Alfredisms

The Polk Progress was a Nebraska treasure that ceased publication in late 1989 after 82 years as a weekly newspaper. From 1955 until its last issue, the editor and publisher was the late Norris Alfred. In its last few months, the Progress had 900 subscribers in 45 states. Alfred was a remarkable Nebraskan with an uncanny eye for connecting the present with the future. Prairie Fire has collaborated with the Alfred family, the University of Nebraska School of Journalism and the Nebraska State Historical Society to locate and archive many of Norris's writings. We are capitalizing on our good fortune to present many of the Norris Alfred writings to our readership. We believe that his observations are as fresh and relevant to today's world as they were when originally written.

September 25, 1980
"News, News, and News"

The centralization of news-gathering and publishing is as much an abhorrence as concentration of farming into fewer and larger farms, a development we regard as anti-democratic. Just as agriculture in the United States is being industrialized, news-gathering and telling has become an industry. News is big business.

Our view of a democratic society emphasizes the small because that promotes diversity. As individuals we cope within our daily visible circles of awareness. These are physically limited by the daytime horizon which, at its greatest, might have a radius of 20 miles on this tableland between the Platte and Blue Rivers in Nebraska. At night the circle shrinks.

This provincialism is important. Its resultant diversity adds a richness to our living. We need to keep our individuality and reject national homogeneity. Before instant mass communication developed, provincialism was the way of life in the United States. Neighborhood meant more than just living nearby. Included were points of reference providing a logic that justified attitude and belief.

We are not claiming the attitudes and beliefs were right, only that they existed. Neighborhood was a mental as well as physical map of individual life. No more. Neighborhood retains its physical characteristics but is losing mental points of reference. Again, we are not deploring nor praising, only stating what is happening.

In conjunction with mass communication, mass distribution has brought about what one critic termed our “Coca-Cola civilization.”

Mass communication has a leveling effect, similar to land-leveling, that removes the humps, hillocks and slopes of difference. The verity of sameness equates with the verity of repetition discouraging originality. We tend to think the same because our information derives from a common source.
Concentration of news-gathering and telling into fewer and larger entities is a worrisome centralization of power because it has a destabilizing influence on a democratic society. Television news reporting has made visible to the viewer and reader what a jungle national journalism has become. Personalities prevail. Walter Cronkite's news differs from John Chancellor’s though both are telling the same stories. Barbara Walters, the million-dollar baby (remember that song?) condescends to interview if the one being interviewed will enhance her status.

Concentration of power is anti-democratic, no matter the category—political, religious, industrial, agricultural—of society in which it occurs. Power is inversely proportional to the number wielding it. The more sources we have for news, the less influential is any one source.

We have been watching with concern, regret and, occasionally, horror at what is happening to farming and newspapering, along with other changes that have altered our living and outlook. Perhaps we should blame our changing attitude and belief on age. We do know with certainty the struggle to escape the trap of sameness and maintain individuality is becoming futile.

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