The Press: In the Mirror

When A. B. Guthrie Jr., city editor of the Lexington (Ky.) Leader (circ. 23,000), first went to Harvard in 1944 as a Nieman Fellow, he was puzzled. Most of the six preceding groups of newsmen had used their nine months of paid leisure* to brush up on history, government and economics. What they really needed to study most, thought Guthrie, was how to write.

To teach his group, Guthrie lined up strapping Theodore Morrison, lecturer in freshman English, who was also convinced that most newspaper writing was pretty bad. After Guthrie left to write novels (The Big Sky, The Way West),...

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