Egon Erwin Kisch, the Raging Reporter: A Bio-Anthology

Preface to Classical Journalism

Preface to (fan;calJOlJrnalifm To anyone who has for years been preoccupied with theoretical questions concerning the nature of journalism, above all with the newspaper as the advocate ofnew intellectual directions and with inquiries into the energy and duration ofthe journalistic filtering process, the commission ofthis publisher, editing an anthology ofrenowned journalists may seem an easy undertaking. But even the procurement of the raw material (books and especially volumes of newspapers from abroad) encountered serious obstacles, and still more difficult was the selection of names and works. All intellectual struggles of the modem period, from the Reformation to psychoanalysis, from the Irish struggle for independence to expressionism, have been waged in the columns ofnewspapers. Of the names that have come down through the centuries, not one is missing among the authors of such articles, scarcely anyone of the philosophers, ethicists, poets, artists, revolutionariesand reformers, politicians, and military commanders. Ahundred and fifty ofthese,major figures, to whom the newspaper was especially important and who were especially important for the newspaper. In the final analysis, it was doable. But which of their articles to choose? It had to be one that was decisive for the·author, for the idea represented, and for history, and one that also demonstrates the essence ofhis manner, through style, form, and occasion. Accordingly, it was difficult to select, transcribe, and then translate (where necessary) this somehow most striking essay from the hefty collected works of an author who led his times and shaped them or from the tomes of old issues of newspapers. But it was Egon Erwin KiHhI the Raging Reporter still much more difficult and painful to have to tinker with this now reanimated organism-to remove something from it so that the anthology might itselfnot become amultivolumed tome, from which an anthology would then have to be compiled in tum. However, no sooner had acontribution by one of the major figures been targeted, when the editor, who now had at hand the entire work of the author and was excited by it, found, in the course of what he presumed to be his private reading, a better or more representative article. When this occurred, the original contribution had to be dropped. The range of material was limited only by the decision not to subsume under the rubric of classical journalism any author who is still under current. discussion, that is, still tarrying among the physically living. The great publicistic issues of the World War, the revolutions, the transformation of states, and peace, as well as the philosophical and artistic issues of today should be reserved for an analogous work possibly titled "Contemporary Journalism." , Anyone who has ever entered the field of journalism, or· has ever propagated on behalf of any cause, has-in the comprehensive history of intellectual struggles-a predecessor who can serve him as a model or a warning. Can he discover him? That is a task whose difficulty has been characterized here with somejustification. Butifhe wants to, in this anthology he must experience both the trial and the stimulation through his unknown master. The establishment of just such continuity is urgently needed. Quite apart from the fact that the journalist, if only because he is forceful and often repeats himself, must speak to masses of a certain sort, the danger of writing himselfdry and rigidity ofform is greaterfor him than for any other intellectual producer. He must,therefore, procure for himselfanew tool or at least sharpen the old one anew. This renewal demands reflection, rest, and asupply ofenergy, and it makes no difference from which source of the spirit it is acquired. But does that not mean, viewing itpositively, that ifdevotionto artistic achievement can be connected to such renewal, one can learn how before-in the same situation-a master had tried to resolve the problem? Only history provides information on how the game went. History provides information ... It is history that has added its verdict to every pleading. And that should make an anthology ofclassical journalism aprimer ofthe nation. People must learn that the spiritual can be encountered lbo Preface to {fauical Journalifm only through the spiritual, not through thejudgmentofacourt, an assassination, or lies. People must learn that it is not the better cause thatachieves the earthly victory, but the better-argued cause. And that it counts for nothing if one is unconquered on land and on sea; the war of humanity can only be lost when one...