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My Own, My Country's Time : A Journalist's Journey
1983 Algonquin Books hardcover, Vermont Royster (A pride of prejudices). A former editor of the Wall Street Journal shares all he saw in fifty years on the paper.
351 pages, Hardcover
First published October 1, 1983
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 13, 2024
A fine autobiography of the southerner whose nose for news, interest in reporting it, and fluency in writing it - led to him becoming the editor of the editorial page and later the editor in chief of The Wall Street Journal for many years, then a professor, then again at the WSJ. The book is a mix of personal tale in the South, then in the Navy during World War II, working briefly in new York, then a long stay in reporting Washington D.C. in the 1940s-1960s, then as an editor back in New York, then as a professor and global traveler (and sailor).
The book has the right mix of the personal and his own views on the events of his time. Vermont Royster is a former Pulitzer Prize winning editor - he can write VERY well - and is a pleasure to read. The book is not a searing self-examination - no real revelations about living in the 20th century or the nature of families, etc. -- perhaps the lack of introspection is both the result of his own success throughout his life and his general temperament (interested more in the world than in himself). A good read
The book has the right mix of the personal and his own views on the events of his time. Vermont Royster is a former Pulitzer Prize winning editor - he can write VERY well - and is a pleasure to read. The book is not a searing self-examination - no real revelations about living in the 20th century or the nature of families, etc. -- perhaps the lack of introspection is both the result of his own success throughout his life and his general temperament (interested more in the world than in himself). A good read
June 17, 2019
In this autobiography, Vermont Royster (1914-1996), former editor of the Wall Street Journal, notes that when he published personal thoughts about small matters they would bring in "far more letters than a more 'significant' column on a major political issue." That same hierarchy seems to hold true of the book as well. Royster's commentary on his childhood and youth is full of engaging detail, whereas his comments about the influential politicians he interviewed at the height of his career seem commonplace by comparison. So, the book draws the reader in with its careful prose and good humor and then eventually disappoints because the original tone can't be maintained. A further problem is that Royster, a moderate conservative, has no religious, and few philosophical, anchors for his editorial positions, or at least few he cares to share with the reader.
April 25, 2020
The author’s life happened to span most of the twentieth century, and his reflections over the time about events experienced both personally and professionally, are a nice prompt for the reader to review the same time period.
The introductory chapter sets the foundation: a secure childhood of the 1920s in the small southern city of Raleigh, North Carolina, followed by an atypical education in Latin, Greek, the classics—and lots of writing composition—at a Tennessee prep school, then the University of North Carolina. After college graduation he made his first trip to New York, hoping to relay his experience on a college newspaper into work at one of the many newspapers in the big city. But for a full year he worked as a cafeteria busboy, a bank errand runner, and a news messenger boy, as he was repeatedly turned down for “real jobs” at all of the city’s newspapers and magazines. Until he almost accidentally noticed that there was a small 35,000-circulation paper called The Wall Street Journal, and brashly offered himself at the unguarded office of its editor, to be hired temporarily at $15 per week. It was 1936.
The rest of the book is a retrospective of the national turbulence for which he possessed a front row seat to the stage upon which the dramas unfolded. And there was a lot of drama, much of which has been, if not forgotten, at least largely set aside since the 1983 publication date of this volume. Over a half-century career as reporter, editor, and columnist, Vermont Royster would have access to the next eight American presidents (either before, during, or after their respective elections), many of their cabinet officers, multiple congressmen, business people, military representatives, and a few leaders of other countries around the world. Meanwhile, the news organization he represented and eventually helped to manage grew into a national newspaper of more than 2,000,000 subscribers.
The only career time-out he took was for a four-year commission captaining ships in the US Navy during the Second World War. Before that interim he reported the news directly from Washington during the long economic Depression that went on and on; afterward, reassigned by the Journal to its home office in New York City, he and the paper kept abreast of the national experiences of economic inflation, the Korean War, civil rights legislation, the Cold War, war in Viet Nam, and a growing public unrest manifest by city riots, union worker strikes, student takeovers of college campuses, and shocking assassinations of a president, of his younger brother candidate for president, and of the leading advocate for civil rights legal protection. An exception to seemingly endless troubles was the triumph of space science to land humans onto the surface of the moon, but even NASA endured space tragedies from imperfect rockets. Presidential administrations followed one on another with seeming incapacity to calm the restlessness.
Unfortunately for the reader, the timeline ends just as the administration of President Reagan was getting underway, when political events would soon bring about at least an interlude of happier times. Nevertheless, the volume is a most worthy review and recognition of six decades of some of America's memorable struggles to abide. All made personal in a way that one can pretend to have been there with the author.
The introductory chapter sets the foundation: a secure childhood of the 1920s in the small southern city of Raleigh, North Carolina, followed by an atypical education in Latin, Greek, the classics—and lots of writing composition—at a Tennessee prep school, then the University of North Carolina. After college graduation he made his first trip to New York, hoping to relay his experience on a college newspaper into work at one of the many newspapers in the big city. But for a full year he worked as a cafeteria busboy, a bank errand runner, and a news messenger boy, as he was repeatedly turned down for “real jobs” at all of the city’s newspapers and magazines. Until he almost accidentally noticed that there was a small 35,000-circulation paper called The Wall Street Journal, and brashly offered himself at the unguarded office of its editor, to be hired temporarily at $15 per week. It was 1936.
The rest of the book is a retrospective of the national turbulence for which he possessed a front row seat to the stage upon which the dramas unfolded. And there was a lot of drama, much of which has been, if not forgotten, at least largely set aside since the 1983 publication date of this volume. Over a half-century career as reporter, editor, and columnist, Vermont Royster would have access to the next eight American presidents (either before, during, or after their respective elections), many of their cabinet officers, multiple congressmen, business people, military representatives, and a few leaders of other countries around the world. Meanwhile, the news organization he represented and eventually helped to manage grew into a national newspaper of more than 2,000,000 subscribers.
The only career time-out he took was for a four-year commission captaining ships in the US Navy during the Second World War. Before that interim he reported the news directly from Washington during the long economic Depression that went on and on; afterward, reassigned by the Journal to its home office in New York City, he and the paper kept abreast of the national experiences of economic inflation, the Korean War, civil rights legislation, the Cold War, war in Viet Nam, and a growing public unrest manifest by city riots, union worker strikes, student takeovers of college campuses, and shocking assassinations of a president, of his younger brother candidate for president, and of the leading advocate for civil rights legal protection. An exception to seemingly endless troubles was the triumph of space science to land humans onto the surface of the moon, but even NASA endured space tragedies from imperfect rockets. Presidential administrations followed one on another with seeming incapacity to calm the restlessness.
Unfortunately for the reader, the timeline ends just as the administration of President Reagan was getting underway, when political events would soon bring about at least an interlude of happier times. Nevertheless, the volume is a most worthy review and recognition of six decades of some of America's memorable struggles to abide. All made personal in a way that one can pretend to have been there with the author.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews