"The Facts and nothing But the Facts."; How History and stories are written

(This story is written in celebration of my college professor David W. Noble of the U of Minn on the occasion of his 80th birthday. Fifteen years ago they established a Special Chair in his honor, the usual token of retirement. David never noticed. Today his schedule is busier than ever. Hundreds of his students have been inspired by Dave over the years to go into teaching. Yes, he published 10 books----but teaching was the love of his life. Happy Birthday, Dave.)

Years ago, one of my favorite shows, was Dragnet. I think some of this series was in black and white---anyway, Jack Webb would speed to the scene in that old 1940's Dodge and interview the witness. "The facts and nothing but the facts," he would say. It really was a struggle between the lies and the facts. Pure and simple.

Later when I was in college, of of my prof's favorite phrases was "The facts and nothing but the facts." Not in a reverential tone of voice, but in a satiric tone. In American History, due to the influence of The Frontier Thesis, there had grown the myth that America was not like anyone else----on the frontier we were purified by nature and we did not have any of those foreign European crazy ideas like aristocracy, religion or superstition. We lived in touch with real down home reality. Thus, in the long tradition of Presidents, even if our President say went to Yale, we still always thought of him as one of those down home cowboys just tending the ranch. Each President has a little of the cowboy in him.

The major point of all my prof's teasing was that when you write something----you cannot get out of the fact that YOU are involved. You have a point of view. Before you even lift up the pen it is best to understand where you are coming from or what you write is probably going to be nonsense. Whether it about local politics or national politics or just a fictional sketch, there is just no such thing as total understanding of what "the neutral facts" are. If there were such a thing, there would not be such a big effort to write the story or even understand what it was all about.

Thus--most folks who say "You didn't get the facts straight," many times really mean that the story was not written the way they would have preferred. Instead of making the person look like a hero, some embarassing fact may have been revealed. Alas.

I even have the problem sometimes with the camera. When folks take a picture of me, I simply say "That's not the way I really look. That is a bad picture." In fact, it has even extended to mirrors. I feel so young, but the mirror just does not do me justice. I have solved this by removing the mirrors.

Recently during a local election, one correspondent from a paper asked me "Do you think you are OBJECTIVE?"

My reply was, "HUH?" "I just begin the story. My readers finish it. They correct me along the way. "

I always enjoyed that Dragnet show. It is just too bad that life did not turn out so black and white. Something broke down somewhere -----like that old 1940's Dodge. I don't ever remember Jack Webb having so many stories from a suspect that he finally blew up because he got confused about the facts. The facts came pretty quickly. After all he just had a half hour show.

In life, and in the news biz, sometimes the facts take a whole lot longer than a half hour. Stay tuned.

(Click on the post for a bio sketch of Frederick Jackson Turner. He was an important charter Prof of the U. of Wisconsin and author of The Frontier Thesis.)