The Voice of America: Lowell Thomas and the Invention of 20th-Century Journalism

by Mitchell Stephens

Overview

**WINNER, Sperber Prize 2018, for the best biography of a journalist**

The first and definitive biography of an audacious adventurer—the most famous journalist of his time—who more than anyone invented contemporary journalism.

Tom Brokaw says: "Lowell Thomas so deserves this lively account of his legendary life. He was a man for all seasons."

“Mitchell Stephens’s The Voice of America is a first-rate and much-needed biography of the great Lowell Thomas. Nobody can properly understand broadcast journalism without reading Stephens’s riveting account of this larger-than-life globetrotting radio legend.” —Douglas Brinkley, Professor of History at Rice University and author of Cronkite

Few Americans today recognize his name, but Lowell Thomas was as well known in his time as any American journalist ever has been. Raised in a Colorado gold-rush town, Thomas covered crimes and scandals for local then Chicago newspapers. He began lecturing on Alaska, after spending eight days in Alaska. Then he assigned himself to report on World War I and returned with an exclusive: the story of “Lawrence of Arabia.”

In 1930, Lowell Thomas began delivering America’s initial radio newscast. His was the trusted voice that kept Americans abreast of world events in turbulent decades – his face familiar, too, as the narrator of the most popular newsreels. His contemporaries were also dazzled by his life. In a prime-time special after Thomas died in 1981, Walter Cronkite said that Thomas had “crammed a couple of centuries worth of living” into his eighty-nine years. Thomas delighted in entering “forbidden” countries—Tibet, for example, where he met the teenaged Dalai Lama. The Explorers Club has named its building, its awards, and its annual dinner after him.

Journalists in the last decades of the twentieth century—including Cronkite and Tom Brokaw—acknowledged a profound debt to Thomas. Though they may not know it, journalists today too are following a path he blazed. In The Voice of America, Mitchell Stephens offers a hugely entertaining, sometimes critical portrait of this larger than life figure.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781466879409
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	06/20/2017
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	336
File size:	50 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Mitchell Stephens, a professor of journalism in the Carter Institute at New York University, is the author of A History of News, a New York Times “notable book of the year.” Stephens also has written several other books on journalism and media, including Beyond News: The Future of Journalism and the rise of the image the fall of the word. He also published Imagine There’s No Heaven: How Atheism Helped Create the Modern World. Stephens was a fellow at the Shorenstein Center at Harvard’s Kennedy School. He shares Lowell Thomas’ love of travel and had the privilege of following Thomas' tracks through Colorado, Alaska, the Yukon, Europe, Arabia, Sikkim and Tibet.
MITCHELL STEPHENS, a professor of journalism in the Carter Institute at New York University, is the author of A History of News, a New York Times “notable book of the year.” Stephens also has written several other books on journalism and media, including Beyond News: The Future of Journalism and the rise of the image the fall of the word. He also published Imagine There’s No Heaven: How Atheism Helped Create the Modern World. Stephens was a fellow at the Shorenstein Center at Harvard’s Kennedy School. He shares Lowell Thomas’ love of travel and had the privilege of following Thomas' tracks through Colorado, Alaska, the Yukon, Europe, Arabia, Sikkim and Tibet.

Table of Contents

Prologue: The Messenger 1

1 A Portrait of the Journalist as a Young Cowboy 7

2 Two Scoops in Chicago 26

3 See America First 40

4 Too Good to Be True 58

5 Something More Colossal Than Anything of Its Kind Ever Tried 82

6 A Blue-Eyed, Beardless Man in Arab Robes 94

7 Come with Me to the Land of History, Mystery and Romance 108

8 How Dull It Is to Pause 128

9 Having the Ear of America 151

10 The Voice of God 174

11 Catching Up with the War 198

12 The Very Roof of the World 220

13 An Entirely New Form of Entertainment 240

14 To Strive, To Seek, To Find, and Not to Yield 256

Epilogue: He Loved the Face of the Earth 280

Acknowledgments 285

Notes 289

Index 321

Editorial Reviews

'"Thomas remained a dominant presence in the U.S. media well into the 1970s, but he might be the most famous twentieth-century media figure whom hardly anyone under 40 has heard of. Stephens has written an unusual biography; he is less interested in rescuing Thomas from oblivion than in illuminating what his rise and fall say about a changing country." —Walter Russell Mead, Foreign Affairs

"Introduces us to one of the finest journalists in the history of America...Every journalist and student of journalism must read this inspiring biography of an awesome journalist." —The Washington Book Review

"Stephens' book is purported to be the first serious book-length biography of Thomas, and that in itself would be enough to justify it's existence. That it's a lively read is a bonus." —Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette

“Mitchell Stephens’s The Voice of America is a first-rate and much-needed biography of the great Lowell Thomas. Nobody can properly understand broadcast journalism without reading Stephens’s riveting account of this larger-than-life globetrotting radio legend.” —Douglas Brinkley, Professor of History at Rice University and author of Cronkite

"Lowell Thomas so deserves this lively account of his legendary life. He was a man for all seasons." —Tom Brokaw

"Among the celebrated people in America in the 1920s and ’30s were Franklin Roosevelt, Charlie Chaplin, Babe Ruth, Shirley Temple, Jack Dempsey, Clark Gable, Bing Crosby—and Lowell Thomas. All those names still resonate—except Thomas, for decades the “Voice of God” in network newscasting.... Now Mitchell Stephens, an accomplished chronicler of journalism, has resurrected Thomas." —The Wall Street Journal

"Vivid and interesting." —The Weekly Standard

"Will take you into the fascinating life, times, and adventures of the man who was considered the most famous reporter of his time .... If we want to know where our modern media is going, we definitely need to understand where it came from." —Bustle

"This books preserves Thomas's place in American history and will be welcomed by historians and broadcasters." —Library Journal

"A quintessentially American story, Thomas’ combination of P. T. Barnum and Walter Cronkite makes for first-rate reading." —Booklist

"Stephens captures the swashbuckling spirit of this early journalist [...] an entertaining look at a unique journalist." —Kirkus Reviews

"Mitchell Stephen's The Voice of America is the fascinating story of Lowell Thomas, whose rise to media stardom is an adventuresome epic in itself, almost as much the story he weaved around the exploits of T.E. Lawrence, which made him forever 'Lawrence of Arabia.'" —Michael Korda, author of Hero

"An excellent book. Refreshingly honest. Stephens manages to contain that extraordinary life within 400 pages, without becoming his subject's cheerleader. I learned so much." —Bob Edwards, longtime host of Morning Edition on NPR

"A great book! Lowell Thomas was a man of many facets, and in this book he sparkles in the light Mitchell Stephens shines on him. Like TE Lawrence, Thomas was not only a remarkable man but a reflection of the fascinating era in which he lived." —Theodore Janulis, president, The Explorers Club

From the Publisher

05/15/2017
The invention of radio in the 1920s created opportunities for journalists everywhere. Lowell Thomas (1892–1981), once a household name, began hosting a newscast in 1930 and remained on the air for almost 46 years. Stephens (journalism, New York Univ.; A History of News) offers this first biography of Thomas to document his subject's groundbreaking work. Thomas began his career at a Colorado newspaper during the gold rush and then moved to Chicago. Journalism standards were still being developed at the time, and some of his first stories turned out to be more fiction than fact. Yet, Thomas had a lifelong fascination with exploring new places and cultures. In his early years, he convinced a group of investors to support his travels in the hopes of making money on his adventures and lectures. He was instrumental in creating the legend of T.E. Lawrence, aka Lawrence of Arabia, during World War I. In his radio work, he set the standard of presenting nonpartisan reporting. Listeners trusted him, and his broadcasts were heard by millions. VERDICT This book preserves Thomas's place in American history and will be welcomed by historians and broadcasters.—Judy Solberg, Sacramento, CA

Library Journal

2017-04-04
The first biography of a largely forgotten journalist, documentary producer, and groundbreaking radio newscaster.Though Lowell Thomas (1892-1981) was the journalist who first documented T.E. Lawrence's Arabian exploits and later enjoyed a long career as one of the first newscasters on national radio, he is not celebrated like Edward R. Murrow or Paul Harvey. Stephens (Journalism/New York Univ.; Beyond News: The Future of Journalism, 2014, etc.) captures the swashbuckling spirit of this early journalist, who cut his teeth at newspapers in Denver and Chicago while earning numerous degrees. One of his first jobs as a kind of far-flung travel correspondent, subsidized by the railroads, entailed traveling the country and even going to Alaska, trips that stoked his lifelong passion for travel. A person of "prodigious vitality," Thomas styled himself an expert on Alaska after a few short weeks and began lecturing on the state (with "colored motion pictures") at venues in New York. He excelled at public speaking, from lectures at Princeton University to Carnegie Hall, at a time (circa 1917) when the public was hungry to learn more and travel. With the outbreak of World War I, Thomas—"part journalist, part author, part world traveler, part adventurer"—finagled his way to the Middle East action via his own business venture (Thomas Travelogues, Inc.), hitching onto "Lawrence of Arabia's" efforts to galvanize the Arab revolt and chronicling the action (along with Harry Chase) with realistic, and sensational, war footage, which was shown at home as a much-advertised "show." The blustery Thomas, whose voice Stephens describes as "rich and bracing, even a bit tart," was chosen to replace Floyd Gibbons on the first daily news brief on NBC (CBS in the West) on Sept. 28, 1930, and he worked at either network for the next 46 years. An entertaining look at a unique journalist.

Kirkus Reviews