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John B. OakesJohn B. Oakes
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to be knowledgeable, as well as accurate, and part of the means of accomplishing this is, it seems to me, to have people personally familiar with what they're writing about.

So, I'm a strong believer in editorial people going out. Not necessarily reporting, but I think it's important for editorial people to have had reportorial experience, but not only in reporting, but getting personally acquainted. To illustrate, just last week my economics man, the man who does most of my editorials on domestic and, for that matter, foreign economics matters, spent last week in the Farm Belt because one of the things I've been trying to do with him, and with his full agreement, of course, is to make him as much of a farm expert as I can, and I think it's important that we have a more knowledgeable approach than we have had in the past on farm problems which are economic as well as political. So, just last week, with this in mind, he spent five days out in the Middle West, the farm areas, all the way from Minneapolis to Omaha, and this is precisely illustrative of what I'm talking about in getting personally acquainted. I don't think he ran any articles directly as a result of this trip, but he will have a great deal more first-hand knowledge for editorial commentary on the farm problem.

Q:

Is this a systematized formula, or just by chance that you send a man?

Oakes:

No, I just don't operate by system at all. I've been talking to this individual colleague of mine for a long, long time about becoming a farm expert. He already knows a good deal about it, I might say, but really getting more familiar, and we just talked about this trip months ago. Incidentally, before he went out there, he went down to Washington to talk to Freeman, the Secretary of Agriculture, and other farm people. I had, just a few





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