I began graduate study at University of Wisconsin 1974, year Jim published Problem of Journalism inaugural issue of this journal.1 The faculty at Wisconsin did not quite know what to make of his plea, so they organized conference Madison on Carey. Three papers from that conference appeared Journalism History 1975, and thus was born cottage industry journalism studies: commenting on him.2 I have concocted several commentaries myself over years, and this essay is yet another. But, alas, it may be my last, for he died on May 23, 2006. Like my professors at Wisconsin, I never quite figured out how to do historical research that he thought should be done. But from that first encounter with him 1974-75-in print and person-I knew that Jim was on to something important. And I would like to believe that my career journalism history-and perhaps careers of many of readers of this essay-has been, at least part, conversation with him. Carey was curious but revealing phrase 1975. It suggests interplay of academic subcultures that his article was part of. Operationalizing was term from traditional social science, which at that time held sway not only communication research but new social history as well. In review essay on Carey, Jerilyn McIntyre called it a term derived from very research paradigm he is asking us to set aside.3 In sense, that assessment is true, but it goes too far. In his 1974 article, he did not seek to overthrow paradigm, nor did operationalizers reject studies. sought merely to ventilate field by adding to traditional journalism systematic cultural of journalism.4 For their part, operationalizers were just trying to figure out how to do that. Yet from outset there was seed of conflict, or at least misunderstanding. While his main interest lay word cultural, operationalizers homed on word systematic. The early commentators, other words, took his challenge to be more methodological than paradigmatic. All of authors of three papers on operationalizing Carey Journalism History-Marion Marzolf, John Erickson, and Richard Schwarzlose-imagined that his call for cultural required discovery of beliefs and values content of journalism of past. Erickson, then colleague of Carey's at University of Illinois, was most expansive, arguing that basic values of larger culture might be reflected in or embodied in content of press and content of press criticism.5 Marzolf also argued that content of journalism might reflect larger culture, but she also was interested beliefs, values, and attitudes of culture of journalism itself-that is, the historical study of journalists as professional group.6 Even more than Marzolf, Schwarzlose focused on professional practice. He recommended that Carey's broader notions of culture be set aside favor of close attention to news values, reporting methods, and writing style.7 In each case, operationalizers urged careful content analysis. On this, Schwarzlose's recommendation was most narrow but also most ambitious and most characteristic of times. He called for massive quantitative content analysis of 270 years of random sample of American newspapers, drawing on sixy-two-category list of news topics first devised 1940s by Ralph O. Nafziger, legendary director of School of Journalism and Mass Communication at University of Wisconsin.8 So what did mean by culture? In Problem of Journalism History, he defined cultural as recovery of past forms of imagination, of historical consciousness. He wrote, By culture I merely mean organization of social experience consciousness of men manifested symbolic action. …
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Mar 1, 2009
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