Masters Theses

Date of Award

12-1984

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Major

Communication

Major Professor

Herbert H. Howard

Abstract

This study was a look at the early life and newspaper career of Adali E. Stevenson II, an editor and reporter for the Daily Pantagraph in Bloomington, Illinois, in the 1920s and part-owner of the newspaper throughout his life. Although Stevenson is best known for his political and diplomatic endeavors, the rhetorical skills which propelled him to international prominence were honed in journalism. For this if no other reason, his formative years deserve study.

Articles and editorials by Stevenson, conversations with surviving friends and colleagues, and secondary sources were used for the biographical section of the study, which traced his unusually influential ancestry and then followed Stevenson's life from his birth in Los Angeles, California, in 1900 to his establishment of a law office in Chicago in 1926.

His later writings and a dozen Pantagraph contributions (1909-1926), along with the biographical sources, were subjected to two questions designed to explore Stevenson's orientation to journalism--"What unique gifts did Stevenson bring to his newspaper career?" And "What insights did Stevenson gain from newspapering that helped mold his future as a public servant?"

The study found six forces on Stevenson's personality that shaped his newspaper contributions--tradition, wanderlust, lack of financial worries, gregarious personality, childhood tragedy, and a family struggle for control of the Pantagraph,/u>.

Finally, an attempt was made to assess Stevenson as a news-paperman in relationship to his later public service. Although there is no way of directly measuring his impact on his public or fellow statesmen, it is evident that he left behind him a better informed and doubtless more discerning electorate.

Relatively little research has been done in the field of family newspapering; a more standardized framework for the evaluation of their influence as compared to chain or group ownership would be of great help to the field. Adlai Stevenson himself offers numerous possibilities for further research; a closer look at his tangential career shifts would enhance understanding of how world leaders are developed.

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