He may become preoccupied by this one issue and find himself a stranger to the larger, more important events in the world today, a provincial fellow. There is, I believe, a need for a new approach in reporting the kind of social change that is going on in the South today. Certainly deadpan rendering of facts is not helping to bridge the gap of misunderstanding that exists between races and groups involved. It cannot all be attributed to blind prejudice. Obviously, there is a limit to what wire services can do under the most favorable circumstances.
Most newspapers seem content to continue under the old formulas.
Last summer, during trial of a lawsuit for admission of a Negro to the University of Mississippi, an unusual opportunity presented itself for conveying some of the deeper meaning involved. The trial was conducted in a federal courtroom under a giant mural painted in the 1930's by a WPA artist. It was meant to depict rebuilding of the South but within the stereotyped framework of the Old Southforward-looking whites working and planning in front of a large columned building with magnolia trees and a steamboat in the background, while Negroes, segregated, pick cotton or strum a banjo. Those two scenes told a lot about the way things are and the way people think they are, about the past and about the future. We moved a story on it.