Ted Rowse, NPC press criticism 'minuteman,' authors NY Times op-ed as he turns 100
Arthur E. (Ted) Rowse, a native of Lexington, Mass., is the minuteman of press criticism at the National Press Club.
In 1996, Rowse established an award in his name in the Club’s annual Journalism Contest to honor outstanding accountability journalism focused on the news media itself. He has self-funded the award for the past quarter century, and has arranged for it to be permanently endowed.
Rowse’s own writings include numerous critiques of the American press, starting with “Slanted News,” his book on news coverage of a slush-fund scandal involving vice-presidential candidate Richard Nixon in 1952.
Rowse reached his 100th birthday on April 30. In the spirit of journalistic self-criticism, the Club acknowledges having completely missed the deadline for delivering centennial congratulations and timely plaudits to a career newspaperman, magazine writer and author of books who is one of the Club's most senior members.
Rowse, a Club Golden Owl who joined the Club in 1967, retired from U.S. News and World Report after having served on the city desks of The Boston Globe, Boston Herald Traveler and The Washington Post.
Rowse and his wife, Ruth Fort, a consumer activist who was Ralph Nader’s chief assistant for many years, celebrated the big day by reviewing a parade of honking cars from their front lawn in Chevy Chase, Md. Covid-19 rules kept them from getting close to the well-wishers.
Meanwhile, Rowse on May 23 wrote an oped for the New York Times, "It's My 100th Birthday. It's Been Quite a Century," that noted bitter historical events he has lived through, from the Great Depression to the coronavirus.
But he concluded that “nothing yet has been able to kill that famous American spirit that was triggered at Lexington in 1775.” The column ran two days before the killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis.
The first Arthur E. Rowse Press Criticism Award was presented at a November 1997 Club luncheon (moderated by then-president Richard Sammon) to James Fallows, Washington editor of The Atlantic, for his book “Breaking the News: How the Media Undermine American Democracy.” Mike Wallace of “60 Minutes” was the featured speaker, and Ted, in his remarks, expressed hope “that this modest effort will stimulate more and better media analysis” and “shore up the status of potential critics who – I know from personal experience – often take big risks in doing their work.”
The award was later expanded to include a broadcast as well as print category. The 2019 recipients were Paul Farhi of The Washington Post for being “continuously on the prowl for issues that can undermine press credibility,” and the WGBH “Beat the Press” program for its “persistent scrutiny of local media in Boston.”
The reporting of political news, and public and professional criticism of the coverage, have been transformed almost beyond recognition since the creation of the Rowse award. Fox News and the Internet were then new to the scene, Twitter was 10 years in the offing and cable news other than CNN was just revving up. The specter of a U.S. president using his office to systematically demonize the free press, deny objective reality as a governing strategy, use Stalinist epithets to sic large segments of the public on working reporters and even call for the execution of nettlesome American journalists, was of course unthinkable at the time.
His main concern at the close of the 20th Century, Rowse told the luncheon audience, was over ownership “increasingly governed by the Wall Street syndrome that puts profits ahead of journalism and puts entertainment ahead of reporting the news.” He lamented “the continuing absence of any formal self-analysis by the news media," and asked, "What can be more essential to a free society than a press that polices itself responsibly."