009 7:27:16 PM PST by supremedoctrine ("One was drawing funny faces, but his own was grave"--Richard Hughes, A High Wind in Jamaica)
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To: Darkwolf377
“From there it was ineluctable - not just abortion, but euthanasia as well.”

Yes. This is the scary part on the other end - my working theory on "right to die advocacy" is that in keeping with other incremental absurdities foisted on everyone, what is permitted will at some point become mandatory. Unfunded mandates, to get blunt.
27 posted on 01/08/2009 7:29:53 PM PST by Freedom4US
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Nate, I hope you live to be 150 and remain actively writing until your last day ... and I get to read the last word. You are what Journalism used to be. The ‘industry’ needs to learn where they got away from what you continue to do so skillfully.


28 posted on 01/08/2009 7:36:03 PM PST by MHGinTN (Believing they cannot be deceived, they cannot be convinced when they are deceived.)
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To: Darkwolf377
...Nat Hentoff has written some fine books on Jazz and politics. More of a Civil Libertarian than on the left or right, he take a stand on an issue, praising or condemning both democrats and republicans.

...Yer right. FR has changed alot in my 8 years here. Bovine mentality, puerile chatroom behavior, idol worship and fandome threads. Don't try to debate them, they'll turn you into a troll. Not only do they not read, they don't think for themselves. They just follow the herd...

29 posted on 01/08/2009 7:39:27 PM PST by gargoyle (..."If this be treason, make the most of it.". Patrick Henry...)
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To: rlmorel

I.F Stone was an agent of influence for the KGB. Some ‘hero’!


30 posted on 01/08/2009 8:32:11 PM PST by PzLdr ("The Emperor is not as forgiving as I am" - Darth Vader)
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To: Darkwolf377
The replies to this column are from people who don't know what the hell they're talking about.

Agreed.

There are more and more morons on FR as time passes.

Hentoff was honest. Just because one does not agree with him 100% of the time is not a reason to call him names.

31 posted on 01/08/2009 8:39:57 PM PST by Lurking in Kansas (Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down their level, then beat you with experience.)
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To: dirtboy; Darkwolf377; rlmorel; Congressman Billybob; Chet 99; Borges; Mr. Mojo

dirtboy and Darkwolf, thanks for posting in defense of Nate.

He is the kind of liberal I admire.

I was a Hentoff fan years ago because of jazz. His articles were always insightful, honest and knowledgeable.

I was disappointed and surprised when he took his craft to the political arena. I felt there was a divide between music and politics, much like sports and politics. And I was disappointed because he seemed to be a leftist.

It didn’t take long to appreciate Nate once again, as he applied the same insight, honesty and knowledge to his columns on politics.

I don’t always agree with him, but, like Camile Paglia, I always read what he writes when I get the chance.


32 posted on 01/08/2009 8:48:00 PM PST by norge
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To: nickcarraway

Last of a media breed that didn’t surrender to the pc rules on any issue.
One can say at least he was his own man.

He’s not selective about free speech or life. And a man of culture who was an advocate of true American culture: jazz.

Give him his due. Even the fellow travelers like Izzy Stone didn’t turn him into a flaming Soviet supporting commie.


33 posted on 01/08/2009 9:03:16 PM PST by romanesq
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To: VaBthang4

“Free Speech for Me But Not for Thee”

Does that line ring a bell. His book coined it.


34 posted on 01/08/2009 9:04:28 PM PST by romanesq
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To: nickcarraway
Hentoff is a champion of the intellectually honest.

God bless.

35 posted on 01/08/2009 9:05:20 PM PST by Rome2000 (Peace is not an option)
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To: Lancey Howard

While the words “honest liberal” seem to have become a contradiction in terms, I found a lot of Hentoff’s columns to be interesting reading whether or not I agreed with him. He just seemed to be all over the map, sort of like watching an ant wandering around aimlessly.


36 posted on 01/08/2009 9:10:35 PM PST by beelzepug (the Gadsden flag is now flying in my front yard)
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To: rlmorel

Seldes was a leftist but not as bad as I.F. Stone who was not only a secret Communist Party member for a while, but also a KGB asset.

Izzy was Moscow’s “loose cannon”, a method used to deceive the gullible into thinking that Stone was an “independent” writer. His record of supporting CPUSA and SWP fronts was very long and inclusive.

He was an enemy of America and it is sad that Hentoff too often imitated Stone.


37 posted on 01/08/2009 9:50:09 PM PST by MadMax, the Grinning Reaper
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To: rlmorel

Seldes was a leftist but not as bad as I.F. Stone who was not only a secret Communist Party member for a while, but also a KGB asset.

Izzy was Moscow’s “loose cannon”, a method used to deceive the gullible into thinking that Stone was an “independent” writer. His record of supporting CPUSA and SWP fronts was very long and inclusive.

He was an enemy of America and it is sad that Hentoff too often imitated Stone.

The fact that Hentoff knowingly sponsored various communist party fronts is a testament to his poor judgement. I know he wrote great articles on jazz, and did a lot of good writing on the First Amendment, etc., but when he joins our enemies knowing that they are using the First Amendment to undermine our society, then he lost a lot of respect.

An independent mind can stay that way without getting palsy-wowsy with our enemies.


38 posted on 01/08/2009 9:55:20 PM PST by MadMax, the Grinning Reaper
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To: gargoyle
Bovine mentality, puerile chatroom behavior, idol worship and fandome threads. Don't try to debate them, they'll turn you into a troll.

You're right. I've been startled at the number of times one is flamed here for not worshipping appropriately--I thought that was what the DUmmies did, while we were the adults who thought for ourselves?

39 posted on 01/08/2009 10:01:09 PM PST by Darkwolf377
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To: nickcarraway

I respect Hentoff. Don’t always agree with him, but I respect him. Can’t say that for too many liberals these days!


40 posted on 01/08/2009 10:03:14 PM PST by GatorGirl (Don't Blame Me, I Voted McCain!)
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