A new American Masters documentary Walter Winchell: The Power of Gossip traces the life and career of Walter Winchell, an American journalist, columnist, radio news commentator and television host who invented the fast-paced, gossip driven, politically charged media culture with massive audience and influence in the U.S. from 1930s to 1950s. He was said to be America’s most feared and admired man at the time and had the power to make or break careers. Directed by Ben Loeterman and presented by PBS, the documentary tapped Stanley Tucci as the voice of Winchell and Whoopi Goldberg as the narrator and utilizes recordings and digitized collection of Winchell’s work to reconstruct the life of a pioneer in the field of journalism. “Walter Winchell is the architect of modern American media,” says biographer and film interviewee Neal Gabler in a press statement, “He turned journalism into a form of entertainment.”
Walter Winchell reinvented America’s field of journalism. Credit: Granger
Born in New York City in 1897 to Jewish immigrants, Winchell launched his gossip columnist career when one of the documents he produced for a theatre bulletin board, which were neatly typed, punctuated and consisted of far-fetched puns, was noticed by the publisher of Vandeville News, and he was offered a full-time job in 1927, according to Encyclopedia Britannica. His column at the tabloid New York Evening Graphic and his snappy, acerbic banter procured him his widely syndicated column at the New York Daily Mirror and a weekly radio program. He invented many slangs such as “pashing it” and “garbo-ing it” and wrote and spoke in Broadway idiom. His opinionated news reports attracted millions of people, and he was viewed as one of America’s most prolific phrase-makers.
Walter Winchell was viewed as one of America’s most prolific phrase-makers. Credit: Granger
“Winchell’s is the origin story of fake news; there could not be a timelier moment to unpack it for a wide audience,” Loeterman wrote in an American Masters essay. Loeterman wrote that Winchell was good at spinning tales about celebrities and trading gossips with friends. He had at times attacked famous people who had offended him or any of his affiliates, which eventually led to many people’s downfalls. Yet, his populist agenda had brought to light bureaucratic injustices amongst the rich and the powerful, which put him on President Franklin Roosevelt’s radar. Roosevelt recruited Winchell in 1933 and asked him to persuade an isolationist American public that the U.S. government should increasingly ramp up its intervention in Europe as facist powers were gaining grounds. “Too bad that a man like Hitler can rise so high in politics, who hates so intensely…. His hatred of the Israelites is contemptible,” Winchell wrote.
After Roosevelt died, Winchell was stuck in political limbo as the new president Harry Truman had no interest in collaborating with him. That was until he met Roy Cohn, who eventually became Senator Joseph McCarthy’s aide. During the 1950s, Winchell championed McCarthyism and approved the blackmailing of actors, writers and technicians suspected of being communists. McCarthy’s downfall brought Winchell’s reputation in the political world to an end. His career only went down from there, and the New York Daily Mirror folded in 1963. Winchell passed away nine years later.
The documentary Walter Winchell: The Power of Gossip premiers on October 20 on PBS.
Next, check out our article on Andrew Haswell Green, unsung hero of Central Park’s creation.
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