LETTERS FROM HOME: TRAGEDY AND TRUTH AND HOW HORSES ARE LIKE CARS ARE LIKE MEN

Aug. 20, 1998

Dear Mike,

Thanks for the letter. I didn't know your daughter was interested in journalism. If I had known, I would have warned you that she may fall in and out of love with it over and over again.

Lots of people leave disenchanted with the hours, the pay, the diurnal pressure to produce, and sometimes with the frustration at not being able to remake the world like you do the front page every day.

Many reporters are idealists, and some armor themselves with cynicism for protection. Tell Alexandra it's a false game.

We have been seeing journalism at its worst this year as the information-starved wolf pack tears at a president. But between Clinton, Lewinsky, Tripp, Starr and the press, there's enough irresponsibility to go around and around again.

Because we have been dragged through the tawdriness daily, wrenching tragedy from this affair is difficult. The tragedy appears when you look at this scene through your daughter's eyes or Chelsea Clinton's. What attitudes toward men, toward fathers, people in authority, government and the media will they derive from this?

Who uttered those unfortunately immortal words, "There are some things a man's got to do"? Probably Hemingway. The flip side, "Boys will be boys," is a cynical attitude women friends often have adopted when confronted with some male treachery. But you could tell they were both mystified and dismayed all the same.

I interviewed a 16-year-old girl who is very good at riding horses and asked whether some breeds of horses are smarter than others . She said no, horses are like people. Some are smarter than others, and some just take longer to understand. Then she offered, "My mom says horses are like cars -- there's always a better one. In parentheses, she added, "She says the same thing about men."

The stinging truth of those words is as unavoidable as the mother's underlying message to her daughter: Work with what you've got. Take care of it. Bill Clinton should have paid better attention to his mother.

These breathless days of August remind me of Nixon's resignation and the scandal that seemed to seal the distrust toward government sewn in its youngest generation by the Vietnam War. Watergate flooded journalism schools with people who wanted to be like Woodward and Bernstein. I knew some of them.

Like Bill Clinton, they were bright and ambitious. Their game was hardball no matter the consequences. Sometimes they forgot there are always consequences.

You write of the hurt you knew would well up when you left Alexandra at school Saturday and drove the four hours home to Cape Girardeau. She's fortunate to have a father so free to feel. I'm guessing she has grown up the same way. Openness will make her a better journalist.

The good journalism does isn't anywhere on the talk shows or in the exposes. It's in words or images that convey some truth about a man's life or a woman's tragedy. It's in knowing and being able to express how another human being feels. This is the gift all of us have for each other -- sharing how it is to be human. Anyone can do it at any moment.

Thanks for the letter.

Sam

~Sam Blackwell is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.