Anthony Lewis (March 27, 1927 – March 25, 2013) was an American
public intellectual and journalist. He was twice winner of the
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made ...
, and was a columnist for ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
''. He is credited with creating the field of legal journalism in the United States.
Early in Lewis' career as a legal journalist, Supreme Court Justice
Felix Frankfurter told an editor of ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'': "I can't believe what this young man achieved. There are not two justices of this court who have such a grasp of these cases."
At his death,
Nicholas B. Lemann, the dean of
Columbia University School of Journalism, said: "At a liberal moment in American history, he was one of the defining liberal voices."
Early years
Lewis was born Joseph Anthony Lewis in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
on March 27, 1927, to Kassel Lewis, who worked in textiles manufacturing, and Sylvia Surut, who became director of the nursery school at the
92nd Street Y.
He and his family were
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
.
He attended the
Horace Mann School in the Bronx, where he was a classmate of
Roy Cohn, and graduated from
Harvard College
Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher ...
in 1948. While at Harvard, he was managing editor of ''
The Harvard Crimson''.
Career in journalism
Following his college graduation, Lewis worked for ''The New York Times''. He left in 1952 to work for the
Democratic National Committee
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) is the governing body of the United States Democratic Party. The committee coordinates strategy to support Democratic Party candidates throughout the country for local, state, and national office, as well ...
on Adlai Stevenson's presidential campaign. He returned to journalism at the ''
Washington Daily News'', an afternoon tabloid. He wrote a series of articles on the case of
Abraham Chasanow
Abraham Chasanow (December 1, 1910 – June 11, 1989) was a United States government employee who was suspended from employment in July 1953, during the McCarthy era, on the grounds that he was a security risk. He was later reinstated.
Career ...
, a civilian employee of the U.S. Navy, who had been dismissed from his job on the basis of allegations by anonymous informers that he associated with anti-American subversives. The series won Lewis a
Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 1955.
Lewis returned to ''The New York Times'' that year as its Washington bureau chief. He was assigned to cover the
Justice Department
A justice ministry, ministry of justice, or department of justice is a ministry or other government agency in charge of the administration of justice. The ministry or department is often headed by a minister of justice (minister for justice in a ...
and the
Supreme Court
A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...
. In 1956–57 he was a
Nieman Fellow
The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University awards multiple types of fellowships.
Nieman Fellowships for journalists
A Nieman Fellowship is an award given to journalists by the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard Universit ...
at
Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School (Harvard Law or HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest continuously operating law school in the United States.
Each c ...
.
[ He won a second Pulitzer Prize in 1963, again in the category National Reporting, for his coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court.] The citation singled out his coverage of the court's reasoning in '' Baker v. Carr'', a Supreme Court decision which held that federal courts could exercise authority over legislative redistricting on the part of the states, and the decision's impact on specific states.[
In his 1969 history of ''The New York Times'', Gay Talese described Lewis in his Washington years as "cool, lean, well-scrubbed looking, intense and brilliant".][ Lewis became a member of Senator Robert F. Kennedy's social circle, too conspicuously so in the opinion of Max Frankel, another of the paper's editors.][
During a four-month newspaper strike (November 1962 to February 1963), Lewis wrote '']Gideon's Trumpet
''Gideon's Trumpet'' is a 1964 book by Anthony Lewis describing the story behind the 1963 landmark court case ''Gideon v. Wainwright'', in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that criminal defendants have the right to an attorney ...
'', the story of Clarence Earl Gideon
Clarence Earl Gideon (August 30, 1910 – January 18, 1972) was a poor drifter accused in a Florida state court of felony breaking and entering. While in prison, he appealed his case to the US Supreme Court, resulting in the landmark 1963 decisi ...
, the plaintiff in ''Gideon v. Wainwright
''Gideon v. Wainwright'', 372 U.S. 335 (1963), was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in which the Court ruled that the Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution requires U.S. states to provide attorneys to criminal defendants who are unable to ...
'', the 1963 case in which the Supreme Court held that states were required to provide counsel for indigent defendants charged with serious crimes. At Lewis' death it had not been out of print since it was first published.[ It won the 1965 ]Edgar Award
The Edgar Allan Poe Awards, popularly called the Edgars, are presented every year by the Mystery Writers of America, based in New York City. Named after American writer Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849), a pioneer in the genre, the awards honor the bes ...
for Best Fact Crime and in 1980 was adapted as a movie for television and presented by Hallmark Hall of Fame
''Hallmark Hall of Fame'', originally called ''Hallmark Television Playhouse'', is an anthology program on American television, sponsored by Hallmark Cards, a Kansas City-based greeting card company. The longest-running prime-time series in ...
. Lewis played a small role in the film.
Lewis published a second book in 1964, ''Portrait of a Decade: The Second American Revolution'', about the civil rights movement. In 1991, Mr. Lewis published ''Make No Law'', an account of '' The New York Times v. Sullivan'', the 1964 Supreme Court decision that revolutionized American libel law. In ''Sullivan'', the court held that public officials suing critics of their official conduct needed to prove that the contested statements were made with "actual malice", that is, with knowledge of their falsity or with serious subjective doubts about their truth.[
The ''Times'' moved Lewis to London in 1964, where he was bureau chief with responsibility for broad coverage of politics, culture and, in the words of one editor, "ballet, music, Glyndebourne, la-di-da London society, diplomacy, the British character, you name it".][ He moved to New York in 1969 and began writing a twice-weekly opinion column for the ''Times''. He continued to write these pieces, which appeared under the heading "At Home Abroad" or "Abroad at Home" depending on his byline, until retiring in 2001. Though wide-ranging in his interests, he often focused on legal questions, advocacy of compromise between Israel and the Palestinians, and criticism of the war in Vietnam and the apartheid regime in South Africa. On December 15, 2001, his final column warned that civil liberties were at risk in the U.S. reaction to the ]September 11 attacks
The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commer ...
.[
Reflecting on his years as a columnist, he said he had learned two lessons:][
When told ]Henry Kissinger
Henry Alfred Kissinger (; ; born Heinz Alfred Kissinger, May 27, 1923) is a German-born American politician, diplomat, and geopolitical consultant who served as United States Secretary of State and National Security Advisor under the presid ...
had once described him as "always wrong", Lewis replied: "Probably because I wrote in a very uncomplimentary way about him. I didn’t like him. He did things that were very damaging to human beings."
Other activities
Beginning in the mid-1970s, Lewis taught a course in First Amendment and the Supreme Court at Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
's Graduate School of Journalism for 23 years.[ He held the school's James Madison chair in First Amendment Issues from 1982. He lectured at ]Harvard
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
from 1974 to 1989 and was a visiting lecturer at several other colleges and universities, including the universities of Arizona
Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...
, California
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
, Illinois
Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rock ...
, and Oregon
Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...
.[
In 1983, Lewis received the ]Elijah Parish Lovejoy
Elijah Parish Lovejoy (November 9, 1802 – November 7, 1837) was an American Presbyterian minister, journalist, newspaper editor, and abolitionist. Following his murder by a mob, he became a martyr to the abolitionist cause opposing slavery ...
Award as well as an honorary Doctor of Laws
A Doctor of Law is a degree in law. The application of the term varies from country to country and includes degrees such as the Doctor of Juridical Science (J.S.D. or S.J.D), Juris Doctor (J.D.), Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), and Legum Doctor ...
degree from Colby College
Colby College is a private liberal arts college in Waterville, Maine. It was founded in 1813 as the Maine Literary and Theological Institution, then renamed Waterville College after the city where it resides. The donations of Christian philanth ...
. On January 8, 2001, he received the Presidential Citizens Medal
The Presidential Citizens Medal is an award bestowed by the President of the United States. It is the second-highest civilian award in the United States and is second only to the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Established by executive order on N ...
from President Bill Clinton
William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and again ...
. On October 21, 2008, the National Coalition Against Censorship
The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC), founded in 1974, is an alliance of 50 American non-profit organizations, including literary, artistic, religious, educational, professional, labor, and civil liberties groups. NCAC is a New York-bas ...
honored him for his work in the area of First Amendment rights and free expression.
He served for decades as a member of the ''Harvard Crimsons graduate board and as one of its trustees. He was a key player in the fundraising and reconstruction of the paper's Plympton Street building.[
Lewis was elected to the ]American Philosophical Society
The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...
in 2005.
He served on the board of directors of the Committee to Protect Journalists
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is an American independent non-profit, non-governmental organization, based in New York City, New York, with correspondents around the world. CPJ promotes press freedom and defends the rights of jou ...
(CPJ) and its policy committee. CPJ awarded him its Burton Benjamin Award for lifetime achievement in 2009.
He was chosen Class Day speaker at Harvard in 1997.[
He was a member of the ]Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute
The Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute at Washington University School of Law, established in 2000 as the Institute for Global Legal Studies, serves as a center for instruction and research in international and comparative law.
Background
...
's International Council.
Views on the press
Lewis read the First Amendment as a restriction on the ability of the federal government to regulate speech, but opposed attempts to broaden its meaning to create special protection for journalists. He approved when a federal court in 2005 jailed Judith Miller, a ''The New York Times'' reporter, for refusing to name her confidential sources as a special prosecutor demanded she do. Max Frankel, another ''Times'' editor said: "In his later years he turned a little bit against the press, which he loved. But he disagreed with those of us who felt that we couldn't just trust the courts to defend our freedom".
Lewis also opposed journalists' advocacy of a federal "shield law" to allow journalists to refuse to reveal their sources. He cited the case of Wen Ho Lee, whose privacy was, in Lewis' view, violated by newspapers who published leaked information and then refused to identify the sources of those leaks, preferring to agree to a financial settlement. He noted that the newspapers said they were acting to "protect our journalists from further sanctions", thus privileging their own needs over the damage caused the victim of the false information they printed.
Personal life
On July 8, 1951, Lewis married Linda J. Rannells, "a tall, blithe student of modern dance" according to Gay Talese.[ They had three children and divorced in 1982.
Lewis relocated from New York to Cambridge while he was a ''New York Times'' columnist. There, in 1984, he married Margaret H. Marshall,][ an attorney in private practice who later became General Counsel at ]Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...
and Chief Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts.
Lewis and his wife were longtime residents of Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston, ...
.
Lewis died on March 25, 2013, from renal and heart failure
Heart failure (HF), also known as congestive heart failure (CHF), is a syndrome, a group of signs and symptoms caused by an impairment of the heart's blood pumping function. Symptoms typically include shortness of breath, excessive fatigue, ...
, two days shy of his 86th birthday.[ He had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease a few years earlier.][
]
Awards
* 1955: Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting
* 1963: Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting[
* 1983: ]Elijah Parish Lovejoy
Elijah Parish Lovejoy (November 9, 1802 – November 7, 1837) was an American Presbyterian minister, journalist, newspaper editor, and abolitionist. Following his murder by a mob, he became a martyr to the abolitionist cause opposing slavery ...
Award
* 1983: Doctor of Laws
A Doctor of Law is a degree in law. The application of the term varies from country to country and includes degrees such as the Doctor of Juridical Science (J.S.D. or S.J.D), Juris Doctor (J.D.), Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), and Legum Doctor ...
degree from Colby College
Colby College is a private liberal arts college in Waterville, Maine. It was founded in 1813 as the Maine Literary and Theological Institution, then renamed Waterville College after the city where it resides. The donations of Christian philanth ...
* 2001: Presidential Citizens Medal
The Presidential Citizens Medal is an award bestowed by the President of the United States. It is the second-highest civilian award in the United States and is second only to the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Established by executive order on N ...
by Bill Clinton
William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and again ...
* 2003: American Civil Liberties Union
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". T ...
's Roger N. Baldwin Medal of Liberty
* 2008: National Coalition Against Censorship
The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC), founded in 1974, is an alliance of 50 American non-profit organizations, including literary, artistic, religious, educational, professional, labor, and civil liberties groups. NCAC is a New York-bas ...
honor for work on First Amendment rights and free expression
Selected writings
;Author
* ''Gideon's Trumpet
''Gideon's Trumpet'' is a 1964 book by Anthony Lewis describing the story behind the 1963 landmark court case ''Gideon v. Wainwright'', in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that criminal defendants have the right to an attorney ...
'' (Random House
Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...
, 1964) (Reprint )
* ''Portrait of a Decade: The Second American Revolution'' (Random House, 1964) ()
* ''Make No Law: The Sullivan Case and the First Amendment'' (Random House, 1991) ()
*''The Supreme Court and How It Works: The Story of the Gideon Case'' (Random House Children's Books, 1966) ()
*'' Freedom for the Thought That We Hate: A Biography of the First Amendment'' ( Basic Books, 2010) ()
;Co-author
*Pierce O'Donnell and Anthony Lewis, ''In Time of War: Hitler's Terrorist Attack on America'' (New Press, 2005) ()
*Frank Snepp
Frank Warren Snepp, III (born May 3, 1943) is a journalist and former chief analyst of North Vietnamese strategy for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Saigon during the Vietnam War. For five out of his eight years as a CIA officer, he worked ...
and Anthony Lewis, ''Irreparable Harm: A Firsthand Account of How One Agent Took on the CIA in an Epic Battle Over Free Speech'' ( University Press of Kansas, 2001) ()
;Editor
*''Written into History: Pulitzer Prize Reporting of the Twentieth Century from The New York Times'' (Holt, 2001) ()
;Preface/introduction
*''Glory and Terror: The Growing Nuclear Danger'' by Steven Weinberg; preface by Anthony Lewis (New York Review Books, 2004) ()
*''The Other Israel: Voices of Refusal and Dissent'' edited by Tom Segev and Roane Carey, with an introduction by Anthony Lewis (New Press, 2004) ()
*'' The Torture Papers: The Road to Abu Ghraib'' edited by Karen J. Greenberg and Joshua L. Dratel, with an introduction by Anthony Lewis (Cambridge University Press, 2005) ()
*''The Myth of the Imperial Judiciary: Why the Right Is Wrong About the Courts'' by Mark Kozlowski, foreword by Anthony Lewis (New York University Press
New York University Press (or NYU Press) is a university press that is part of New York University.
History
NYU Press was founded in 1916 by the then chancellor of NYU, Elmer Ellsworth Brown.
Directors
* Arthur Huntington Nason, 1916–1 ...
, 2003) ()
;Miscellaneous articles
One Liberty at a Time
(''Mother Jones'', May/June 2004)
the Framers, the 1st Amendment and watchdog reporting
"Heroic" News media?
References
External links
*
;Bibliographies
New York Review of Books, index of articles by Lewis
Anthony Lewis: bibliography
;Profiles
Fairness.com profile
Columbia faculty profile
Nieman Watchdog profile
;Interviews
Lewis discusses how ''New York Times v. Sullivan'' enhanced national press coverage of the civil rights movement
Anthony Lewis discusses press issues with Ron Collins at Harvard University
transcript
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lewis, Anthony
1927 births
2013 deaths
American legal writers
Jewish American journalists
Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting winners
Edgar Award winners
Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award recipients
Columbia University faculty
The Harvard Crimson people
University of Arizona faculty
Horace Mann School alumni
The New York Times columnists
Presidential Citizens Medal recipients
Writers from Cambridge, Massachusetts
20th-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American non-fiction writers
Harvard College alumni
Members of the American Philosophical Society
21st-century American Jews