Robertson, Writer, Says Social Sciences Necessary for Political Correspondents

More young men fortified with the practical experience of college newspaper work, and with the theoretical background of the social sciences, are needed as political writers, stated Nathan Robertson, Washington correspondent for PM and winner of the Heywood Broun award for the outstanding liberal newspaperman of 1944.

"It is very important for us to have more Washington newspapermen qualified to write on economic subjects, including complicated issues of public finance and world trade," explains Robertson, who is studying here under the aegis of the Nieman foundation. "There are too many in Washington," he continues, "who can handle only some of our public issues from the political angle, as they would a local story on machine politics."

Post War Job Great

According to the veteran journalist, who has spent 20 years in the field, these men will be needed "to analyze and explain to the public the proposals worked out after the war for achieving world peace and making our economic machine function." "Newspapermen," he believes, "need four important assets: a good working knowledge of the profession, an inquisitive mind, a cynical skepticism, and an ability to write plain English."

Robertson has had a varied and colorful career. After working on the business board of the Michigan University daily, he got a job as a cub reporter on the Washington Times, a Hearst paper, and followed his apprenticeship there by a ten year term as correspondent for the Associated and United Press services.

Dislike Curbs on Free Expression

"I got disgusted with newspaper work, then," he relates, "because I found that a journalist cannot write what he wants on contemporary economic subjects." While granting the relative freedom of the American press, Robertson points out that "every reporter knows how his paper or press association wants an article written. Newspapers are big businesses, and are naturally on the conservative side of things."

After two years as Assistant Director of Information for the Farm Security Administration, Robertson applied for a position on the newly founded New York daily, PM, and was assigned to its Washington bureau.

"I had always felt that this country needed a newspaper that would print news that wasn't being printed," the quiet journalist adds, "and many of us had dreams of a paper that had no advertising." It was with the founding of PM in 1940 that Robertson returned to active newspaper work.

Since then, his profession has carried him all over the country to cover political events of national significance, besides affording him the usual diet of Senate debates, Congressional committee meetings, and White House press conferences. Robertson considers his coverage of the 1940 Republican convention his most stimulating experience.

Blitzkrieg Nominated Willkie

"The utility companies organized a terrific telegraphic barrage for Willkie," he recalls. "The one thing that put him in was this blitzkrieg which made it seem as if he had the public in back of him." Although his 1940 campaign was conservative, Robertson emphasizes, the Republican leader underwent a change toward liberalism in the four years that followed. "He became more educated," Robertson claims, "and his unsuccessful Wisconsin campaign was decent and honest."

In answer to PM's opponents who dislike the paper's liberal bias, Robertson points out, "it doesn't pretend to be impartial," "At least when you read a story in PM," he concludes, "you know that the author believes it."