The Barry Picker

Press fairness quickly emerged as a campaign issue. Many reporters and editors did in fact favor the election of Lyndon Johnson. He had impressed them as a strong and effective leader who had under the most difficult of circumstances moved the country forward. But it was not love of Johnson so much as fear of Goldwater that fueled press animosity. Barry Goldwater threatened to disrupt the status quo of domestic progress. Journalists were certain that his policies would end the thaw in the cold war. He kept company with and attracted the wrong kind of friends. Reporters and editors thus deemed it a public service to "unmask" Goldwater, even to the point of overkill. They projected onto the conservative any guilt that arose. Goldwater's press was poor because of his impulsive answers during spontaneous exchanges. His statements and addresses were not carefully prepared or presented. Even his supporters realized this, the press observed. Correspondent Sam Donaldson, an admirer of Goldwater, remembered one speecin which the candidate was "saying things that seemed to be poorly thought out, at least poorly explained." A Goldwaterite approached Donaldson and pleaded: "Listen here. Write what he means, not what he says." Donaldson was not the first nor would he be the last to face this quandary. They did their "duty," but as Ben Bradlee, who was a Newsweek editor in 1964, maintains, "I don't know a reporter who isn't a little bit ashamed of picking on Barry the way they did." The press censure embittered Goldwater: "I've never seen or heard in my life such vitriolic . . . attack on one man as has been directed at me. I think these people should frankly hang their heads in shame because . . . they made the fourth estate a rather sad, sorry mess." In later years, he would be strongly supportive of men he considered victims of media witch hunts.

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