Reed Irvine, founder of Accuracy in Media and Accuracy in Academia, has died. Before the bloggers, before Ann Coulter or Bernie Goldberg, before the talk-radio revolution, there was Reed Irvine--scourge of the liberal media. Reed launched Accuracy in Media in 1969, when there were three network news divisions and that's it. There was no DrudgeReport, Rush Limbaugh, or Fox News Channel to keep them honest. But Reed did--or at least he tried. And he had fun doing it. Many journalists were not so cheerful about Reed's activities. Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee famously called Reed "a miserable, carping, retromingent vigilante." Reed had the right enemies.

I worked for Reed Irvine for more than five years, serving as the executive director of Accuracy in Academia. We collaborated on a number of projects, including a conference correcting revisionist Cold War history that took place on the 50th anniversary of Joe McCarthy's famous Wheeling, West Virginia speech. My clearest memory of Reed comes from Accuracy in Academia's 1998 conference at Columbia University, "A Place at the Table: Conservative Ideas in Higher Education." Well, the Left of Morningside Heights took our place away. They protested our first speaker, Ward Connerly, hurling profanity at anyone who dared go in to the lecture hall and listen to him. Reed ate this up and engaged in several animated conversations with spoiled rich kids young enough to be his grandchildren. Columbia kicked us off campus, and the following day Reed spoke in a park outside of Columbia's boundaries. The whole event was surreal.

A college wrestler, a World War II Marine, and an avid tennis player, Reed was as fit an octogenarian as they come and fiercely competitive. My wife once bested him, barely, in ping-pong, for instance, and it was evident that it bothered him. "Rematch?" he asked. He was stubborn, but when he knew he had made a mistake he owned up to it more vocally than anyone I've met. Once email came along, he used the medium to blast out corrections to his errors. This impressed me. Others might have hid their mistakes. Reed held himself up to the same standard he applied to Dan Rather, Peter Jennings, and Tom Brokaw. His passion for accuracy was so great that in the twilight of his time on Earth, he noted a mistake on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? that led to a contestant's defeat. He reacted the same way he had reacted years earlier to inaccuracies by Walter Cronkite: he wrote a letter and complained. His note didn't fall on blind eyes. The game show rectified its error and allowed the wronged contestant to return for another shot at a million--all thanks to Reed.

Reed tried to retire several times, but it didn't really suit him. The thinking around the office was that he'd die writing an AIM Report at his desk. He didn't, but he did suffer a heart-attack in 2002 in the office. He cut back, but the man was a workoholic. His only son carries on his work as a media watchdog at Accuracy in Media, and his many intellectual progeny carry on his work as media watchdogs throughout the nation. Rest in peace, Reed Irvine.

I am sorry to hear of Reed's passing. I never met him but the work of AIM and AIA have made a difference. In fact, I have had two separate professors complain in their respective classes, or at least give warnings to the menace of AIA. Clearly the idea of being accountable for what one teaches or publishes does not sit well with many liberals. They prefer to go unchallenged (as we all are prone to desiring, I suppose).

Thanks for coming to Lee. It's funny. Your speech was so fair to both sides, you made alot of campus liberals (professors and students alike) look like total fools for refusing to attend. One teacher told me she wasn't coming because yours was not the type of public discourse she wanted to support. She exclaimed, "I don't appreciate being called a moron before the guy has even met me." Funny. You didn't call all liberals "morons." The only one who called her a moron was ... her.
It's also interesting to note ... she was a speaker at a forum called "Christianity and the Democratic Party." I was there -- even though I went away with the impression my Republicaness meant I didn't care about the poor, or God's mandate to help the poor.
I just don't understand. Our group got alot of flack for bringing in a "one-sided" speaker. We didn't stop the liberals from getting a speaker. In fact, I kinda like when they get active. It gives us conservatives something to respond to. I guess some Lee liberals want to stop both speaking events. Sounds like a damper on free speech to me!
Thankfully, an active member of the University Democrats slipped their goal for next semester's liberal lecture -- the President of the NAACP. Oh ... yeah ...

Julie

P.S. Your Kinsey comments were a little edgy for Lee. Oh well. You got their attention! : )

Thanks, Julie. Kinsey happens to have been a figure Reed Irvine spent a great amount of energy debunking.

Reed showed a certain playful, childlike seriousness about our ping-pong game. I hadn't expected such a good player, just because of his age, and it turned into a real match. It was probably the last time I saw him. It really endeared him to me.

Dan, Great piece of work you did in writing this reflection on Reed Irvine's life. I only met him once and I was too busy to thank him. I wish I had. I was one that when I first saw him on TV in the early 70's or so would have acquiesed in Bradlee's silly invective. But because of him and a few rare people like him who refused to be quiet or to give up in the face of overwhelming odds I was given a way to see through the fog that the media and the academy were spewing. Thanks Reed Irvine.

daniel, this is odd to me? I could have sworn that this tribute was posted before? Is it deja-vu or have i seen this? when was it that Mr.Reed passed on?

I think somewhere back in the archives of the site, Daniel wrote a living tribute to Reed at some milestone in Reed's career, and not an obituary tribute.