Reporting World War II

G. Kurt Piehler, Ingo Trauschweizer (Herausgeber)

Buch | Hardcover

304 Seiten

2023
Fordham University Press (Verlag)
978-1-5315-0309-3 (ISBN)

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This set of essays offers new insights into the journalistic process and the pressures American front-line reporters experienced covering World War II. Transmitting stories through cable or couriers remained expensive and often required the cooperation of foreign governments and the American armed forces. Initially, reporters from a neutral America documented the early victories by Nazi Germany and the Soviet invasion of Finland. Not all journalists strove for objectivity. During her time reporting from Ireland, Helen Kirkpatrick remained a fierce critic of that country’s neutrality. Once the United States joined the fight after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, American journalists supported the struggle against the Axis powers, but this volume will show that reporters, even when members of the army sponsored newspaper, Stars and Stripes were not mere ciphers of the official line.

African American reporters Roi Ottley and Ollie Stewart worked to bolster the morale of Black GIs and undermined the institutional racism endemic to the American war effort. Women front-line reporters are given their due in this volume examining the struggles to overcome gender bias by describing triumphs of Thérèse Mabel Bonney, Iris Carpenter, Lee Carson, and Anne Stringer.

The line between public relations and journalism could be a fine one as reflected by the U.S. Marine Corps’ creating its own network of Marine correspondents who reported on the Pacific island campaigns and had their work published by American media outlets. Despite the pressures of censorship, the best American reporters strove for accuracy in reporting the facts even when dependent on official communiqués issued by the military. Many wartime reporters, even when covering major turning points, sought to embrace a reporting style that recorded the experiences of average soldiers. Often associated with Ernie Pyle and Bill Mauldin, the embrace of the human-interest story served as one of the enduring legacies of the conflict.

Despite the importance of American war reporting in shaping perceptions of the war on the home front as well as shaping the historical narrative of the conflict, this work underscores how there is more to learn. Readers will gain from this work a new appreciation of the contribution of American journalists in writing the first version of history of the global struggle against Nazi Germany, imperial Japan, and fascist Italy.

G. Kurt Piehler (Edited By) G. Kurt Piehler is the author of A Religious History of the American GI in World War II (2021) and several reference works related to war and society. He is a member of the editorial board of the Service Newspapers of World War II digital publication (Adam Mathews) and on the advisory board of the NEH-funded American Soldier Project at Virginia Tech University (americansoldierww2.org). Ingo Trauschweizer (Edited By) Ingo Trauschweizer is a professor of history at Ohio University. He is the author of The Cold War U.S. Army: Building Deterrence for Limited War (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2008) and Maxwell Taylor’s Cold War: From Berlin to Vietnam (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2019), and he is the editor or co-editor of three volumes in the Baker Series in Peace and Conflict Studies (Athens: Ohio University Press).

Foreword

Max D. Lederer Jr. | vii

Introduction

G. Kurt Piehler and Ingo Trauschweizer | 1

1. Learning and Adapting:

The American Media and the “Phony War,” September 1939–April 1940

Steven Casey | 15

2. Helen Kirkpatrick’s Reporting to Undercut Irish Neutrality Policy, 1939–1942

Karen Garner | 34

3. Miss Bonney Reporting from the Arctic Front

Henry Oinas-Kukkonen | 55

4. Reporting from the Bureaus:

The Lesser-Known World War II Correspondents

Kendall Cosley | 85

5. Two African American Journalists Confront World War II:

Perspectives on Nationalism, Racism, and Identity

Larry A. Greene and Alan Delozier | 107

6. Bylines and Bayonets: How United States Marine Corps

Combat Correspondents in World War II Blended Journalism and Public Relations

Douglass K. Daniel | 132

7. Reporting Reconnaissance to the Public:

A Comparative Analysis of Canadian and American Strategies

Victoria Sotvedt | 159

8. Outstanding and Conspicuous Service:

Iris Carpenter, Lee Carson, and Ann Stringer in the European Theater

Carolyn M. Edy | 172

9. A “Butcher and Bolt” Force:

Commandos, Rangers, and Newspaper Dramatics in World War II

James Austin Sandy | 193

10. “A Major Readjustment”: Omar Bradley’s War against the Stars and Stripes

Alexander G. Lovelace | 213

11. After the Shooting Stopped: Justice and Journalism at Nuremberg

Nathaniel L. Moir | 234

Acknowledgments | 259

List of Contributors | 261

Index | 265

Erscheinungsdatum	27.03.2023
Reihe/Serie	World War II: The Global, Human, and Ethical Dimension
Co-Autor	Steven Casey, Kendall Cosley, Douglass K. Daniel
Zusatzinfo	20 b/w illustrations
Verlagsort	New York
Sprache	englisch
Maße	152 x 229 mm
Themenwelt	Literatur ► Essays / Feuilleton
	Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Fotokunst
	Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► 1918 bis 1945
	Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Militärgeschichte
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Kommunikation / Medien ► Journalistik
	Wirtschaft
ISBN-10	1-5315-0309-8 / 1531503098
ISBN-13	978-1-5315-0309-3 / 9781531503093
Zustand	Neuware