this i believe essay by norman cousins

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This I believe : the personal philosophies of remarkable men and women

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Cousins, Norman (1915-1990)

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“Inevitably, an individual is measured by his or her largest concerns.” — from Human Options , by Norman Cousins

Though not a member of any Unitarian congregation, Cousins did at times attend services at the Unitarian Church in Westport, and he donated the pulpit of that church “in memory of Albert Schweitzer.” Cousins had written two books about Schweitzer and had spent time with him at his hospital in Lambarene. In conversation with the current minister of the Westport congregation, Rev. Frank Hall, Cousins said that for him “the pulpit represented the importance of the spoken word, and the ongoing search for truth and justice.”

Norman Cousins was born in Union Hill, New Jersey, on June 24, 1915, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants, Samuel Kozinz and Sarah Babushkin (“Kozinz” was recorded in English as “Cousins” by an official at Ellis Island). Growing up, he was both a fine athlete and a fine writer. He graduated from Columbia University Teachers College in 1933 and began his career as writer and editor with brief stints at the New York Evening Post and Current History . In 1940 he became executive editor of the Saturday Review of Literature (later Saturday Review ), becoming editor just two years later at the age of twenty-seven. In the course of his tenure Saturday Review grew from a small and struggling literary magazine to a weekly forum of ideas with a circulation of over 600,000.

At Saturday Review , Cousins not only spoke his own mind as editor, he also encouraged other writers and critics in a collective effort, “not just to appraise literature, but to try to serve it, nurture it, safeguard it.” Cousins believed, “There is a need for writers who can restore to writing its powerful tradition of leadership in crisis.”

During his almost four decades with the magazine he came to feel that his readers were a second family: “Nothing in my life, next to my family, has meant more to me than the Saturday Review ,” he once said. “To work with books and ideas, to see the interplay between a nation’s culture and its needs, to have unfettered access to an editorial page which offered, quite literally, as much freedom as I was capable of absorbing—this is a generous portion for anyone.” Cousins used that editorial freedom to speak his mind on a wide variety of the issues of the day, none more important to him than issues of war and peace.

During World War II Cousins was a member of the editorial board for the Overseas Bureau of the Office of War Information and was cochairman of the 1943 Victory Book Campaign. He also came to believe that enduring world peace could only be achieved through effective world governance. The use of atomic weapons to end the war further galvanized his thinking and writing. In Saturday Review , Cousins affirmed that “The need for world government was clear before August 6, 1945, but Hiroshima and Nagasaki raise that need to such dimensions that it can no longer be ignored.” His editorial “Modern Man is Obsolete,” exploring the implications of the atomic age was widely quoted and in its expanded book form was briefly on the bestseller list. When the United World Federalists was founded in 1947 Cousins served as one of its vice presidents and later as president. To generate support for world government he made more than 2,000 speeches both in the United States and around the world.

In Who Speaks for Man? , published in 1953 following extensive travels in Europe and Asia, Cousins expanded his arguments for world federalism and for a world no longer based on the supremacy of nationalism and other superficial differences: “The new education must be less concerned with sophistication than compassion. It must recognize the hazards of tribalism. It must teach man the most difficult lesson of all—to look at someone anywhere in the world and be able to see the image of himself. The old emphasis upon superficial differences that separate peoples must give way to education for citizenship in the human community. “With such an education and with such self-understanding, it is possible that some nation or people may come forward with the vital inspiration that men need no less than food. Leadership on this higher level does not require mountains of gold or thundering propaganda. It is concerned with human destiny. Human destiny is the issue. People will respond.” He concluded the book with this hopeful affirmation: “War is an invention of the human mind. The human mind can invent peace with justice.”

Cousins’s concern for peace and human well-being was more than an abstract idea. His concern, for example, for the victims of Hiroshima, following a postwar visit to that devastated city, became quite personal. He arranged, with funding from Saturday Review readers, for medical treatment in the United States for twenty-four young Japanese women who came to be known as the “Hiroshima Maidens.” Saturday Review readers also supported the medical care of 400 Japanese children orphaned by the atomic bomb. In the 1950s Cousins and his wife legally adopted one of the “Maidens.” A few years later, again with the support of Saturday Review readers, Cousins helped create a program for the “Ravensbrueck Lapins,” thirty-five Polish women who had been victims of Nazi medical experiments during the war.

During the sixties and seventies Cousins was a leading voice among those opposed to the American role in Vietnam; he continued to oppose the nuclear arms race, and he continued to argue for a strengthened United Nations leading to world government. As he wrote: “The essential lesson most people still resist is that they are members of one species. It is this that we all share—the emergence of a common destiny and the beginning of the perception, however misty, that something beyond the nation will have to be brought into being if the human race is to have any meaning.” Cousins believed that this was both essential and possible. He affirmed over and over again with typical optimistic spirit that human beings could do better, be better, and create better societies.

And he believed that the path to a better world began with the individual. In a democratic society it is, he affirmed, ultimately the individual who makes a difference: “freedom’s main problem is the problem of the individual who takes himself lightly historically.”

One of Cousins’s own great strengths was that he did not take himself lightly historically. He believed in the power of the written and spoken word to make a difference in the world. His commitment to Saturday Review was rooted in this belief. As he wrote in The Healing Heart,  “The description of the Saturday Review that pleased me most during the years of my editorship was that it never tried to gloss over the seriousness of the issues it discussed but that at the same time it never wavered in its belief that solutions were within reach.” This was true whether he and the magazine were taking on global issues of war and peace, justice, and the environment, or national issues such as the dangers of cigarette advertising or violence in the media.

In addition to his writing, public speaking, and service with a variety of organizations, Cousins consistently made an effort as editor of Saturday Review to experience events in the making. He believed that the editorial page should be an “encounter with the present.” In this spirit he observed an atomic test at Bikini, visited postwar Germany, reported from a plane during the Berlin airlift, traveled to disputed Kashmir in 1954, to the Gaza Strip in 1956, and to war torn Laos in 1961. Following a visit to the Soviet Union in 1960, he initiated a series of cultural exchanges between Americans and Russians from many fields of endeavor that became known as the Dartmouth Conferences. And over the years he met and often became friends with a wide variety of some of the preeminent figures of the mid-twentieth century from many fields, among them Pablo Casals, Winston Churchill, Albert Schweitzer, Adlai Stevenson, Albert Einstein, Buckminster Fuller, Pope John XXIII, U Thant, Jawaharlal Nehru, Helen Keller, and most of the U.S. presidents beginning with FDR.

In the 1960s Cousins had an experience that changed his life and that, at the same time, reinforced some of his deepest convictions concerning the nature of the human being. Stricken with a crippling and life-threatening collagen disease, Cousins followed a regimen of high doses of vitamin C and of positive emotions (including daily doses of belly laughter), all in consultation and partnership with his sometimes skeptical physicians. He chronicled his recovery in the best-selling Anatomy of an Illness as Perceived by the Patient: Reflections on Healing and Regeneration , published in 1979. In the book, generalizing from his own experience and research, he affirmed that “the life force may be the least understood force on earth” and that “human beings are not locked into fixed limitations. The quest for perfectibility is not a presumption or a blasphemy but the highest manifestation of a great design.”

When Cousins had a heart attack fifteen years following his earlier illness, he wondered whether it would be possible to recover from two life-threatening conditions in one lifetime, but he was determined that he would. As he was brought into the hospital on a stretcher following the attack, he sat up and said, “Gentlemen, I want you to know that you’re looking at the darnedest healing machine that’s ever been wheeled into this hospital.” Once again Cousins recovered, and once again he chronicled his experience in a book, The Healing Heart: Antidotes to Panic and Helplessness . And once again he generalized from his experience with life-threatening illness to the experience of life threatened humanity. He was struck by the irony that all of his books on the ills of nations did not have the total readership of his one book describing his personal experience of disease and recovery, Anatomy of an Illness . Yet his concern, as he wrote in The Healing Heart , was “that everyone’s health—including that of the next generation—may depend more on the health of society and the healing of nations than on the conquest of disease.” He concluded the book with a call to conquer war, affirming that “the health and well-being not just of Americans but of the human race are incompatible with war and preparations for war.”

During the last year of his life, Cousins received additional awards, including the Albert Schweitzer Prize for Humanitarianism and the Japan Niwano Peace Prize.

Norman Cousins died on November 30, 1990, following cardiac arrest, and having lived years longer than doctors more than once had predicted: ten years after his first heart attack, sixteen years after his collagen illness, and twenty-six years after his doctors first diagnosed heart disease.

In American National Biography , Cousins’s life is summarized in the following words:

“In June 1983 Cousins told the graduating class of Harvard Medical School that the “conquest of war and the pursuit of social justice… must become our grand preoccupation and magnificent obsession.” These certainly were the concerns that obsessed him throughout his life, and over the years he battled through his writings and actions to make them matters of more general concern. Driven by the shock and portent of Hiroshima, he worked to combat unchecked nationalism, promote federalism, and build a sense of world citizenship, in the belief that people as a whole might yet construct a new world order of peace and justice. His optimism, intellectual curiosity, and commitment to the preservation of human life were equally unquenchable.”

Cousins’s own words, from his 1980 book Human Options: An Autobiographical Notebook , perhaps best capture how he strived to live his life:

“I can imagine no greater satisfaction for a person, in looking back on his life and work, than to have been able to give some people, however few, a feeling of genuine pride in belonging to the human species and, beyond that, a zestful yen to justify that pride.”

—  By Ken Read-Brown, Minister of Old Ship Church, Hingham, Massachusetts.

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4.5: “This I Believe” Essay

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The History of ‘This I Believe’

by Tanya Matthews

This I Believe is an exciting media project that invites individuals from all walks of life to write about and discuss the core beliefs that guide their daily lives. They share these statements in weekly broadcasts on NPR’s Morning Edition and All Things Considered .

The series is based on the 1950’s radio program This I Believe , hosted by acclaimed journalist Edward R. Murrow. Each day, some 39-million Americans gathered by their radios to hear compelling essays from the likes of Eleanor Roosevelt, Jackie Robinson, Helen Keller and Harry Truman as well as corporate leaders, cab drivers, scientists and secretaries — anyone able to distill into a few minutes the guiding principles by which they lived. Their words brought comfort and inspiration to a country worried about the Cold War, McCarthyism and racial division.

Eventually, the radio series became a cultural phenomenon. Eighty-five leading newspapers printed a weekly column based on This I Believe . A collection of essays published in 1952 sold 300,000 copies — second only to the Bible that year. The series was translated and broadcast around the globe on the Voice of America. A book of essays translated into Arabic sold 30,000 copies in just three days.

[The NPR series This I Believe can be read and heard here . In addition, the website and organization This I Believe houses thousands of essays written by famous people, such as the ones mentioned above, and everyday people like you and me.]

As a college student in 2020, you are faced with turbulent politics, socioeconomic issues, and ethical dilemmas that will challenge you to take a stand and contribute to the local, national, and global conversation around you. The purpose of this writing task is not to persuade you to agree on the same beliefs. Rather, it is to encourage you to begin the much more difficult task of developing respect for beliefs different from your own. Fifty years ago, Edward R. Murrow’s project struck such a chord with millions of Americans. It can do so again today…with you.

Video Resources for Generating Ideas

Dan gediman on writing a “this i believe essay”.

Read Cecelia Munoz’s essay “Getting Angry Can Be a Good Thing” referred to in the previous video here .

“This I Believe” Essay with Animation

“This I Believe” Essay Ideas

Prewriting Activity

1) analyze others’ statements.

Consider the following statements, written in response to the question What Have You Learned About Life? Highlight any sentences that resonate with you. Talk about them with a partner or group, explaining why. 1. I’ve learned that when I wave to people in the country, they stop what they are doing and wave back. – Age 9 2. I’ve learned that if you want to cheer yourself up, you should try cheering someone else up. – Age 14 3. I’ve learned that although it’s hard to admit it, I’m secretly glad my parents are strict with me. – Age 15 4. I’ve learned that if someone says something unkind about me, I must live so that no one will believe it. – Age 39 5. I’ve learned that there are people who love you dearly but just don’t know how to show it. – Age 42 6. I’ve learned that you can make someone’s day by simply sending them a little note. – Age 44 7. I’ve learned that the greater a person’s sense of guilt, the greater his or her need to cast blame on others. – Age 46 8. I’ve learned that no matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow. – Age 48 9. I’ve learned that regardless of your relationship with your parents, you miss them terribly after they die. – Age 53 10. I’ve learned that making a living is not the same thing as making a life. – Age 58 11. I’ve learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance. – Age 62 12. I’ve learned that whenever I decide something with kindness, I usually make the right decision. – Age 66 13. I’ve learned that it pays to believe in miracles. And to tell the truth, I’ve seen several. – Age 75 14. I’ve learned that even when I have pains, I don’t have to be one. – Age 82 15. I’ve learned that every day you should reach out and touch someone. People love that human touch—holding hands, a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back. – Age 85 16. I’ve learned that I still have a lot to learn. – Age 92

2) Compose Your Own Statement

Write down a sentence that expresses what YOU have learned about life. Maybe it is similar to one of the statements above; maybe it’s completely different. Whatever it is, write it down.

3) Freewrite

Now free-write about your sentence. Include at least two examples / experiences that you have had that support why you think this way.

Personal Statement/Philosophy: ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Why do you believe in this statement? ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Name two experiences that you had that would support the statement: _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ What does this say about yourself or your personality? _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ After your life experience, how have you come to the conclusion that this should be your statement? How have your beliefs changed, if at all? ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ How has the event effected your relationship with a person, place, or object? _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ How does your statement apply to you today? (How you view yourself & society) ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

SAMPLE STUDENT ESSAYS

Sample #1: america’s beauty is in its diversity.

written by Alaa El-Saad, high school student, as heard on NPR’s Tell Me More (2009)

America is built on the idea of freedom, and there is no exception for Muslim women. I believe in the freedom of religion and speech. But mostly, I believe it’s OK to be different, and to stand up for who and what you are. So I believe in wearing the hijab.

The hijab is a religious head covering, like a scarf. I am Muslim and keeping my head covered is a sign of maturity and respect toward my religion and to Allah’s will. To be honest, I also like to wear it to be different. I don’t usually like to do what everyone else is doing. I want to be an individual, not just part of the crowd. But when I first wore it, I was also afraid of the reaction that I’d get at school.

I decided on my own that sixth grade was the time I should start wearing the hijab. I was scared about what the kids would say or even do to me. I thought they might make fun of me, or even be scared of me and pull off my headscarf. Kids at that age usually like to be all the same, and there’s little or no acceptance for being different.

On the first day of school, I put all those negative thoughts behind my back and walked in with my head held high. I was holding my breath a little, but inside I was also proud to be a Muslim, proud to be wearing the hijab, proud to be different.

I was wrong about everything I thought the kids would say or even do to me. I actually met a lot of people because of wearing my head covering. Most of the kids would come and ask me questions—respectfully—about the hijab, and why I wore it.

I did hear some kid was making fun of me, but there was one girl—she wasn’t even in my class, we never really talked much—and she stood up for me, and I wasn’t even there! I made a lot of new friends that year, friends that I still have until this very day, five years later.

Yes, I’m different, but everyone is different here, in one way or another. This is the beauty of America. I believe in what America is built on: all different religions, races and beliefs. Different everything.

Sample #2: The Essentials to Happiness

written by Alexxandra Schuman, high school student, as heard on The Bob Edwards Show (2013)

As a child, I was generally happy; singing and dancing to my favorite songs; smiling and laughing with my friends and family. But as far back as second grade, I noticed a “darkness,” about me. I didn’t enjoy engaging in many things. I didn’t relate to my peers in elementary school because they appeared so happy, and I didn’t have that ability to achieve happiness so easily.

In middle school things in my life began to get even worse. I began withdrawing from everything I once enjoyed; swimming, tennis, family. I hated going to sleep knowing I had to wake up to another day. I was always tired. Everything was horrible. Finally, midway through eighth grade, I was told I had a chemical imbalance; diagnosed with clinical depression and put on medication. It took months for me to feel the effects of the medication.

When I began to feel happy again, is when I realized that I had to take the responsibility for getting better myself, rather than relying on medication and therapy alone. Aristotle said, “To live happily is an inward power of the soul,” and I believe that this quote describes what I had to do to achieve happiness. Happiness is a journey. Everyone seems to need different things to be happy. But I believe people are blinded from what truly makes one happy.

Growing up, we’re encouraged to be successful in life; but how is success defined? Success and happiness are imagined now as having a lot of money. It is so untrue. Recently I went to Costa Rica and visited the small town of El Roble. I spent the day with a nine-year old girl named Marilyn. She took me to her house to meet her parents. It was obvious that they were not rich; living in a small house with seven children. The house was cluttered but full of life. Those who have decided that success and happiness comes from having money and a big house would be appalled at how utterly happy this family from El Roble is. People say that seeing things like that make you appreciate what you have, but for me, it made me envy them for being so happy without all the things I have.

“The essentials to happiness are something to love, something to do, and something to hope for,” a quote from William Blake sums up what I believe people need to realize to be truly happy in life. People need love; I feel they need their family and their friends more than anything in the world. People need work to do, something to make them feel they are making a difference in the world. People need to know that more good is to come in the future, so they continue to live for “now” instead of constantly worrying about the bad that could come. And most importantly people need to know that happiness is not something that happens overnight. Love and hope is happiness.

Sample #3: Find a Good Frog

written by Delia Motavalli, high school student, as heard on The Bob Edwards Show (2013)

I believe in finding a good frog. It seems that all throughout childhood, we are taught to look for a happily ever after. “And they all lived happily ever after”; isn’t that the conclusion to many children’s films? When I was a kid I always thought of that as magical; but now really it just seems unrealistic. And it teaches us that what we want is a fairytale like they have in the storybooks. We all want to be Cinderella who gets swept off her feet by the hot prince; we want to live in the royal castle, right? But I don’t think that’s necessarily a good thing for us to seek. Now I’m not saying I believe in being pessimistic, but I do believe in being realistic; it’s something I got from my mom.

My mother and I always have our best conversations in the rain. We sit in the car, neither of us wanting to brave the rain to get to the house. So we sit. We watch droplets race down the windshield, listen to the rain strike the roof of her little blue Honda, and feel the heater on full-blast rushing at our feet (just the way we like it). I don’t know why, but sitting in the car, we always talk more than normal. There was one rainy day when my mom told me something that is going to stick with me forever. Earlier that day she and my dad had been arguing about something; I can’t remember what. So she said, “Don’t spend your life looking for Prince Charming. Instead, find yourself a really good frog.”

At the time, I found this thought really disheartening. Who wants to think that you’ll never find Prince Charming? You’ll never get to be Cinderella? Another thought that struck my mind: if my mom says there’s no Prince Charming, then what’s my dad? A frog? I asked her, and she replied with, “Of course! If he were Prince Charming, he wouldn’t snore, would be able to cook, and we would never argue. But you know what? He’s a damn good frog.” Of course, being young, I didn’t think of the meaning behind what she was saying. I was too busy thinking of it literally, visualizing my mom as a princess and my dad in frog form.

But a few years later, I understand the value of my mom’s words. You can’t expect everything to be perfect. Let’s be completely honest; if you wait your whole life for your prince with flowing hair, statuesque features, and a white horse, you’re going to be lonely. I think that the point of finding a good frog is you accept something that’s great, flaws and all. It’s so easy to be picky. You can find the one tiny thing that’s wrong, and that one tiny thing is what you can’t get your mind off of. But in life, we can’t afford to wait years in vain for perfection. So I think that a good frog, an amazing frog, the best frog you can find is what we’re really looking for in this world. Don’t laze through life waiting for a happily ever after, because I don’t think you’ll be very happy with the outcome.

Examples from the ‘This I Believe’ Website

Be Cool to the Pizza Dude by Sarah Adams

They Lived Their Faith by Charles Henry Parrish

Returning to What’s Natural by Amelia Baxter-Stoltzfus

The Birthright of Human Dignity by Will Thomas

Remembering All The Boys by Elvia Bautista

I Am Still The Greatest by Muhammad Ali

A Goal Of Service To Humankind by Anthony Fauci

My Life Is Better by Abraham

Give Me a Waffle by Brenda

The Little Things by Sophie Crossley

You can also browse thousands more This I Believe essays by theme .

Prefer to Listen to Get Inspiration?

Check out This I Believe’s Podcast Series

4) Drafting

Assignment guidelines + suggestions and tips for drafting.

1. While the examples you’ve been given can serve as a model, it is essential that each of you write about a personal belief or philosophy that you feel strongly about. 2. Tell a story. Personal experiences are the corner stone of a good essay. Your story doesn’t have to be a heart breaker or even a major event, but it must be something that has affected how you think, feel, and act. List your personal experiences that you intend to use as evidence below: 3. Be concise. Avoid repetition. This essay should be between 500 – 650 words. When read aloud, it should take roughly four minutes. 4. Name your belief. It is essential that you can name your belief in a sentence or two. Focus on one belief only. This is your thesis. Write it here: 5. Be positive. Avoid preaching or persuading. You aren’t trying to change the way others think or act. Write about what you believe, not what you don’t believe. 6. Use the first person. Speak for yourself. Avoid using we or you. 7. Let your voice shine. Use language that sounds like you. Read it aloud as your revise. Keep making changes until your essay sounds like you and captures the essence of your belief.

5) Peer Review

Once you have written your first draft, arrange for your essay to be edited by a peer, using the following Peer-Editing Checklist: Writer’s Name: ________________________________________________ Peer Editor’s Name: ________________________________________________ Use your PENCIL or PEN (NOT red or green) to make corrections. Remember, this essay is a work in progress. You are not done writing! Look for ways to improve what you’ve already written. Tick each step if it has been completed. _____ 1. Read the paper backwards, one sentence at a time. Check for spelling errors. Use a dictionary, a friend, or a spell checker to find the correct spelling. _____ 2. Check for capitalized proper nouns and the first word of each sentence. _____ 3. Skip a line between each paragraph. _____ 4. Every sentence should have end punctuation. _____ 5. Check commas. Are they only used for compound sentences, a list of items, an introductory word or phrase, direct address, setting off interruptions, separating adjectives, or in dates? Do you need to add commas? Make sure you do not have commas separating complete sentences (i.e. comma splice errors that create run-on sentences). _____ 6. Apostrophes are used only for contractions and to show ownership. _____ 7. The use of more complex punctuation (dashes, hyphens, semi-colons, parentheses, etc.) is done correctly. _____ 8. Have you used commonly mixed pairs of words correctly? Check these: they’re/their/there, your/you’re, it’s/its, a/an, to/too/two, are/our/hour, and others. _____ 9. Read the paper backwards one sentence at a time. Check for sentence fragments and run-ons and correct them. _____ 10. Did you stay in present tense (such as is, am, do, take, know, etc.) or past tense (such as was, were, did, took, knew, etc.) throughout the entire essay? _____ 11. Did you stay in first person (I, me, my, we, us, our) or third person (he, him, she, her, they, them, their) throughout the entire essay? _____ 12. Was there adequate use of specific details and sensory details? Were the details clear and relevant to the statement? _____ 13. Is the overall purpose/philosophy clear? _____ 14. Does the conclusion make you go, “Wow!” “Cool!” “I never thought about it that way,” or any other similar reaction? Other suggestions for the overall content of the piece: ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

This I Believe by Tanya Matthews is licensed by CC-BY-SA

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Historical Archives

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Reflections On Race: Essays From The Archives

February 23, 2009 • Dan Gediman, executive producer of NPR's This I Believe, explores the archives of the original series hosted by Edward R. Murrow in the 1950s. He says the essays shed light on the realities of segregation at the dawn of the civil rights movement.

Gediman explores the 'This I Believe' archives.

Our awareness controls human destiny.

February 8, 2009 • In an essay from 1951 for the original This I Believe series, Margaret Mead says she can't separate the beliefs she has as a person from the beliefs she has as an anthropologist. She says that humans have a responsibility for the entire planet.

A Hope For Bettering Humanity

February 1, 2009 • In an essay from 1953 for the original This I Believe series, Sir Charles Galton Darwin, the grandson of naturalist Charles Darwin, drew on his study of science to say he believed the future of humanity depended on the practice of eugenics.

Finding Security In Fundamental Freedoms

October 15, 2008 • In 1953 at the height of McCarthyism, Sen. Margaret Chase Smith recorded a statement for Edward R. Murrow's This I Believe program. Her essay expressed her belief in freedom of speech and warned against demagogues who threatened American security.

Smith reads her "This I Believe" essay.

The faith of our fathers.

January 11, 2006 • From 1951, Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas encourages a return to the faith of his father's generation. He believes spiritual values, not material ones, can guide America through troubling times.

An Athlete of God

January 4, 2006 • From 1953, legendary choreographer Martha Graham believes that living -- like dancing -- requires practice to achieve a sense of one's being and a satisfaction of spirit.

An Ideal of Service to Our Fellow Man

May 28, 2005 • From 1954, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Albert Einstein finds beauty in life's mysteries, and says the fate of mankind depends on individuals choosing public service over private gain.

Listen to Robert Krulwich Read Einstein's Essay

Looking at life through another's eyes.

May 26, 2005 • From circa 1951: Sociologist and educator Charles S. Johnson tells how faith, morality and empathy helped lift his family from slavery and influence his own work for social justice in the United States.

Offering a Helping Hand to One's Fellow Sufferers

May 19, 2005 • From the 1950s series, Marty Mann describes how her battles with alcoholism and depression forced her to open herself up to those around her, and led her to help other people who suffered with addiction.

The Light of a Brighter Day

April 4, 2005 • Helen Keller learned to communicate through the eyes and ears of others after a fever left her deaf and blind as an infant. The author, activist and lecturer discusses her vision of faith, from an essay broadcast in 1951.

A Philosophy to Live by Is a Healing Thing

April 4, 2005 • In 1952, acclaimed Hollywood director John Cromwell used his This I Believe essay as an opportunity to write a letter to his young son. It expresses a loving father’s good counsel and fervent hopes for his child.

Listen to Cromwell's Essay

Work is the sweetening of life.

April 4, 2005 • From an essay broadcast in 1953, Katherine Bottigheimer of Louisville, Kentucky, tells how an elderly cousin influenced her to commit her adult life to hard work and public service.

Listen to Bottigheimer

A game of cards.

April 4, 2005 • From 1951, writer and editor Norman Cousins says man is both good and evil, selfish and altruistic. He appeals to our intelligence and conscience to improve humanity and create a safer world.

Cousins' Essay

A morning prayer in a little church.

April 4, 2005 • From 1952, actress Helen Hayes explains that in spite of her theatrical success, it took the death of her daughter to teach her the interdependence of humanity and the need for more compassion.

Listen to Helen Hayes

A public man must live in the present.

April 4, 2005 • From 1955, President Harry Truman explains the beliefs that shaped his two decades of public service and encourages Americans to correct the remaining imperfections in our democracy.

Listen to Truman

A doubting, questioning mind.

April 4, 2005 • As a 16-year-old, Elizabeth Deutsch was still exploring different religions and philosophies. From an essay broadcast in 1954, she discusses her questions, doubts and search for beliefs to guide her as an adult.

Listen to Elizabeth Deutsch

Free minds and hearts at work.

April 4, 2005 • In 1947, Jackie Robinson pioneered the integration of American professional athletics by becoming the first black player in Major League Baseball. From an essay recorded in 1952, he discusses his fight against prejudice.

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• Resource Library
• Communication
• Intro to AFNR
• Personal Essay
• Public Speaking

Education Standards

Nebraska agriculture and natural resources standards.

Learning Domain: Agribusiness Systems

Standard: Differentiate between management and leadership

This I Believe essay - Leadership

This i believe oral evaluation sheet, 'this i believe' essay writing.

Presented in five consecutive standard-period classes, students are invited to contribute to the This I Believe essay-writing project by writing and submitting a statement of personal belief.  This is a challenging, intimate statement on one’s beliefs and one’s own daily life philosophy, considering moments when belief was formed, tested, or changed.  Written by Jarvis Reed.

Overview:  Presented in five consecutive standard-period classes, students are invited to contribute to the This I Believe essay-writing project by writing and submitting a statement of personal belief.  This is a challenging, intimate statement on one's beliefs and one's own daily life philosophy, considering moments when belief was formed, tested, or changed.  Written by Jarvis Reed.

AFNR.HS.10.5.c  Communicate using strategies that ensure clarity, logic, purpose, and rofessionalism in formal or informal settings.

AFNR.HS.20.1.d  Examine and practice public speaking.

Learning Goal: 

Students will increase written and oral communication skills by thinking critically and articulating in writing a personal foundational belief in 350-500 words stated in the affirmative and then presenting this essay to their class.

Photo by Yeshi Kangrang on Unsplash

Hoping With Your Whole Body : HEAD FIRST: The Biology of Hope <i> by Norman Cousins (E. P. Dutton: $18.95; 304 pp.; 0-525-24805-6) </i>

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About 10 years ago, after a distinguished career as a magazine editor and leader of liberal causes, Norman Cousins began a new career--also, I think, distinguished and courageous to boot--as a medical kibitzer. Unlike some critics of medicine, he has immersed himself in it, and in illness--dues rarely paid by such pundits. He has been teaching and seeing patients at the UCLA Medical Center as well as lecturing and consulting on medical topics throughout the world. It seems to me that he is practicing medicine without a license, but that is not necessarily bad, since he more or less knows his limitations, and dispenses advice under the supervision of real doctors.

This is his third book about illness and medicine, and it continues his eloquent plea for two needed emphases: more humane doctor-patient relations, and greater patient involvement in the struggle with disease. Unfortunately, it also repeats his exaggerated faith in the power of hope to overcome illness. Because so many of us profoundly need to believe in it, this weakest aspect of his work receives the lion’s share of attention. A current ad for the book, under the heading “Inspirational Reading,” offers “Proof That Hope Can Make You Healthy.” The book itself ends: “Belief becomes biology. The head comes first.”

These words have two meanings. One, indisputable and accepted by all doctors, is that to survive illness you must decide to live. You must eat and drink--often in a particular way--avoid certain substances, dress your wounds, take your pills and other treatments, even, sometimes, go to the doctor. People die from lack of hope every day--through failure to take these pragmatic expedients.

The other meaning--that hope exerts a direct influence on the body’s chemical milieu and thus has a privileged power to stave off illness--is hotly disputed. That is not because it is guaranteed to be wrong, but because there is not yet enough evidence--actually, not nearly enough--to constrain us to believe in it. And in medicine, we tend not to believe things for which the evidence is insufficient, especially when they are notions that sorely tempt our belief. If this approach seems to you cranky and obstinate, try thinking of it as the main reason why you feel more confident than your great-great-grandmother did of the doctor’s ability to improve your chances.

Cousins’ first book, “Anatomy of an Illness,” recounted the touchstone experience for his contribution to medicine. As he told it, he was suffering from a particularly rare collagen disease that was worsening relentlessly and threatening his life. With his doctor’s reluctant collusion, he discharged himself from the hospital and, at a nearby hotel, treated himself with funny movies, vitamin C and large doses of hope. He also stopped taking his medicine. Full recovery ensued, and he went on to tell his story to the medical community and the world. Both were responsive, and he entered a long-term relationship with one of our great medical centers, a position from which he influences a great many doctors, medical students, and patients.

Now, as Cousins must know, the illness he was supposed to have was and is very difficult to diagnose definitively. It is easily confused, by the best doctors, with other less degenerative conditions, and indeed some specialists would rule out this particular diagnosis just because he recovered. A cynic would say that Cousins merely proved the old medical adage that most patients have ailments that the doctor never identifies and that are resolved with or without treatment. He also knows that if the average patient with a really serious illness were to check out of the hospital, stop taking prescribed medicine and follow a regimen of vitamins and Marx Brothers, the overall result would be a marked increase in pain and death.

Despite his own experience, in this book he explicitly rejects the substitution of hope, humor, defiance and other emotions for medical and surgical treatments, and he states: “Yes, I know that my optimism can be carried too far. . . .” I hope that these warnings are heard loudly and clearly. Everyone in medicine has seen some patients jeopardize their lives by substituting unorthodox treatments for proven ones. Cousins doesn’t dwell on their stories, but they are at least as numerous and tragic as those of the mainstream medical blunders he presents in abundance.

In a more subtle vein, the complex and varied suffering of people with serious illnesses is not always and everywhere mitigated by emphasizing the possible role of mental states in illness. I once wrote an article in a national publication warning against the overemphasis of such factors, and many of the letters I got were from patients or family members who had been made to feel that they mentally caused or failed to resist their own or their loved ones’ illnesses. Reading my article helped relieve them of a burden of guilt.

The evidence, in fact, is complex and puzzling. One of the most solid sections of the book is Cousins’ report to the dean of the medical school summarizing his 10 years of experience there. Another is a joint statement signed by him and a physician-scientist who had criticized him. In these places, Cousins is more circumspect than in the rest of his text, noting that the evidence, in both human and animal studies, remains suggestive, and is often inconsistent, contradictory and bewildering.

Some studies show that stress, for example, enhances the body’s immune defenses, others that it depresses them. Several studies suggest that what might be considered a bad mental state--intense and angry struggle--improves survival in breast cancer, which seems quite different from Cousins’ emphasis on hope and laughter.

A new and very good study, published after Cousins’ book had gone to press, has shown a positive effect of psychotherapy on survival in advanced breast cancer--fascinating but paradoxical, given the previous results. The frontier of knowledge is moving, but it is not clear where, and there is no specific recommendation to be drawn from the evidence presently available.

Cousins is aware of these inconsistencies, but he allows his main line of argument to gloss over them. In this, he succumbs to a temptation that physicians often are faced with: to avoid at all cost taking away the patient’s hope. Yet, increasingly--partly because of the good offices of the legal, not the medical, profession--we believe in truth-telling. Physicians in Japan still lie to patients about cancer, but we consider that unscionable in most circumstances. Yet we try to avoid clobbering patients with depressing information that may not help them. Even as I write, I worry that I may be spreading despondency in the service of scientific precision. This is not a new conflict, nor is it one that physicians should be asked to resolve by themselves.

Meanwhile, Cousins’ other message--that poor doctor-patient communication and insensitivity to the psychosocial dimensions of illness have become endemic in modern medicine--is very apt. Even if there is not a shred of truth (an unlikely conclusion anyway) in the notion that mind directly affects immune function, there is no doubt that lives are lost and suffering increased through this little-studied category of medical error. Inhumane treatment can be useless, or even worse than no treatment at all. When doctors get sick these days, they frequently come to the same conclusion that other patients come to: Modern physicians need to become much better at the human dimensions of care.

The title--”Head First”--is therefore a half-truth; a better one might have been “Head Too.” Cousins has learned much from his decade of medical immersion. He influences many people, so I hope that he will become ever more careful in generalizing, and more appropriately patient as we await new research findings.

He has a lot to contribute, but there is nothing like clinical experience to make you realize how complex and difficult the battle against illness is--and how capriciously it defies our pieties, including these new ones about hope.

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MIND OVER ILLNESS - THIS I BELIEVE - Norman Cousins. Audio Cassette – January 1, 1994

• Language English
• Publication date January 1, 1994
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Louise Goode fought for a quarter-century to keep this home. In seconds it was destroyed in front of her

Louise Goode's quarter-century commitment to a home in Melbourne's inner north was crushed in a matter of minutes.

As she watched from behind a thin construction fence, a digger moved into position, and started to tear the house apart.

"Stop! Stop! Stop!" she shouted.

Her voice breaking from rage and frustration, she opened a gap in the fence and ran in front of the machine, forcing the operator to shut it down.

"I need people to care, because I care! I care with all my soul!" she shouted.

But it was a temporary reprieve. Before long, the digger started up again. Louise looked on as the walls came down, and the sound of wooden beams being ripped from their supports filled the air.

A few neighbours came to console her. "This is my life! My life! Everything stems from home!" she shouted.

For more than a year, she'd been living in the house in Thornbury with which she shares a long and complicated history.

She first moved into it in the 1990s. In the decades since, she's twice been legally evicted.

She's been homeless, she's couch surfed and been in emergency accommodation.

The house was sold, stripped to the bones, the back torn off. None of that stopped Louise from moving back in.

But on this day in late May, as the house disappeared with every digger load, there were three visits from the police. The final one ended with an order for her to move on.

"Please! Society come to my aid!" she yelled.

But there was no one to stop the demolition. Twenty-five years of Louise's life was gone. 

A home to fight for

One week earlier, Louise showed 7.30 how she was living. It was a frigid autumn night in Melbourne. The kind when the damp makes it feel colder than it is, and condensation fills the air when you breathe.

Louise and her 68 years felt every degree drop until dawn.

"The cold goes to the bone," she said. "I sleep in my clothes … I've got three blankets, four blankets."

Louise slept on a mattress on the floor, in a house with no heat, no power, and few walls.

"I know my vulnerability as I age and the deterioration of my health due to … living like this," she said. 

"Having to live, having to sleep rough. It takes its toll. Well and truly."

To Louise, there was no alternative. Even though she has had a transitional housing unit for more than a year, in another suburb. She believes it's unsafe, and only uses it to store her belongings.

The story of her dedication to the home in Thornbury involves peeling back layer after layer. Starting with her childhood.

Louise is a forgotten Australian . Her mother struggled in the working-class suburb of St Kilda in the 1960s and 70s. She was alone and was unable to care for her two children.

Louise and her brother were raised mostly in children's homes and the foster system.

"I was separated from my brother, and he was a foster child in another family … so we were split up." she said.

Her mother never stopped trying to get her children back. But Louise spent her teenage years living with a foster family or in institutions.

"I don't know much about her … and I don't know much about my father. I just met him once," she told 7.30.

Despite these circumstances, her determination and perseverance were spotted early in life.

One social worker wrote in 1972 that 17-year-old Louise "impressed all who have come in touch with her", and that she was determined to "break the family cycle" of disadvantage.

She worked in a variety of jobs, moved to Queensland, and returned to Melbourne. Then she found the house in the suburb of Thornbury that would be her home for more than 25 years.

Co-op leads to a home

In the early 1990s, the Victorian government was promoting co-operatives as way to manage public housing.

Louise was a founding member of a small, not for profit co-op called Access CERC (Common Equity Rental Cooperative). It was set up specifically to house single women and single mothers.

Under the co-operative model, real estate is purchased by governments for public housing. It's then turned over to the co-op and administered by members, who pay subsidised rent.

"It was empowering. You were making decisions. You were responsible. And when you are responsible for something, you care about it," Louise said.

A house became available, and Louise moved in. For years she went about making it her home. She believed she'd never leave.

Then things got complicated.

In 2008, there was a significant shift in the status of Louise's home. It was transferred to Victoria's largest housing association, Common Equity Housing Limited (CEHL). The not-for-profit association administers more than 100 housing co-ops and rental properties, providing homes for 4,200 people.

As part of this transition, Louise stopped being a co-op member and became a tenant in the house. Her landlord became VicWide Housing, a unit of CEHL.

To this day Louise argues the change occurred under duress and should have never happened. But the house remained her home.

The long legal fight

In 2016, Louise's tense relationship with her landlord boiled over. CEHL went to court, saying she owed more than $9,400 in back rent.

Louise argued she always paid or tried to pay rent to her old co-op, instead of CEHL. But in March 2016 Victoria's Civil and Administrative Tribunal ordered her to vacate the house.

This was just the first decision in what would eventually be a five-year legal battle that would go all the way to the Court of Appeal in the Supreme Court of Victoria.

For Louise, the legal fight was a matter of principle.

"We have to address the property inequalities where people that have money can buy a property and that gives them their safety. The poor are not safe because they can just be moved on willy nilly from one house to the next," she said.

Eventually, after a defeat in the Court of Appeal, Louise's legal options hit a dead end. Despite a petition with 35,000 signatures and advocacy from the Renters and Housing Union, in February 2021, she was evicted.

Months later, in May 2021, CEHL sold the house to a private buyer. 

In correspondence with 7.30 it said: "Following the vacation of the (Thornbury) property, the CEHL Board made a decision to dispose of the asset and reinvest the sale proceeds in continuing to develop the CEHL affordable housing portfolio."

But that couldn't keep Louise away. After a few months of couch surfing and staying in a share house, she returned to the empty property.

She was evicted a second time in July, and with Victoria in the midst of COVID lockdowns, Louise eventually found emergency accommodation in motels. But when that ended, she once more was drawn to the house in Thornbury.

"This was my home. This is all I know. Where am I going to go? Do I join the other homeless people, that are sleeping literally on the footpath?" she asked.

Louise's return

Despite the house being prepared for demolition, Louise moved back in early in 2023. The back wall was torn off and there were no utilities at all. 

The lush garden Louise had nurtured was mostly gone.

She was trespassing. But she was still there.

"For many people I know in Thornbury, Louise never left," said Darebin councillor Tim Laurence.

"Louise had a big positive impact in the community … (this house) was like a shady oasis, a good spot to stop and people would have a chat … it was very much a focal point of the community here."

Adding to the complexity of Louise's story is the fact that she's not technically homeless, with the other unit around 10 kilometres away at her disposal.

Louise doesn't believe this unit, piled high with decades of possessions from the house she was evicted from, can ever be home. And she knows to some, that sounds ungrateful.

"People might think, I've been given something, but it's a furphy. It's not addressing what I'm dealing with, which is I should never have been made homeless."

She has never considered the transitional unit a safe option, even though it's in a quiet suburban street.

"[The transitional unit] locks me into victimisation. My [old] home, I still am having free choice, my free will."

'Emotional comfort'

For more than a year, Louise had the same nightly routine. 

Lift the pram she uses to cart possessions around into her old house where the back wall used to be, feed her two cats and the stray that's now a regular visitor, then put out a bowl of fruit for the local possum.

She had bonded with the house, just like she did with the buildings she grew up in.

"So, in the institutions … no one would talk to me," she told 7.30.

"The beautiful dome windows, the tree outside. That's what gave me comfort. That's what gave me aesthetic.

"That's what gave me emotional comfort in the isolation."

She says that is why it is so hard for her to walk away from the Thornbury house. 

Growing up in orphanages with foster carers, having a mother who struggled to take care of her children – the house was a place she could call home.

"It was the first time of having a sense of belonging, something that belonged to me, " she said.

"But most important [it] gave me connection to belonging within society."

As she faced leaving a third time, Louise relied on a small circle of neighbours and friends.

"I'm in awe of her strength to keep at it," said Leanora Spry. "She's a kind and generous, loving human being."

Leanora lives nearby and became friends with Louise in the thick of her legal fight to stay in the Thornbury home. She believes the longer Louise stayed in the house, the more her support in the neighbourhood gradually diminished.

"Basically, the community around her [were] getting more frightened," she said.

Until the end, Louise didn't want to think about the day the wreckers would come. 

All around her were signs demolition was about to start. A gas line relocated, eave troughs removed, a power pole shifted.

Dream shattered

Even as the house came down, Louise tried to convince two police officers that she had an application before Victoria's Supreme Court to stop the work but she didn't have an order to show them.

The house has now been levelled. The owner's permits are in order and nothing could be done to stop her past home being consigned to history.

For Louise, it's a shock she may never recover from but she will always believe the fight has been worth it.

"My life needs to be as important as the lives of all the rich people that don't have to worry about the cold, who can just turn on the heater and not worry about the bills," she said.

"My life has to be [as] important as theirs."

Reporter:   Norman Hermant

Photos: Sean Davey/Oculi

Digital production:  Jenny Ky , Myles Wearring

Editor :  Paul Johnson

The Great  Crumbling Australian Dream

This photo essay is part of a larger photojournalism project examining Australia's housing crisis. 

The Great Crumbling Australian Dream is a collaboration between Oculi photographers and ABC News, with support from National Shelter. 

The series was made possible with a Meta Australian News Fund grant and the Walkley Foundation. 

Oculi is a collective of Australian photographers that offers a visual narrative of contemporary life in Australia and beyond.

Delve further into the series

A new way forward

Photographer Aishah Kenton looks at three households embracing communal living to see if Australians can adapt their way of life as housing becomes ever more unaffordable.

Read the story

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Liberals Find a TV Prescription for Election Jitters: Monday Nights

Once a week, Rachel Maddow and Jon Stewart are luring viewers back to basic cable.

By Michael M. Grynbaum and John Koblin

Liberal TV viewers have a new mantra: T.G.I.M.!

Monday nights have suddenly broken out in the Nielsen ratings — and in national relevance — thanks to a rare confluence: two TV superstars of the political left who have limited their regularly scheduled broadcasts to that one evening.

Jon Stewart, the “Daily Show” host and guiding light of Bush- and Obama-era Democrats who made a surprise comeback in February, now hosts his old show on Mondays at 11 p.m. Rachel Maddow, who stepped back from her nightly MSNBC duties in 2022, retained a dedicated hour every Monday at 9.

In a frazzled media age, their once-a-week programs have become something close to appointment viewing. Ms. Maddow’s Monday program is far and away the highest-rated hour of MSNBC’s entire week. Mr. Stewart’s “Daily Show” significantly outdraws the other weeknight editions of the show, and has proved to be a rare breakout hit for Comedy Central.

For Democrats anxious about a close election, Ms. Maddow and Mr. Stewart represent a particular kind of comfort: seasoned partisan warriors who have led viewers through past convulsions in the political arena.

“‘Tell me it’s going to be all right’ is the common refrain,” said Martin Kaplan, who runs the Norman Lear Center at the University of Southern California, adding that Mr. Stewart’s monologues are now the first thing he hears about from friends on Tuesday mornings. “It’s, ‘Did you see? Did you hear? Did you watch?’”

Their Monday success is a sign of the staying power of television personalities who established themselves with viewers years before the news landscape splintered into hundreds of smaller outlets.

For decades, the conventional wisdom for talk shows was that a dedicated host had to appear five days a week to gain an audience, because viewers needed to settle into a habit. But in this new era of irregularly scheduled podcasts and on-demand streaming entertainment, viewers appear to be just fine dipping in once in a while.

Monday nights also include an up-and-coming star among anti-Trump viewers: Jen Psaki, President Biden’s former press secretary whose MSNBC show appears once a week in prime time, on Mondays at 8 p.m. Since starting in October, Ms. Psaki has increased viewership by 9 percent in her time slot.

While the hosts agree on many matters — none, for instance, believe Mr. Trump is suited to return to the presidency — their opinions represent a spectrum of viewpoints on the political left. Notably, Mr. Stewart has broken Democratic orthodoxy by mocking Mr. Biden for his advanced age, pointing out that many voters harbor qualms about his physical and cognitive fitness.

Mr. Stewart’s debut monologue in February included a desperate plea to White House aides who insisted on their boss’s mental acuity — “You should film that! That would be good to show to people!” — and an onscreen headline that referred to the 2024 election as “Antiques Roadshow.”

Mary Trump, Mr. Trump’s niece and a relentless critic, chastised Mr. Stewart’s jokes as “‘both sides are the same’ rhetoric” and “a potential disaster for democracy.”

But judging from the crowds that line up on Monday afternoons outside the “Daily Show” studio on the Far West Side of Manhattan, Mr. Stewart’s iconoclasm has not diluted the enthusiasm of his fan base.

Tom Loker, 46, traveled two hours from Pennsylvania with his wife to attend a recent taping. Although they had fallen out of the habit of regularly watching “The Daily Show,” they have been lured back by Mr. Stewart.

“We record all of them, but I record it because I want to get the Monday show,” Mr. Loker said as he waited in line.

At a taping last month, Alexis Miller, a 41-year-old urban planner from Winnipeg, Canada, praised Mr. Stewart as a “cultural force.”

“He’s an equal-opportunity joke maker, and he doesn’t punch down,” she said.

Demand for tickets to attend Mr. Stewart’s Monday tapings is significantly higher than it is for other days of the week, according to two people granted anonymity to share details from internal discussions.

And the show’s ratings underscore that level of excitement. When Mr. Stewart is behind the desk, “The Daily Show” gets an average 1.7 million viewers, more than double the key demo ratings of his predecessor, Trevor Noah, according to Nielsen data that includes three days of delayed viewing.

The rotating cast of correspondents that takes over hosting duties every other day of the week are drawing about 770,000 viewers, Nielsen said.

Mr. Stewart’s return is benefiting the entire show. Last year, when “The Daily Show” used a series of guests hosts, the show averaged roughly 620,000 viewers between February and May, according to Nielsen. When Trevor Noah was hosting “The Daily Show” in 2022, the program averaged just over 550,000 viewers.

This year, Ms. Maddow’s show has averaged 2.5 million viewers. Alex Wagner, MSNBC’s 9 p.m. host on weeknights other than Monday, averages 1.4 million viewers.

Ms. Maddow continues to appear on MSNBC during major political events, like primary nights and the State of the Union address. Some fans record her Monday show to watch later on: “The Rachel Maddow Show” has the highest DVR viewership of any MSNBC show, with more than 900,000 additional viewers watching in the week after her Monday broadcast, according to Nielsen.

Of course, conservative cable news hosts have their own loyal followings. In May, the Fox News shows “The Five” (three million) and “Jesse Watters Primetime” (2.7 million) averaged more viewers than Ms. Maddow (2.4 million).

Mr. Stewart, who originally left “The Daily Show” in 2015, tried his own version of a weekly streaming program, “The Problem,” on Apple TV+. Mr. Stewart left that show after running into disagreements with Apple executives, but it also faced challenges gaining traction with viewers.

Yet it was his return to his old basic cable stomping grounds that catapulted Mr. Stewart back into the political conversation.

“I watched him as a kid, which was years and years ago,” Alex Forlenza, a 24-year-old researcher at Columbia, said while waiting in line for a taping with Mr. Stewart. “‘The Problem’ was not as good. But him on ‘The Daily Show,’ I’ve enjoyed it so far.”

J. Edward Moreno contributed reporting.

Michael M. Grynbaum writes about the intersection of media, politics and culture. He has been a media correspondent at The Times since 2016. More about Michael M. Grynbaum

John Koblin covers the television industry. He is the co-author of “It’s Not TV: The Spectacular Rise, Revolution, and Future of HBO.” More about John Koblin

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