Left, Right, Gone!

Jody Powell, Press Secretary under the Carter Administration, died a few years ago.

William Safire, speech writer for President Nixon, also passed away soon afterwards.

These two men left a legacy of words.

Mr Safire was remembered more than his B/W iconic PR photo of the Cold War:

He left us with a Dictionary of Political Terms.

If we included Mr Cronkite into this communication pantheon, then we got a Press Secretary, a Speech writer, and a Newscaster. Left, right and center (supposedly).

I was struck by what the author of “the Middle of Everywhere” wrote:  ” On 9/11, the book I had just finished seemed meaningless”. She went on to quote Buddha ( when asked about the effect of the Enlightenment), as saying “before Enlightenment, I chopped wood and carried water. After Enlightenment, I chopped wood and carried water.)

ABC News went on after Peter Jennings, and soon will after  Charles Gibson. At 6:30PM M-F, on the dot.

We go on living our lives, chopping wood and carrying water, but we remember and owe them a debt of gratitude for their contribution in the field of communication.

Call it selective memory: imagery, idea and information about them.

There is a new book about being “Connected”. And one of the central ideas is that our choices somehow get influenced by friends of friends, and that it’s those people who are a few degrees of separation from us who impact us more than our immediate connection.

Every generation of technology brings out doubters and contrarians e.g. cell phones will fry your brain, the microwave oven is causing cancer, the computer screen isolates the person (as if fast-food alone couldn’t bring about a bowling-alone nation).

But the social animals went on to find each other on Plenty-of-fish or Match.com, LinkedIn, Gather, Facebook.

There are studies which show that people are more honest when writing about themselves (than in a face-to-face meeting which tends to be more appearance-focus).

The L, R, and C communicators were of the TV generation, whose audience (viewers) decline with each passing day.

At least, they knew how to handle the ” cool” medium (visual-oriented but demands some  imagination and participation by  viewers). They knew how to “show”  viewers when the news are unfolded ” that’s the way it was”.

Speech was loaded into a teleprompter. Remember the iconic Kennedy-Nixon televised debate  (many critics thought Kennedy victory was attributed largely to his charisma, a more trustworthy image than Nixon’s sweaty and eye-slanting).

Then came the peanut grower from Georgia, with warm sweater which reminded us of Mr Roger (Mr Carter actually taught Sunday School ).

And the viewers ate it up, just as quickly as they would jump ship 4 years later for a more telegenic actor from California:

“A shinning city on the hill”.

“Give me your poor and tired “. The Lady (of Liberty) says one thing, Mr Wilson in Congress says another( “you lie”.)

Had the Mayflower been turned away then. There wouldn’t be any Thanksgiving in South Carolina as we know it today.

Someone did pay forward. And it’s time we think of paying back, and in Mr Safire’s case, a Dictionary of Political Terms.