TRNN: Paul Jay's Interview with Filmaker, Author, Activist Danny Schecter: R.I.P DANNY! (1942-2015)

Last edited Sat Mar 21, 2015, 10:07 AM - Edit history (1)

Progressive Community Celebrates Life, Work of Danny Schechter (1942-2015)

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/03/20/progressive-community-celebrates-life-work-danny-schechter-1942-2015

The progressive community in the U.S. and beyond is mourning the loss and celebrating the life of friend and colleague Danny Schechter on Friday after news broke that the veteran journalist, filmmaker, and warrior for social justice died on Thursday after a battle with pancreatic cancer.

A note posted late Thursday night on the Mediachannel website, which Schechter co-founded, said simply:

There’s no easy way to say it.
Our friend Danny died earlier today.
He was, and is, loved.

Since his days on local radio in Boston in the 1960s and 70s—where he first became known as the "News Dissector" on Boston area radio—Schechter has long been recognized as one of the key U.S.-based journalists and activists on the issue of Apartheid in South Africa. He was also, in recent decades, among the most consistent and insightful voices across the media landscape speaking out against unjust wars, racism, economic inequality, and the scourge of the corporate-dominated media outlets which persistently refused to cover such issues.

"No one who was in Boston during the days of 'Danny Schechter Your News Dissector' can ever forget the exhilaration of those marvelous broadcasts, their enlightenment and insight and humor, often in dark days. A wonderful person, a valued friend." —Noam Chomsky" Danny Schechter was a legend," said Jeff Cohen, founder of the media watchdog group FAIR and Ithaca College journalism professor, after hearing about the death of his mentor, friend and colleague. "Danny was a legend in the U.S. movement against South African apartheid and a legend in the independent media community since the late 1960s. He was a mentor to so many of us. He always had time for other journalists and activists. When I think of him, I think of the Jewish word ‘mensch’ – a good person, a person of honor and integrity."

"If there was a Godfather to the modern media-reform/media-democracy movement," Cohen continued, "it was Danny."

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JAY: Okay. Before we get into your involvement in the civil rights movement, you're born in what year?SCHECHTER: I was born in 1942.JAY: So you're--.SCHECHTER: A big war, my friend. This was World War II. Okay?JAY: The big war.SCHECHTER: And my father was, you know, in the Army, and my uncle was in the Army as well. So, you know, we grew up in that culture of--in a way, of deprivation, because we didn't have a lot of money. We were dependent on, you know, the salary that a soldier gets. And I went to public school. And fortunately I was able to live in this co-op housing project built by the labor unions in the Bronx. So that's kind of how I was nurtured and where I was nurtured.JAY: So you're ten or 11 years old. You're living in this co-op. Your family's kind of lefty, in trade unions. But it's also now more or less the height of McCarthyism, the House Un-American Activities Committee, Cold War propaganda. And you in some ways are the target of all of that. Are you aware of it as a kid?

SCHECHTER: Well, first of all, my parents were anti-communist, not communists, because there had been bitter fights between the socialists and communists. So they weren't really very sympathetic to the Communist Party and its politics. On the other hand, I was attracted to folk music, and rock and roll later, and that music was the music of Pete Seeger and other people, who were called fellow travelers, people who had really promoted, you know, communist causes and issues. So I was open to it. I wasn't really critical of it so much. But I was learning about politics through music and also through my own family.

JAY: And so your family is socialist but not--but is opposed to the Communist Party.

SCHECHTER: Right.

JAY: And on the other hand, it's a pretty broad brush, McCarthyism and House Un-American Activities Committee. I don't--I mean, anyone on the left--

.SCHECHTER: Well, you know, there was a joke when people protested in Union Square, and the cops chased these activists, and a guy turned around to the policeman. He said, look, I'm an anti-communist. And the policeman said, I don't care what kind of communist you are. So, you know, those distinctions maybe were more clearer to people who were involved politically than they would be to the rest of America and the rest of--.

JAY: Well, that's what I'm getting at. You're clearly not part of the official accepted narrative. Does that affect you as a kid? Are you--embrace that? You're concerned about it?

SCHECHTER: Well, I was aware, you know, of these issues. I was certainly aware of McCarthyism. I became a sort of viewer of Edward R. Murrow, the CBS journalist who took on Senator McCarthy. So my sympathies began to emerge as being critical of the right wing, critical, you know, of people who were opposing change in America and in the world. And then when, you know, in the 1960s, as Africa emerged on the scene, I became very interested in learning more about that through Life magazine, through television, and I became interested in the larger world. So it started for me when I was, you know, 18 years old, graduating from high school, and going to college at Cornell University, listening to African music, listening to protest and folk music, Bob Dylan and others. And I think all of that helped nurture my political outlook.

JAY: So by the beginning of the '60s you start to get really involved.

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