You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go

By
Glenn W. Smith
– March 15, 2009Posted in: Culture

You’re gonna make me wonder what I’m doing
Staying far behind without you
You’re gonna make me wonder what I’m saying
You’re gonna make me give myself a good talkin’ to.
Bob Dylan, “You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go.”

The collapse of the American news business is a sad thing. It’s hard to feel much sympathy for the business. They lost their way years ago, sacrificing an always-tense commitment to public knowledge upon the altars of Wall Street’s hawk-faced gods.

It’s also tough to look at the boxes of clippings my late mom saved of my major daily bylines, front page or back of the obituaries. She knew what newspapers meant to her: a lifeline, a pastime, a window on the world, a guardian of freedom and a disheveled private eye on the trail of political devils and shady miscreants of all kinds. Her son, she thought, would get to the bottom of things. She didn’t care that I never did.

There are 67 percent fewer newspapers covering Congress now than in the mid-1980s, according to the Pew Research Center. While the number of niche newsletters, online news sources and specialty publications is growing, the reporting power of the free press remains greatly reduced. State legislatures are barely covered anymore.

The public will know less about more complicated national global events, and that makes democracy more – not less – vulnerable to skilled manipulators and propagandists.

We better pass one more piece of legislation before the last journalist steps on the train out of town. We’d better make ignorance of the law a defense after all.

When I call a reporter today and offer the obligatory opening, “How you doing?” I get an answer like I used to get from the guys on Death Row I once covered. “I don’t know,” they say. (Yeah, the editors had me cover prisons to get me ready to cover politics. Smart guys.)

I left the news business in the late 1980s. I’d been covering state politics for the Houston Chronicle and then the Houston Post. A guy named Dean Singleton, now head of the Associated Press, bought my paper. He had a certain reputation, and when the editor he picked pointedly refused to shake my hand while standing amongst a circle of great Texas writers – Bud Shrake, Larry L. King, Gary Cartwright among them – I got a bad attitude. I “crossed the line” and lit out for the territories of partisan politics. But I’ve never quit being homesick. And now that home is disappearing.

There’s a picture (taken by a Houston Chronicle photographer) stored away somewhere of me standing on the side of a clapboard house in the deep woods of East Texas, pen and reporter’s notebook in my hands. I’m gazing with earnest eyes at a barefoot couple sitting in their folding yard chairs. They’re looking about as disdainful of my company as two people could look.

It’s a look I recognize in the attitudes of many toward journalists. Never good enough for our clubs or movements, always outside looking in, always giving suspicion that they’re spying or spinning for the other side. It’s easy to think that. Sometimes it’s been true.

I didn’t enjoy CNBC’s Jim Cramer’s appearance on Jon Stewart’s Daily Show. Stewart was doing what needed doing. Cramer’s no journalist. He’s a pop figure poser, a guy who chases celebrity CEO’s like Hollywood reporters chase the latest glamour puss. Stewart was shooting cows. Sure, there are some cows that need shooting. But these last days of daily journalism ought to be more dignified.

I called a friend, Wayne Slater, a longtime political reporter for the Dallas Morning News and co-author of the first tear-back-the-curtain book on Karl Rove, “Bush’s Brain.” I wanted to ask him about one criticism leveled at Cramer and at some real reporters as well: they trade away the truth for access.

Slater hadn’t made that trade. And after his reporting on Rove, he lost some access to the Bush White House. Some, but not all. Anyway, Slater said he’d seen it happen. During Bush’s first campaign, he’d had a big time reporter get him to ask Bush a particularly hard question so the reporter, new to the bus, wouldn’t get off on the wrong foot and be denied access.

But for every Judy Miller who trade away their souls, Slater said, “there are ten, or twenty or a hundred” shoe-leather tough guys who really do want to get to the bottom of things.

A lot of these good people are being laid off now, sent packing with pathetic little bureaucratic professional obits that use words like “streamlining,” or “downsizing.” Back when there were copy editors I might have asked one whether those -ing words ringing round the land were gerunds or present participles. A good copy editor would have said, “Those aren’t words at all.”

There’s plenty of speculation on what the post-newspaper world will look like, most of it about as credible as discussions about who built the canals on Mars. I couldn’t think of much else to say but farewell, and I thought of starting off with that lyric of Bob Dylan. I found the YouTube video featuring a great Americana, bluegrass cover of the song, complete with some Edward Hopper paintings. I’m off to Ashtabula.

Been shootin’ in the dark too long
When something’s not right it’s wrong
You’re gonna make me lonesome when you go.

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About Glenn W. Smith

Glenn W. Smith has spent the past 30 years in journalism and politics, where he’s made a name for himself as a writer, campaign manager, activist, think tank analyst and, as Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas says, a “legendary political consultant and all-around good guy.” “There’s no one like him,” says author George Lakoff. CNN commentator Paul Begala says, “He has unmatched experience, a graceful pen (or pixel nowadays) and deep insight into the best and worst of us.” Novelist Sarah Bird speaks of his “lucid and lyrical” prose. And, she says, he’s fun. Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington says Glenn writes with “grace and abundant humor” and “uses his colorful experiences in Texas to enlighten us all.”

Smith led Ann Richards’ successful 1990 campaign for Governor of Texas. He worked for former Texas Lt. Gov. Bill Hobby and U.S. Senator Lloyd Bentsen. Earlier, Smith was a political reporter for the Houston Chronicle and the Houston Post. He’s coordinated national campaigns for groups such as MoveOn.org. In 2004, he authored the highly acclaimed book, The Politics of Deceit: Saving Freedom and Democracy from Extinction. He also wrote Unfit Commander, a book that detailed George W. Bush’s mysterious disappearance from military service.

In 2004, Smith was featured in the film, Bush’s Brain, a documentary about Karl Rove. Smith provided commentary on Rove’s role as then-President Bush’s senior advisor. He has made numerous media appearances with Chris Mathews on Hardball, Joe Scarborough, Brit Hume, and many others. He writes a regularly for top national web sites, including FireDogLake and Huffington Post.

As a senior fellow at George Lakoff’s prestigious Rockridge Institute in Berkeley he studied, wrote and taught on the power of metaphor and narrative in political communications. He also lectured on religion and politics at the Starr King School for Ministry in Berkeley. As a sponsor and organizer, he has pulled together numerous national events with progressive religious leaders. He also organized a celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King at Riverside Church in New York City as well as “Freedom and Faith” bus tours, which was a nationwide campaign for social justice and progressive values.

Smith’s play, Double Play, which explored American Western myths and legends, was held over to sold-out audiences. He’s even written and performed songs in the Americana tradition, such as his best-known song, “Helping Marty Robbins,” a tribute to his hometown, Houston.

Most recently, Smith is the creator of DogCanyon, a political and cultural web site covering state, national and global issues from a Texas perspective. DogCanyon is an exhilarating and unique site that gets the connections between politics and culture and explores both the personal side of politics and the ups, down, craziness and beauty of “life its ownself,” as humorist Dan Jenkins would say. DogCanyon offers heartfelt personal essays, hard-hitting political analysis, and, most importantly, laughs.

As Paul Begala said, Smith writes in “the finest, firmest, fearless tradition of Texas essayists like Molly Ivins.”