Secrets of Victory
The Office of Censorship and the American Press and Radio in World War II
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- USD 29.99
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- USD 29.99
Descripción editorial
During World War II, the civilian Office of Censorship supervised a huge and surprisingly successful program of news management: the voluntary self-censorship of the American press. In January 1942, censorship codebooks were distributed to all American newspapers, magazines, and radio stations with the request that journalists adhere to the guidelines within. Remarkably, over the course of the war no print journalist, and only one radio journalist, ever deliberately violated the censorship code after having been made aware of it and understanding its intent.
Secrets of Victory examines the World War II censorship program and analyzes the reasons for its success. Using archival sources, including the Office of Censorship's own records, Michael Sweeney traces the development of news media censorship from a pressing necessity after the attack on Pearl Harbor to the centralized yet efficient bureaucracy that persuaded thousands of journalists to censor themselves for the sake of national security. At the heart of this often dramatic story is the Office of Censorship's director Byron Price. A former reporter himself, Price relied on cooperation with--rather than coercion of--American journalists in his fight to safeguard the nation's secrets.
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Sweeney, an assistant professor of communications at Utah State University, offers an even-paced, exhaustively researched (the endnotes and bibliography comprise 43 pages), if somewhat dry text on a paradoxical period for American media: the WWII era of voluntary media censorship as supervised by the civilian-led Office of Censorship. Neither baseball game announcements nor letters to Santa escaped scrutiny during America's involvement in the war. Heading up this largely successful government effort was former Associated Press executive editor Byron Price, whose evenhandedness, restraint and dovelike temperament persuaded journalists and broadcasters to temporarily self-censor, while at the same time allowing them to emerge from the war with their freedoms intact. With only a few exceptions, as Sweeney relates, the lids were kept sealed on such sensitive stories as the development of the atomic bomb and President Roosevelt's clandestine travels. Nonetheless, the tension between patriotic duty and the dampening of democratic ideals not to mention the fear of being scooped by less scrupulous reporters was always palpable. Price didn't hide his distaste for the job, either. "It should be understood that no one who does not like censorship should ever be permitted to exercise censorship," Price wrote to President Truman as he began dismantling his office shortly after V-J Day. While Sweeney's scope is limited to WWII, readers may find themselves wishing for commentary, if only in conclusion, on wartime censorship during later military conflicts such as Vietnam and the Persian Gulf, and perhaps even a nod to the debate over Internet regulation. As it stands, this text may best serve as a reference tool for media historians and students of the First Amendment.