Theodore Menline Bernstein (November 17, 1904 – June 1979) was an assistant managing editor of
The New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded in 1851 and published in New York City. The largest metropolitan newspaper in the United States, "The Gray Lady"—named for its staid appearance and style—is regarded as a national newspaper of record...
and from 1925 to 1950 a professor at the
Columbia University School of JournalismThe Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism is a journalism school and one of Columbia's graduate and professional schools. It offers three degree programs: Master of Science in journalism , Master of Arts in journalism and a Ph.D. in communications...
.
Bernstein obtained his B.A. from
Columbia UniversityColumbia University in the City of New York is a private university in the United States and a member of the Ivy League. Columbia's main campus lies in the Morningside Heights neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan, in New York City...
in 1924. Among many other responsibilities in the 1950s and 1960s, it fell to Bernstein and his colleague, Lewis Jordan, to make up the next day's front page of the
Times. His colleagues often saved his drafts on particularly newsworthy days.
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Theodore Menline Bernstein (November 17, 1904 – June 1979) was an assistant managing editor of
The New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded in 1851 and published in New York City. The largest metropolitan newspaper in the United States, "The Gray Lady"—named for its staid appearance and style—is regarded as a national newspaper of record...
and from 1925 to 1950 a professor at the
Columbia University School of JournalismThe Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism is a journalism school and one of Columbia's graduate and professional schools. It offers three degree programs: Master of Science in journalism , Master of Arts in journalism and a Ph.D. in communications...
.
Biography
Bernstein obtained his B.A. from
Columbia UniversityColumbia University in the City of New York is a private university in the United States and a member of the Ivy League. Columbia's main campus lies in the Morningside Heights neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan, in New York City...
in 1924. Among many other responsibilities in the 1950s and 1960s, it fell to Bernstein and his colleague, Lewis Jordan, to make up the next day's front page of the
Times. His colleagues often saved his drafts on particularly newsworthy days. During the run-up to the
Bay of Pigs InvasionThe Bay of Pigs Invasion , was an unsuccessful attempt by a CIA-trained force of Cuban exiles to invade southern Cuba with support from US government armed forces, to overthrow the Cuban government of Fidel Castro.The plan was launched in April 1961, less than three months after John F...
fiasco in 1961, the two settled on a four-column lead headline that put the invasion into dramatic perspective. However, under pressure from President
John F. KennedyJohn Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
, publisher
Orvil DryfoosOrvil Eugene Dryfoos was the publisher of The New York Times from 1961 to his death in 1963. Dryfoos entered The Times family via his marriage to Marian Sulzberger, daughter of then-publisher Arthur Hays Sulzberger....
ordered that the story be toned down, and the headline reduced to one column. Bernstein and Jordan were both infuriated, even after Dryfoos personally explained his decision to them. The story is told in detail in
Without Fear or Favor by former Times editor
Harrison SalisburyHarrison Evans Salisbury , an American Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist , was the first regular New York Times correspondent in Moscow after World War II...
.
Publications
He wrote several books on
grammarIn linguistics, grammar is the set of logical and structural rules that govern the composition of sentences, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology and syntax, often complemented by phonetics, phonology,...
and usage, including
The Careful Writer (ISBN 0-684-82632-1) and
Watch Your Language (ISBN 0-689-70531-X). He was also co-author of
Headlines and Deadlines (ISBN 0-231-04816-5), a manual for
copy editorsCopy editing is the work that an editor does to improve the formatting, style, and accuracy of a manuscript...
.
Quotes
"Now, I am a firm believer in democracy, but I also believe that there are some fields of human activity in which a count of noses does not provide the best basis for law and order." -- from
The Careful Writer
External links