Ben-hur Haig Bagdikian[2] (January 30, 1920 – March 11, 2016) was an American journalist, news media critic and commentator,[3] and university professor.
An Armenian genocide survivor, he moved to the United States as an infant and began a journalism career after serving in World War II.
In 1971, he received parts of the Pentagon Papers from Daniel Ellsberg and successfully persuaded The Washington Post to publish them despite objections and threats from the Richard Nixon administration.
[4] His 1983 book The Media Monopoly, warning about the growing concentration of corporate ownership of news organizations, went through several editions and influenced, among others, Noam Chomsky.
[14] Bagdikian grew up during the Great Depression, which, according to Robert D. McFadden, enforced a "passion for social justice that shaped his reporting.
"[14] Due to his father's role, Bagdikian regularly attended sermons and "disliked the avenging God of the Old Testament and was outraged when Abraham was prepared to obey the order to sacrifice his son as a gesture of faith.
[10] Bagdikian initially aspired to become a doctor because of his mother's illness and his father's collection of books on pulmonary diseases that he read.
Bagdikian and Journal editor and publisher Sevellon Brown won a Peabody Award in 1951 for their "most exacting, thorough and readable check-up of broadcasts" of Walter Winchell, Drew Pearson, and Fulton Lewis, leading TV and radio commentators.
[14][5] He was a member of the staff that received the 1953 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting, Edition Time for coverage of a bank robbery in East Providence (including an ensuing police chase and hostage standoff) that resulted in the death of a patrolman.
[32] In the fall of that year he traveled to the South with black reporter James "Jim" N. Rhea[30][14] to cover the widespread discontent of the whites with the Supreme Court order to desegregate public schools.
Bagdikian researched news media at the RAND Corporation in 1969–70 and published a book titled The Information Machines: Their Impact on Men and the Media in 1971․ Edwin B. Parker of Stanford University praised the report for its readability, and breadth and depth of Bagdikian's "perception of technological and economic trends and his insight into potential social and political consequences.
[8][5] In June 1971 Bagdikian, as the assistant managing editor for national news at the Post, met with Daniel Ellsberg, a military analyst and former RAND Corporation colleague, who in a Boston-area motel[36] passed him 4,000 pages of the Pentagon Papers, excerpts from which were published by The New York Times days earlier and halted by a federal judge.
[38][39][8][5] While the Post lawyers and management were opposed,[40] Bagdikian argued strongly in favor of publication of the documents despite pressure from the Nixon administration not to on national security grounds.
In a landmark decision, the Supreme Court decided 6–3 that "to exercise prior restraint, the Government must show sufficient evidence that the publication would cause a 'grave and irreparable' danger.
[46] He reported "widespread racial tension behind bars, outbursts of violence, open 'homosexualism' and an elaborate, yet fragile, code of etiquette."
"[52] Bagdikian was an early advocate of in-house critics, or ombudsmen in newspapers, who he believed, would "address public concerns about journalistic practices.
"[52] Bagdikian criticized the wide use of anonymous sources in news media, the acceptance of government narratives by reporters, particularly on "national security" grounds.
"[51] Regarding online journalism, Bagdikian stated that there is "lots of junk on it, but it's still an outlet for an independent with no money but plenty of ingenuity and skill, like MoveOn.org.
[14] In 1987 Bagdikian testified on the effects of profit on news reporting before the House Energy Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, along with economist John Kenneth Galbraith.
[14] His studies at the RAND Corporation produced two books: The Information Machines: Their Impact on Men and the Media and The Effete Conspiracy and Other Crimes by the Press, published by Harper & Row in 1971 and 1972, respectively.
[8][56] In 1983 Bagdikian authored a widely cited and acclaimed work,[57] The Media Monopoly, which was published by Beacon Press after it was rejected by Simon & Schuster.
"[60] The book examines the increasing concentration of the media in the US in the hands of corporate owners, which, he argued, threatened freedom of expression and independent journalism.
"[8] The book became a "standard text for many college classes"[64] and, along with Manufacturing Consent by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, in the opinion of Neil Henry, is a work that is the "most widely cited scholarly work about the effects of economics on modern news media practices, including market and political pressures that determine news content.
[66] The Christian Science Monitor, though accepting such problems, declared that it is a "groundbreaking work that charts a historic shift in the orientation of the majority of America's communications media—further away from the needs of the individual and closer to those of big business.
He stated: "I think Ralph Nader has already powerfully defined the issues in this campaign and has had influence on the positions of both major party candidates.
"[74] Arthur S. Hayes, Fordham University professor, wrote in his 2008 book Press Critics Are the Fifth Estate that Bagdikian has been "farsighted, inspirational, influential, long lasting, and a forerunner.
"[75][5] Sociologist Alfred McClung Lee praised Bagdikian as having the virtues of both an investigative journalist and a participant-observing social scientist.
[81] Progressive journalist and writer John Nichols, writing for The Nation, called Bagdikian a "pioneering media reformer.
[90] The fellowship program of the progressive magazine Mother Jones is named for Bagdikian due to his "professional record, his personal integrity, and his commitment to social justice.