Tinyletter, Writing and Working, Melville Jacoby Bill Lascher Tinyletter, Writing and Working, Melville Jacoby Bill Lascher

A (Not So) Tiny Letter

I've been reading a lot of letters. It seems all I do these days is read letters.

But here's a letter for you. I wish I could send it to you on the onion-skin I so often find myself reading, the translucent sheets etched with the black ink of a an old Hermes's or Corona Portable's hammer-strikes, the sheet carefully folded into an envelope covered with bright stamps and decorated with a picture of a DC-3 and bold capitals reading "VIA AIR MAIL." 

Of course, I can't, but I still want to say hello, because it's been a while (probably) and I miss you (certainly) and connecting beyond the superficial digital zones where we encounter one another. You may know where I've been, but perhaps something will settle on this screen. Letters, whatever their substrate, allow thoughts to steep better than ever-flowing streams of information we feel we must address and process now. Right now. Always now.

So feel free to read this and whatever letters follow at your leisure.

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Melville Jacoby Bill Lascher Melville Jacoby Bill Lascher

Artifacts From a Young Journalist's Fantastic Life

While I'm in the middle of travels that will keep me off the Internet for a few days, I wanted to share some finds from my recent trip to Southern California to learn more about Melville Jacoby. When I get back I'll share some reflections from my visit with George T.M. Ching as well as deeper examinations of Mel's life than have ever been shared on this page. For now, I'll share some of my recent discoveries. This really is but a sliver of what I've found. This book certainly won't want for a lack of source material, much of which I've brought home with me. These include thousands of pages of letters and cables, hundreds of photographs, a couple hours of home movies shot by Mel from his journeys around the world, some audio, half a dozen books, a journal, even a pith helmet that once belonged to Mel (that's more for my own fun than the book itself).

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One Last Assignment One More Time

Photos of Melville Jacoby and Bill Lascher overlaid upon one anotherAfter much anticipation, last week I released a new video describing Melville Jacoby's fantastic life. It also reintroduces the work I'm doing to tell his story. Click the photo in this post or the link below to view it. I'm really proud of this video. I'd love to hear your opinion and for you to share it with anyone interested in wartime journalism, storytelling, or 1930s and 40s nostalgia. Meanwhile, I'm preparing for a trip to Southern California to meet one of Mel's friends from his time as an exchange student in China. I'm so fortunate he's still around, and willing to speak with me. I'll also be visiting my grandmother to properly review and inventory her collection of materials from and related to Mel's life. Keep reading to learn what I'm up to.

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Won't You Be My Mrs. Luce?

"He was you at that stage of the game," my grandmother said. "It was a different way, but that's a story too. How does a young reporter like Bill Lascher get started?" This is how. By not letting go. Two weeks ago I completed a quarter teaching a community college class on multimedia journalism and turned in the last of two small freelance assignments on my plate. All that's left for me is what I'm doing now: throwing all that I have on the table in pursuit of this one last assignment. Everything I have, everything I can be is now focused on this account of the first Time Magazine reporter killed in the line of duty, this tale of Melville Jacoby, this story of my family's beloved cousin and this man who lived so fantastically before he died so tragically.

"He had the good luck to be on an airplane with Mrs.[Clare Booth] Luce [the wife of Time Magazine founder Henry Luce, who was also on that plane], who was impressed with him." my grandmother said. "You have to be on an airplane with someone who will be impressed with you."

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A Reunion of Sorts
Melville Jacoby Bill Lascher Melville Jacoby Bill Lascher

A Reunion of Sorts

California, here I come, right back where I started from. In a little less than two weeks I'll hit the road for Palo Alto, California, the home of Stanford University. That's where Melville Jacoby earned his bachelor and master's degrees in the 1930s (it's also where his wife, Annalee Whitmore Jacoby Fadiman was the first female managing editor of the daily student newspaper and where other close friends, such as Shelley Smith Mydans, studied). It's a trip I've long been waiting for, and one that wouldn't be possible without the support, encouragement and financial contributions I've received since I first launched my Kickstarter campaign and then launched the current fundraising campaign. Yes, I'll be retracing Mel's footsteps and digging through archives, but I'm most excited for what might best be described as a reunion when we meet the children of Mel's best friend from his time in China ...

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Writing and Working Bill Lascher Writing and Working Bill Lascher

Journalism of the Unknown Unknowns

It's complicated ... and that's the point. Journalism doesn't have all the answers, and we shouldn't expect it to. We shouldn't expect our stories to solve things for us.

Journalists' primary role is not to answer the challenges that face our society: it's to bring light to those challenges, so that those with the proper tools to solve a given problem will know that the challenge exists. In a sense, we're brokers, we're middle-men, we're matchmakers between problems and solutions. But those problems and solutions still have to get to know one another, find the right match. We can't consummate their relationships, we can just help them find one another.

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A Letter From Melville Jacoby's Best Friend

I was digging through the collection of materials I have at my place related to Melville Jacoby and found a photocopy of a lovely letter written to Mel 74 years ago today. The note was sent by Chan Ka Yik, one of Mel's best friends. The two were roommates at Lingnan University in Canton (now Guangzhou) while Mel was an exchange student there. The letter responds to an earlier mailing Mel had sent. It describes Chan's fondness for his roommate, and, in many ways, is the sort of letter anyone might send to catch up with an old friend. But these greetings are described against a backdrop of war. Though calm seemed to have returned when Chan wrote the letter, it was clearly still a presence.

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