Upon her arrival as director of USC Annenberg's School of Journalism, Norman Corwin spoke with Geneva Overholser on her experience as a journalist and administrator.

NORMAN CORWIN: We are creatures of the 21st century, and that offers certain instant benefits, such as being able to learn of your joining USC Annenberg as director of its School of Journalism. May I interpose that I know a young lady named Cheyenne as in Wyoming, and a man named Dresden as in Germany. So am I right in assuming that Geneva was like those others: a reward to a capital city for having been born there?

GENEVA OVERHOLSER: No, but I do believe that it is connected with that city. My father was a Presbyterian minister, and Geneva was, of course, the locus of Calvin’s work. So I believe there is a connection to that beautiful city, and I am proud to claim it.

NC: Well, I once visited Geneva when it was hosting the League of Nations...and I promise you this will be my only personal reminiscence on your time.

GO: I welcome it. I welcome it.

NC: I remember the city because...for having been roundly bawled at by a Swiss traffic cop for not tipping my hat before asking directions.

Anyway, one thing you should know about USC is that we tend to be cordial to each another. An example of that would be your greeting this morning. Steven Sample, president of this university, in correspondence, addresses faculty members by their first name.

Our new dean, Ernest J. Wilson III, a man of very great distinction, signs three “I”s in a row in the symbol for 3 after his name. But to his faculty and friends, he identifies himself simply as “Ernie.” Well, Ernie is a man of great dignity whose writing talent is impeccable, as one can gather from his welcoming description of yourself. I quote him, “Geneva Overholser is a visionary leader with unparallel professional experience whose scholarship and public advocacy are providing a roadmap for the future during this period of transformation. No one has more affectively articulated the central role of journalism towards democracy and the need for a change in both the journalism education and profession. She is the right leader at the right time for our students, faculty and the industry. I am delighted she is coming to USC Annenberg.” Now, if that ringing endorsement were to be inscribed on a sweatshirt, I would proudly wear it.

GO: Oh, thank you. I hope a portion of it may be true. I am deeply honored by it.

NC: Well, we’re deeply honored by your being here.

GO: Oh, thank you.

NC: And I need to draw a deep breath before I delve into the enormous field of your credits. A pageant really crowned by being adjudged quote “the best in the business” –

G – ha, isn’t that great?

NC: – By no less an authority than the American Journalism Review. But consider these accomplishments: Graduated Wesley, school of journalism at Northwestern, ombudsman and syndicated columnist for The Washington Post. Would you explain for the less initiated what an ombudsman/ombudswoman does?

GO: Absolutely, I’d be pleased to. An ombudsman, as you probably know, it’s a Swedish word, and Sweden was serving as representative of the citizen to the crown, as I understand it. In the journalism world, it has generally been conceived of as a kind of a reader representative – that is to bring the views of the reader into the newspaper. At The Washington Post it was a little more richly construed. Their view was that if you hired journalists of some standing from outside of The Washington Post to come into the newspaper and really serve two roles: listen to readers, bring their voices in, the more traditional reader representative role, but also be an internal critic. So even if a reader didn’t say “I’m a alarmed at the number of anonymous sources you’re using,” I felt that it was within my purview to raise concern about that matter. So it’s kind of you wear two hats at the Post – a reader representative and an internal critic, constructive critic I hope.

NC: You know, if Webster’s and the Random House dictionary don’t appeal to you for that definition I would be very disappointed.

GO: Ha ha, please continue to be so generous in your responses.

NC: You are a graduate of Wesley and of the Medill school of journalism at Northwestern and ombudsman and columnist for The Washington Post, reporter on The Colorado Springs Sun, you’ve been a columnist for the Columbia Journalism Review and you also spent five years writing in Paris and Zaire.

GO: I did.

NC: Well, and I understand that for the Annenberg Public Policy Center two years ago there was published for your dissertation on the future of journalism, titled On Behalf of Journalism: A Manifesto for Change.

GO: Yes.

NC: So you are well steeped in the philosophy of change.

GO: Yes.

NC: That has interesting overtones for the Democratic party and its candidates.

GO: It does and as you know I’m coming from Washington. That interests me greatly.

NC: Right. You are also a co-editor with another USC favorite – Kathleen Hall Jamieson, of the University of Pennsylvania. If our listeners think this already an impressive list of accomplishments, well we’re just getting started. Ms. Overholser was editor of The Des Moines Register for seven years, during which time she lead that newspaper to a Pulitizer Prize. That makes her the second such winner for us to become director of this school.

GO: I have to give Michael Parks more credit because he won his personally. I won mine on behalf of the newspaper, as editor of the newspaper, but I can’t claim a personal Pulitzer the way Michael can.

NC: That doesn’t lessen the honor.

GO: Oh, thank you.

NC: Now, I must say that you have widely scattered university distinctions. You’re on the board of fellowship at Stanford. You have a degree from Wellesley – the same university where your sister served as president once. You were for nine years on the Committee of Concerned Journalists as well as being a member of the Pulitzer prize board.

GO: You do good research. You do wonderful reporting.

NC: Well, this is your biography. And you were chairwoman of the Pulitzer board in your final year. And you are former officer of the American Society of Newspaper Editors. I don’t mean to frighten with envy a busy married couple, should they be listening, but your husband, David Westphal, is Washington editor of the McClatchy newspapers, and it speaks well of the harmony of this couple when I tell you that he will joining USC Annenberg School as executive in residence beginning this fall.

GO: Exactly. September 15th, to give the date. I can’t wait.

NC: I would need a strong second wind to cover completely the career of this marvelous journalist. But we must not end this resume with affording Ms. Overholser the opportunity of telling you what she has in her wonderfully fertile mind for this school.

GO: Thank you, I would be delighted to. You want me to discourse about my views about what we might do here at Annenberg. Thanks for that generous information about me, I’m grateful. I’m thrilled to be here, may I call you Norman?

NC: Please.

GO: Despite our courtesy towards one another here at USC Annenberg. I really am delighted to be here because I think that never has journalism education been more important. As you know, our field of journalism is undergoing enormous change. I like to believe that it is a very hopeful time, but it is also, certainly, a very unsettling time. I am hopeful that we at Annenberg become a kind of beacon of hope and learning, important research and useful, kind of sustaining information for the profession/craft of journalism at this time of change. We have the resources to do that here, we have the faculty capability, we are part of a great university that is becoming greater by the moment and we’re in, I think, the city in this world, best suited to do this – very forward-looking. My sense of L.A., not only great richness in the diversity of its people but really a kind of fluid, open-mindedness that frankly, I think, Washington and its self-regard does not have. There’s more of a hierarchical rigidity to Washington, in my view. I think L.A. is sort of ready to see a different future and that’s what we need to be thinking about here.

NC: Well I thank you Ms. Overholser, and if I may add a personal note, I bring you the greetings of Susan Lowenberg.

GO: Oh, a dear friend.

NC: Who is, as you know, the producer of the L.A. Theatre Works, an important acting company in this community.

GO: She’s such a remarkable woman, Susan.

NC: She says she knows you and says you are the greatest ever.

GO: Ha ha, I need to put you in touch with some of my detractors.

NC: She is producing a play of mine about Lincoln, about the Lincoln/Douglas debates.

GO: She told me. She said it’s absolutely suited for the moment and I couldn’t agree more.

NC: Well, 2009 being the 200th anniversary of his birthday.

GO: Isn’t that amazing?

NC: I just hope that you and Mr. Westphal will be there on opening night.

GO: Well, I surely hope so too, I would like nothing better.

NC: Thank you. We are trying to cast it even now. we have in our sights some performances at Ford’s Theatre.

GO: That’s marvelous! How perfect that would be, how suitable. That’s wonderful.

It’s very exciting to be here, and I think we have important work to do, and I’m delighted to be in a leadership position working with Ernie – who’s extraordinary, as you’ve said – to do it, and I think our faculty and marvelous students are ready as well, so I’m excited. I hope we’ll be seeing a lot of you. I love your interviews with Ernie Wilson in the newsletter. I read them with great interest before I came and it was very useful to me, to get your good interviews with him.

NC: I’ve done a piece that I’ve just submitted on Van Gogh revisited, because I wrote the movie for Lust For Life and the publishing house of Benedikt Taschen has just come out with a big book. I thought I knew all the Van Goghs that were worthwhile, but this book corrects me, because in Europe, Asia, South America and everywhere in the world this man’s canvases are being shown.

GO: Paintings you didn’t know the existence of?

NC: Paintings I had never heard of. I had never seen. Which are reproduced in that book, it’s a big book.

GO: Doesn’t it make you want to travel the world to see these?

NC: Oh yes, it does. I would like to travel to some squalid areas of America where there are Van Gogh’s hanging. The wonderful thing about what I have seen in correcting my knowledge of the Van Gogh’s oeuvre is that the paintings by which he is familiar in America are largely mad paintings in which the stars look like exploding fireworks, but he could be as calm and resolute as any painter and his architecture is clean and clear.

GO: His portraits of people, like his father and that wonderful portrait of the woman, it is very green and she has such a thoughtful and reflective look, one of the famous ones of a woman sitting in a chair. I’m not being very specific about it, but if you would know it if you saw it and it’s so thoughtful and contemplative. So it does lend credence.

NC: He was such a wonderful man, and his empathy and sympathy for the poor. The tragedy of his having sold one painting in his life for around fifty francs. One of his Irises sold to Japan for well over a thirty million dollars.

GO: He would not have been able to conceive such a thing.

NC: You know what I discovered in this book. There is a snapshot of Theo, his brother, the most important man in his life. No portrait of Theo.

GO: He never painted him. It’s true.

NC: It’s an abnormality in his life, because he painted his postman five times and his wife once.

GO: I wonder why he didn’t paint his brother. Maybe it was too personal and powerful.

NC: Maybe Theo differed.

GO: Maybe so. Maybe Theo was afraid to have stars bursting from his eyes.

NC: You have to read this book. It is a very well written and researched book.

GO: You mean the new one. I’ve read Lust for Life, but you mean this new one.

NC: Lust for Life I did not follow that script because I felt the letters of Vincent are authoritative – no one knew Vincent better than Vincent – and I persuaded John Houseman, who was producing that film, to rely on the letters as our quarry and he went along with that.

GO: I haven’t seen the film. I need to see it, especially now that I understand that it’s creative.

NC: May I furnish you with a copy of the film?

GO: It would be wonderful. Very gracious of you.

NC: Do you have the DVD?

GO: It’s on its way, it’s on a truck. It arrives on August 7th. So no rush on the DVD.

NC: I hope it is in stock. It’s purchasable and it is certainly not bad. There are certain scenes that I wish would have been done over, but Kirk Douglas thinks it is the best role he ever had. And Vincent Minnelli, it is his favorite picture and I’m happy about that.

GO: Isn’t that something. I wish we could do this interview in reverse and I can compliment your body of work the way you have complimented my body of work, because it would be a great pleasure and honor. I hope this is the first of many conversations that we have together.

NC: I hope so. Thank you.

GO: I am most grateful.

NC: You are welcome here.

GO: I feel welcome and delighted.

NC: I am so happy.

GO: It was a great adventure.

NC: You know, the way it came out is that Susan – we had lunch and she said “I met a wonderful person who is coming your way” and I said “who is that?” and she cited your name which is sacred for her.

GO: Do you know Susan and I? You know how important it is, the context in which you get know people, and we came to know each other serving on a board of a nonprofit investigative reporting organization in Washington. So it was important work that meant a lot to both of us and we were both able to be helpful to that board. I know that Susan is very helpful to it, knowing so much about nonprofits. So I came to know her in a rich and constructive environment, which is a great way to make friends. She took me to dinner the other night with a group of wonderful women. So I’m meeting terrific people through her.

NC: Well, terrific person meets terrific people.

GO: I hope that’s right. Thank you.