Journalism

Review: Pivot Points

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Cover image of "Pivot Points" by Marvin Olasky

Pivot Points, Marvin Olasky. P & R Publishing (ISBN: 9781629959535), 2024.

Summary: Pivot points of a compassionate conservative, a memoir tracing the journalistic and writing career of Marvin Olasky, former editor in chief of World magazine.

Encountering Olasky

My only other encounter with Marvin Olasky was reading his book Abortion Rites (review here). I was stunned to find this pro-life Christian write about the prevalence of abortion in in the U.S. pre-Roe v. Wade when abortion was outlawed. It gave the lie to the illusion that banning abortion would eliminate it. He estimated that there were as many as 160,000 abortions a year in the non-slave population of pre-Civil War America. He went on in that book to propose a more sophisticated strategy than laws that included moral suasion and compassion.

I discovered someone who combined conviction with uncompromising honesty and journalistic integrity, and a healthy dose of compassion. In fact, this last quality would follow him as he was characterized as the “Father of Compassionate Conservatism.” All these qualities, as well as a self-deprecating humility characterize this memoir of a journalist who went from an atheist-communist to a committed Christian editor of a Christian news magazine, World. Olasky traces that life journey as a series of pivot points.

Olasky’s Pivot Points

Atheist Communist to Theist.

The first “Act” in the book describes Olasky’s journey from a Jewish upbringing to atheism, and in the context of the Vietnam war to Communism. for Olasky, Communism was a kind of addiction. Coupled with his turn to journalism from philosophy, Olasky became a rising star in Communist circles. Meanwhile, biking across America with his new wife, he began a career art a small Oregon paper. Neither the job nor the marriage lasts long. Subsequently, he is accepted into a Ph.D program at the University of Michigan. Here, he makes his first major pivot. At 3 pm on a November day, he sat down to read a work of Lenin and by 11 pm that night, walked out of the library, not yet a Christian, but a theist.

From Marriage to Tenure in Texas.

While at Michigan, Olasky meets Susan Northway, who he marries. Both want to know more about God and come to faith in a Baptist church in San Diego while he was fulfilling a one year appointment. He recounts his growth in an Indiana church while working on a Christian anti-Communist Crusade, followed by a brief stint at Dupont that ended when he could not lie in publicity for a chemical linked to bladder cancer. Then, he accepts a tenure-track position at University of Texas, teaching journalism. He is forthright about his Christian stance in his writing, but productive enough that he wins tenure. And it seemed time to settle down

From Research and Writing to Political Insider

Then life changed again with an offer of a research fellowship in Washington, resulting in the publication of The Tragedy of American Compassion. In the book, Olasky critiques government funded social welfare programs as a failure because of the impersonal, bureaucratic nature of them. He advocates “compassionate conservatism” and faith-based personal interventions. A niche publisher picked up the book. Then Newt Gingrich discovered and touted it. Suddenly, Olasky was in great demand, and his language of “compassionate conservatism” was picked up by George W. Bush in his presidential campaign. His account of the rise and fall of faith-based efforts warns of what has often happened when religious conservatives engage in politics. My one concern is that he does not address the role of the state in addressing inequities “baked into” the system. Private charity and personal initiative leave these untouched.

Magazine Editor and Professor

During his brief brush with politics, Olasky agreed to become editor of a Christian news magazine, World. As a result, he could practice what he taught. These chapters were some of my favorites in the book. He describes the journalistic independence of World. Although working in the evangelical world, they enjoyed board support for controversial articles about evangelical figures. They set standards for rigorous, non-partisan journalism. And they trained young interns, who lived with the Olaskys and were subject to his red pen, becoming better writers in the process.

From Turbulence to Contentment

Then comes the Trump years. World offended subscribers supporting the former president in its reporting. Then the board shifts, introducing a World Opinions section not subject to editorial oversight. Olasky describes the painful process of resigning and his struggle to grieve and forgive. He had planned to retire and hand off his work. Instead, World shifted under his feet. But he ends in a space of contentment and praise, although I sense this story is still unfinished.

The book also includes two appendices from this period. One is a reflection on the World shakeup. Olasky offers insightful comments about living by journalistic integrity. The other describes how he saved World millions by honest reporting on election fraud claims. While other news outlets got sued for false claims about voting machines, they told the truth no one wanted to hear.

Final Comments

Marvin Olasky offers hope that journalistic integrity is neither an oxymoron nor a joke. Sadly, his is a conservative voice largely absent from our current discourse. He looks at complex issues, ferrets out the evidence, and follows the truth where it takes him. He showed compassion not merely in his writing but in his personal care for interns. He strikes me as one, in our highly polarized moment, who occupies the courageous middle. He also mentored several generations of journalists. I hope they will lead a return to integrity in their profession. Above all, Olasky models living by faith and offers an example of Eugene Peterson’s “long obedience in the same direction.” All these things make this succinct, fast-moving memoir worth the read.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: Shocking The Conscience

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Shocking the Conscience, Simeon Booker with Carol McCabe Booker. Jackson, MI: University Press of Mississippi, 2013.

Summary: A memoir of Simeon Booker’s career as a reporter, much of it during the height of the Civil Rights movement from the murder of Emmett Till to the busing battles of the 1970’s and beyond.

I became interested in Simeon Booker because both of us grew up in Youngstown, Ohio. Booker moved there as a child from Baltimore, Maryland, his father the first director of the Black YMCA in Youngstown and later a pastor on Youngstown’s South side. Other than a poem in the Vindicator and his early writing experience for the Buckeye Review (the Black newspaper in Youngstown), there is little here about his time in Youngstown.

He went away to college when he encountered discrimination at Youngstown College. Following stints at Black newspapers in Baltimore and Cleveland, he qualified for a Nieman fellowship at Harvard and was hired as the first Black reporter at the Washington Post. After a few years of lackluster assignments, he was recruited to open the Washington bureau for Johnson publications, publisher of Ebony and the weekly news digest Jet. Booker occupied this post from 1956 until his retirement in 2007.

Much of the book chronicles his on-the-ground coverage of decisive moments of the Civil Rights movement. We ride on the edge of the seat with him and his photographer, trying to pass as Black ministers with a Bible on their seat to cover early Civil Rights gatherings in the deep South. We ache with him as he writes the stories of the murder and open casket funeral of Emmett Till and then sweat through the trial at the small table given “Negro” press until the acquittal of Till’s murderers. He covers the story of the Little Rock Nine who attempt integrate Central High School. Later he describes the confrontation at the Edmund Pettus Bridge and the eventual march to Montgomery, Alabama

Perhaps the most harrowing account was his travel on one of two busses ridden by Freedom Riders testing the enforcement of laws integrating interstate travel in the South. He describes the worries he has for passengers on the other bus when it was firebombed and narrates the beating of passengers on his bus while the bus driver and police stay away. Somehow, he managed to get a call through to Bobby Kennedy, who he had become friends with and who invited him to call if he needed help. That call got the Riders out of trouble.

He gives an illuminating account of his travels in Vietnam, where he covered the treatment of Blacks in the military and the disproportionate numbers in the thick of the fighting. He went through fire fights, and a helicopter flight with William Westmoreland with rifle rounds pinging off the skin of the helicopter, describing it as feeling safer than driving into the deep South.

The other part of his narrative is his relationships with different presidents, from Eisenhower to Obama. He describes the promising talk and disappointing actions of Eisenhower, the promise of Kennedy, with increased access and the initiation of Civil Rights legislation accomplished under Lyndon Johnson, a southern Democrat. a cooler relationship with Richard Nixon, the advances under Carter in appointing Black judges to the bench and to many other positions. He has less to say about the Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Bush years. In fact the period from Nixon to Obama is covered in about 25 pages, with a portion dedicated to the Congressional Black Caucus.

Most of the book is focused on about a fifteen year period from the early 1950’s to the late 1960’s. On the one hand, there is so much to which Booker was a witness in these years and his first hand narrative of many of these events fills out other histories of them I have read. Yet it seems so much more could have been told of the ensuing years and both the advances for Blacks and the shifts in the Republican party’s strength among white Southern voters leading to our current political divisions. One has the feeling that this might have been part of a two volume work were it not for Booker’s passing in 2017, a few years after its publication.

Nevertheless, Booker was an amazing journalist. His publisher said he never had to correct or retract a story by Booker, even under the duress of someone like Lyndon Johnson. He established high standards for journalism, not just Black journalism, while focusing on the issues and stories that concerned Black people. His career underscores the value of a free press, and the courage journalists have always shown to “get the story.” This is not a narrative of bombastic rhetoric but comes across as the quiet, deliberate unfolding of the larger story of which all those stories were a part, and Booker’s own witness to a critical portion of our nation’s history, when the Civil Rights movement “shocked the conscience” of the nation.