George Seldes

The journalism world will be forever indebted to the one-and-only George Seldes. His whole career was filled with death threats and attempts on his life. He was banished from he Soviet Union by the Bolsheviks and was very nearly killed trying to get out of Italy by Mussolini. Seldes' unyielding stories offended the dictators and public figures in which they were about, including Lenin, Stalin, Francisco Franco, and William Randolph Hearst. But no matter what attempts were made to try to shut him up, Seldes didn't back down. His hard-facts news stories impacted not only the nation, but the whole world. He wasn't afraid to report any topic or any person, no matter the consequences. But I think the only consequence for George Seldes was that the mainstream press was ignoring the stories in the first place.

A true revolutionary, Seldes set the standards high for American journalism. Although it journalism has faltered in this country over the past years, you can't help but to be inspired by George Seldes and all that he accomplished in his life as a journalist. I think we need another Seldes to come along to put the media back on the trail that was blazed for us so many years ago.