Could There Be Another Walter Winchell Today - Essay Example

Winchell became a national institution in the 1920s, with a daily column and a weekly radio broadcast. These Media helped him to reach millions of Americans. "the way to become famous fast is to throw a brick at someone who is famous" claimed Winchell. Ironically, this statement perfectly matches the character. Winchell spent his entire career gossiping on the lives of Broadway and Hollywood stars. Nevertheless, Winchell can not be summed up only as a gossip journalist. He was the first one to attack Hitler and American pro-fascists and pro-Nazis during the Second World War.

In that point of view, Winchell remains an example as - even nowadays - journalists do not usually take sides for or against one movement. Naturally, they express an opinion, an opinion that can be seen as expressing an unbiased vision, but Winchell did more than that. He was the first journalist to shout what others whispered. In that prospect, Winchell is one of a kind and until now, no other journalists can be compared to him in his manner and his style. On the other, the fact that Winchell took sides and was publicly involved in politics may have caused his decline.

In the 1950s ha supported Senator Joseph McCarthy during his hunt of the communists in institutions, politics, and entertainment. Winchell's decline started with McCarthy's failure and unpopularity. In the 1960s Winchell's home paper, the New York Daily Mirror closed, he was left jobless and the public began to forget about him. It seems like his popularity faded like a Hollywood star who would have shot a series of bad movies, insisted that they were masterpieces, and kept doing all the inappropriate moves to be noticed.

However, it is difficult to say that Winchell is unique, as he created a new movement in journalism. Today, there are a lot of journalists who are doing what Winchell did at that time. But, the fact is that Winchell exposing the private lives of Broadway and Hollywood stars can not be seen today as something extraordinary as the press is filled with that type of journalist. Some channels are entirely dedicated to gossip - we could only give the example of E! Entertainment television to name only one.

In a way, the press is full of Walter Winchell but nobody can ever be like him. As if journalists have learned from Winchell's errors and decided to remain journalists and not to be part of the political scene or any whatsoever. Are they making a mistake history of Walter Winchell is not only filled with outrageous scandals? He was also a subtle journalist making inside "gossips". For instance, his long-time ghostwriter Herman Klurfeld recalls an item from the 1930s about Joe Kennedy.: "I had learned that one of his mistresses was a gangster's widow.

Now, we never linked a married man with another woman. What I wrote was 'one of FDR's aides has (a gangster's) widow as his captive.' K-E-P-T-I-V-E -- that's all. The only one who knew who we were referring to was Joe Kennedy." Naturally, he was not this tender with all the artists. One of today's best-read gossip columnist Liz Smith remembers that once Winchell reported that Bette Davis had cancer of the jaw, some press agent said "Well, I don't know whether she has it or not, but if she doesn't have it, she'd better get it!". This was exactly the kind of reaction that Winchell expected while writing or animating his show on the radio.

Finally, one