Daniel Schorr

Back in 1981, when my first book was published, I hit the road to promote it. This gave me my first serious taste of business travel: the airports, airplanes, hotels, taxis, rental cars, bad coffee, worse food and blend of excitement and fatigue familar to road warriors. Those book tours foreshadowed the travel writing I do now - with additional time spent talking about the book in newsrooms, green rooms and television and radio studios thrown in.

It was frequently exhausting. Two things kept me going on my road trips to promote the book, a history and analysis of media and politics entitled "A Trumpet to Arms.'' One motivator was political: My hope that socially conscious writing like the kind that informed my book could have meaning. The other was personal: I was buzzed on words that Daniel Schorr, the distinguished broadcast journalist and writer, who died today, contributed to the dust jacket:

"This is a wholly admirable book,'' Schorr wrote in his blurb, "disciplined in its scholarship, balanced in its approach, edifying in its information, penetrating in its perceptions.''

Daniel Schorr passed away, aged 93, in Washington, D.C. this morning.

My hope is that he will be remembered for a long time. Schorr was tough and smart and kind. His words meant a lot to a young writer just starting out. More importantly, his work touched millions in a career that spanned some 70 years, beginning as a college stringer for New York newspapers and ending as a senior political commentator for National Public Radio, with lengthy and distinguished careers at CBS News under the legendary Edward R. Murrow and Cable News Network back when CNN was pioneering 24-hour, all-news television.

Along the way, Schorr, who didn't suffer fools gladly, irritated his bosses at CBS and CNN and was therefore pushed out of both places. He took on and deeply discomfited disparate and powerful people like Nikita Khruschev, Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Barry Goldwater, William S. Paley and Ted Turner. He scooped the New York press with news that a little place eventually called Lincoln Center would rise on Manhattan's West Side. He covered the Watergate scandal with energy and probity. He controversially slipped a copy of a secret House of Representatives report on murky Central Intelligence Agency activities to the Village Voice newspaper when mainstream media didn't want anything to do with it. He made Richard Nixon's enemies list. He was enemy no. 17 and had the distinction of reading his own name on the air when he got hold of the list, drawn up at the behest of America's most paranoid president.

Between reporting jobs, Schorr had a short stint as a college journalism professor. His real teaching, however, was manifest in his own reporting and commentary. He set an example for everyone. Matching his example isn't easy for anyone. But Daniel Schorr, b. 1916, d. 2010, made it clear that engaged journalism, done with intelligence and fairness, can have meaning.

"Up in the Air' Flies into Thin Air

''Up in the Air'' - writer/director Jason Reitman's smart, funny, flawed, thoroughly entertaining feature film about a high-flying corporate downsizer - was nominated for six Academy Awards. But, as we saw the other night, it won not a one, making one of the most engaging travel-themed movies of recent years an also-ran.

Ah, well, that's show-biz, you might say. And it is. Overwhelmed by the box office success of "Avatar' and undercut by the edgy drama of "The Hurt Locker,'' "Up in the Air'' was strictly earth-bound at the Oscars. There were no "I'd like to thank the Academy'' acceptance speeches for Reitman, his star George Clooney or his superb co-stars, Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick.

Too bad, really, because the movie is good. True, it veers from the flight plan and bogs down in convention toward the end, with its surge of misty family values. But Reitman's script captures perfectly the anonymity and loneliness of a life spent on airplanes - even a life softened by the multitude of travel perks acquired through nonstop work by Ryan Bingham, the character brought to life in Clooney's pitch-perfect portrayal. I don't know if anyone in real life has ever rolled up 10 million frequent flier miles, as Bingham does, but it's a clever storytelling device in reel-life.

"Up in the Air,'' released late last year, started 2010 as one of the most talked-about, popular movies. But as the weeks rolled by, something of a backlash developed: The film is too slick, just a Hollywood star vehicle for Clooney, just an apology for heartless corporate America. (A good accounting of the critical backlash - and an effective rebuttal to many of the criticisms - was posted today on nytimes.com by Ross Douthat in his blog.) Like Douthat, I don't find the casting of actual, laid-off workers in the movie exploitive; their presence prompts Bingham to examine his own life, and find it as empty as his road-warrior suitcase.

When I was a movie critic at California's San Francisco Examiner, I was paid for going to the movies. For some of them, I had to be paid, or I wouldn't have been there. Not to mention that some studio screenings for critics started as early as 9 a.m. and, as reviewers, we were honor-bound to stay to the bitter end of even the worst, most formulaic flicks. Had I seen it back in the day, "Up in the Air'' would have been a breath of fresh air - as it is now.

Watching the Academy Awards show, it was disappointing to see "Up in the Air'' lose altitude. But there was at least one writer/director who felt more pain than Reitman on Oscar night.

That would be James Cameron, who made the highest-grossing movie of all time in "Avatar'' and still failed to win any of the big Academy Awards. "The Hurt Locker'' gave Academy voters the ideal opportunity to stick it to Cameron - who is unpopular in Hollywood for - get this - alleged arrogance and egotism - by selecting a movie directed by his ex-wife, Katherine Bigelow, as best picture, look pro-woman by picking the talented Bigelow as best director, and appear to support U.S. troops by honoring a war movie - even though Hollywood furiously opposes the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Politically correct and vengeful at the same time! Perfect!

As for "Up in the Air,'' it just came out on DVD. Time for a second look and, I hope, a second chance for this ultimately overlooked movie.