Broader horizons
Editor’s note: Mike Masterson is taking the day off from column-writing. The original version of this column was published in January 2003.
Atreasured letter from The Washington Post Executive Editor Benjamin C. Bradlee has been yellowing for decades on my wall. I keep that page, dated Dec. 27, 1975, as a reminder of how it’s possible for those of us from Arkansas to turn to our advantage the distorted stereotype of barefooted Bible-thumping hayseed. Two weeks before that letter arrived, I’d attended a luncheon in Manhattan with 11 other finalists contending for an Alicia Patterson Fellowship. The Patterson Foundation annually awards fellowships that provide professional journalists and freelancers with a year of compensated travel to pursue writing projects anywhere in the world.
My proposal was to travel America in 1976, the bicentennial year, much like John Steinbeck had done with his dog Charley. I sought to broaden my horizons by seeing this nation and writing about the moods and hopes of its people, then return to my responsibilities as editor of the Hot Springs daily paper and share what I’d learned with 20,000 readers.
Out of 120 applications worldwide that year, I somehow made it to New York as a finalist. It became evident during the luncheon before our individual 30-minute interviews that my new black suit and efforts to out-articulate the other big-paper finalists (some from foreign publications) was precisely the wrong approach. I realized I was there as the token “hillbilly” Southern journalist who was interesting because I might prove worthy of enlightenment.
We drew lots at lunch and I was eighth to be interviewed. So I returned to the hotel and changed into the faded blue suit with frayed cuffs I’d worn on the plane. Then I strolled back to my interview in a light rain without combing my hair.
Nervously entering the conference room, I noticed Bradlee (freshly basking in Watergate fame) at one end, his right leg draped lazily over an end of the massive table. Across from me sat the remainder of the Eastern elite of our craft in those years: Helen Thomas of UPI, columnist Mary McGrory, feminist journalist Gloria Steinem and Pulitzer-winning author Frances Fitzgerald.
Bradlee let ’er rip first: “OK, let’s get this straight, Masterson. You want us to give you a [religious expletive deleted] year-long paid vacation around America?”
That set the tone for the next halfhour and made me even more certain they wanted to see an “Arkansas hick” worth salvaging. So I obliged, ladling out every Gomer Pyle stereotype imaginable. I recall making frequent references to “God’s will,” in the best twang I could muster and punctuated with “yes, sirs” and “yes, ma’ams.”
I swear Steinem’s eyes rolled when I spoke of “watching the Greyhound bus leaving town as I climbed the stairs to the paper and wondering what lies beyond these hills.” Midway through the country-fried grilling, I remember thinking, “I’m either blowing this interview big time, or they’re seeing the Arkansas corndog I believe they’d expected.” Afterward, I flew home. “The call” came three days later. I spent 1976 roaming America in a motor home and writing regularly about the dreams of those I met.
My perspective as a young Arkansas journalist was broadened enormously. The fellowship proved to be the educational experience of a lifetime, which meant the committee’s goals and mine were met. And about 40 daily papers across the country freely published the weekly dispatches I typed along the highways.
The Post was an exception, which brings me back to Bradlee’s letter. He politely declined the offer of my columns, explaining his rationalization: “I’ve been judging that competition for quite a few years and most of the winners have projects that are inherently interesting, quite apart from the contestants themselves. I felt that your project was inherently not interesting. It’s not original. The literature is filled with innocents abroad. But you are interesting in that you will benefit, your horizons will be widened, and I must tell you that none of us had ever met any contestant whose horizons were so narrow.
“None of this is said in criticism, you must understand. But you seem to me to be unbelievably wide-eyed, starry-eyed about this country and about what you are going to discover in the next few months. Perhaps you will look only for those wide-eyed and starry-eyed facets of America. Perhaps we are too cynical. But if I had any advice for you, it would be to watch out. Ernie Pyle would be mugged if he were ambling through America today. And watch out for the syrupy generalities. There is no ‘America.’ There are thousands of Americas, and you must understand that you will only see a few of them, despite a search that will be longer than any I have undertaken.”
Well, I did survive that 25,000-mile journey with neither a mugging nor serious hitch. In fact, people everywhere seemed eager to treat me exactly as this Arkie treated them. Imagine that.