Fordham Professor Advises Future Journalists

"A main challenge for journalists today lies in figuring out how to embrace the latest technological advances while remaining true to the traditions of fine journalism," Beth Knobel, Fordham journalism professor, advisor to The Ram and award-winning producer/reporter for CBS News, said while reading an excerpt of her new book Heat and Light: Advice for the Next Generation of Journalists during a book signing event on Oct. 15.

Knobel, who worked in Russia for over 20 years, served as the CBS News Moscow bureau chief from 1999 to 2006 and won an Emmy Award in 2002 for her part in coverage of a hostage situation at a Moscow theater.  She co-authored the book, which came out in July, with Mike Wallace, whose illustrious career in television journalism includes 21 Emmys and three Peabodys as a correspondent emeritus for CBS News' "60 Minutes."

   "We tried to write the book that we would have liked to have ourselves when we were young journalists," Knobel said. "[It is] everything you need to know about journalism in one little package."

Knobel said she got the idea for Heat and Light when she invited Wallace to speak to her TV News Innovators class at Fordham in 2007.  Rather than speaking in a lecture style, Knobel recalled, Wallace opened up a dialogue with the students.

"He starts talking about journalism and life and death and what's important in life," Knobel said. 

Soon after, Knobel pitched the idea of writing a book about journalism to Wallace, who has also published two memoirs. He agreed and they began working together.

"I basically took 100-150 questions that my students ask me about journalism, and I sat down and asked him," Knobel said.

The book opens with a chapter called "The Fundamentals of Great Journalism" followed by several chapters outlining the technical elements of journalism, such as interviews, questions and writing, both for print and for broadcast.  Knobel and Wallace conclude with a chapter on law and ethics in addition to one about the future of journalism.

In the past, Knobel explained, networks could afford to lose money on the news department, because they made up for it in advertising revenue.  Today, increased financial constraints and the changing landscape of media make this impossible.

In reading from the book's final chapter, Knobel quotes Wallace as saying that journalism "used to be a race to the top.  To a certain degree, news today is a race to the bottom."

"That race to the bottom is exacerbated by budget cuts, which too often lead journalists to try to report a story without being there," Knobel said.

The book's title refers to the two key components that good journalism must have, according to Wallace's conception of journalism.

"Heat meaning the drama, the power, the importance; the light being the information that you get in that journalism that you wouldn't get anywhere else," Knobel said.  "What you really want to strive for is having both of those elements together, which is important, but in fact quite hard to do and becoming harder in this world of smaller news staffs, increasing sensationalism [and] shrinking sound bites."

Knobel vividly described some tense moments in her interviewing career in recounting a couple of key anecdotes she used in the book, dating back to her work in Moscow with Wallace.  One interview with former Russian President Boris Yeltsin almost came to a premature end due to an error in translation of the phrase "thick-skinned," Knobel said. 

During an interview with the current Russian Prime Minister and then-President Vladimir Putin, Wallace deviated so grievously from the pre-arranged interview topics that Putin's press secretary encouraged the president to suspend the interview.

When Wallace asked Putin about the press secretary's concern, "Putin says, ‘I will talk as long as you want me to, because I am the president of Russia' and then, he winks.  What a moment on television!" Knobel said.

These types of anecdotes are typical of Heat and Light, which does not resemble a textbook in looks or in content.

"We wanted to write a book that had a lot of anecdotes and a lot of stories, so that we could present the theories and then have a bunch of stories that would make the theories click for people," Knobel said.  

Several contributors to the book attended the event in addition to Knobel's family, friends and students.  The book is available in paperback from local and national booksellers for $14, though students in attendance wishing to purchase Heat and Light received a special price of $10.