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Reporting War: How Foreign Correspondents Risked Capture, Torture and Death to Cover World War II
Luminary journalists Ed Murrow, Martha Gellhorn, Walter Cronkite, and Clare Hollingworth were among the young reporters who chronicled World War II’s daily horrors and triumphs for Western readers. In this fascinating book, Ray Moseley, himself a former foreign correspondent who encountered a number of these journalists in the course of his long career, mines the correspondents’ writings to relate, in an exhilarating parallel narrative, the events across every theater—Europe, Pearl Harbor, North Africa, and Japan—as well as the lives of the courageous journalists who doggedly followed the action and the story, often while embedded in the Allied armies.
Moseley’s broad and intimate history draws on newly unearthed material to offer a comprehensive account both of the war and the abundance of individual stories and overlooked experiences, including those of women and African-American journalists, which capture the drama as it was lived by reporters on the front lines of history.
Moseley’s broad and intimate history draws on newly unearthed material to offer a comprehensive account both of the war and the abundance of individual stories and overlooked experiences, including those of women and African-American journalists, which capture the drama as it was lived by reporters on the front lines of history.
440 pages, Hardcover
First published February 1, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
May 31, 2021
This was an interesting book ---- ok, but not great. It has interesting vignettes from the various WW2 experiences of various journalists, but, in the effort to tell all their stories, doesn't go into enough detail on them to engage the reader to really connect with them or in what they accomplished as reporters.
It would have been better if a section on how the news business in the 1930s and 1940s worked --- how were journalists hired, what was the average career path, how did they get their reports sent, who makes the editorial decisions in the newsrooms on what gets published, what gets reedited, and what gets rejected. Perhaps because the author himself is a journalist, he assumes that the reader already knows all this, but it would have been better for the reader to have more background, prior to reading the war stories of the combat correspondents involved.
As there is no such background given, I surmised some things in general, implied to me from what I read. First, there seems to be a pedigree attached to journalists with an Ivy League or other elite college degree --- the fact that the author emphasized this in the brief bio of each reporter suggests to me that, to his mind as a professional journalist, such carry a high status.
Second, news correspondents are an insular bunch --- with their own unique corporate culture. This culture seems to emphasize ambition --- getting ahead of the competition even at all costs --- sees itself as sophisticated and erudite. It abhors censorship --- not so much on the grounds of First Amendment, freedom of the press grounds --- but as a barrier to them getting the ahead of the other reporters on the same beat. It is generally a humanistic, godless group ----- no mention of faith ever is made of playing any part in their lives or background of any of the war correspondents --- and it seems that many willingly plowed into extramarital affairs and dumped their spouses if better options came while overseas.
Third, journalists then, as now, prize objectivity and impartiality in the abstract. In the reality, they are as subject to their own biases and impressions as viewed from their values and formative years and background as any of the rest of us.
Finally, notwithstanding their belief in their own erudition and sophistication, it seems that many journalists could be astonishingly obtuse and myopic --- so focused on getting the scoop as to lose perspective on why host country censors and our own military censors might not see things the way they do. For example, there are cases during the Blitzkrieg where Denmark, Norway, and France were being overrun, law and order are breaking down, the complete situation is in chaos ---- and the new reporters are deriding and ridiculing the censor for not transmitting their dispatches as they'd written, ignoring that the poor individual involved hardly knows the full picture --- other than that a catastrophe is unfolding ---- and that such may not want to go down as the one in history whose poor decision gave the enemy that one extra piece of intel that made it possible to administer the coup de grace to their national independence.
There is no doubt that many of these correspondents were amazingly brave in their effort to tell the story. It does raise some philosophical questions to my mind --- is the man who gave his life to save his unit or his country of higher nobility than the man who gave his life to get the big scoop that would distinguish his career, but also inform the public of what was happening? It's an interesting question.
Another aspect that I often saw with some of these war correspondents was for them to presume that first knowledge of an event equated to perfect or superior knowledge of the big picture around it. On a number of occasions, some play armchair general, critiquing tactical decisions by the on scene commanders --- even though most lacked any military background or access to the full intel that such had.
The author seems to feel that no near the amount of censorship in World War 2 that there was --- was really necessary, and he makes some good points to that end. However, as someone with a military background, has seen the press screw over a shipmate by lying to him that his comments were "off the record" --- then publishing his comments ----- and seeing the ruthless ambition, there is no doubt in my mind than many WW2 journalists would have published any story they could get away with, having not a second thought --- even if it damaged the war effort, gave the Axis Powers a propaganda victory, or sabotaged relations between the Allied Powers. So I have to disagree with his views on this.
However, he does have a point with several areas about the excessive censorship --- which resulted in either misinforming the public or causing American political leaders to have a rosier view of situations than really existed or resulted in conditions needing correction never being adequately addressed in term resulting in dreadful consequences later. One area was racism within the US military. While many of us know that racial segregation and limits on black service members from being in certain military assignments existed, racial discrimination and strife were far more pernicious likely than what most Americans at the time knew. This went to the extent that black soldiers were de facto forbidden from going to certain locations ---- like restaurants or brothels --- that white ones claimed for themselves --- and to the extent that interracial violence occurred, all too often with blacks getting the worst of what amounted to lynchings. Because news reporters were censored from reporting on these incidents and conditions, many members of the public, in Congress, and in politics did not take action during the war to correct these problems --- problems that, in concert with racial problems in society writ large, would explode in the 50s and 60s, much to the surprise of many Americans largely ignorant, oblivious, or indifferent to how bad race relations really were.
Another issue in which censorship bit us in my opinion was in how American soldiers treated the German population as German territory was gradually captured during the War. While most of us are well aware of the widespread rapes and pillaging of Germany by the Red Army, this also, albeit to a much lesser extent, also occurred with the US military. Reporters either were censored from reporting stories of such atrocious behavior ---- or they self-censored, many after seeing the concentration camps feeling little pity for a people who willingly collaborated with the Nazis or looked the other way. However, this censorship allowed war crimes to go unpunished --- and, I think, long term, created a false expectation from future US military leaders during Vietnam that future journalists might do the same when excesses occurred by American forces then. In addition, it also created a blindness in military leaders to overlook the importance of treating occupied populations well and being culturally aware of native populations---- oversights that, in my opinion, would also cost us dearly in Vietnam.
Finally, excessive WW2 censorship adversely effected both the public and US decision makers from having a clear idea of conditions in China and the quality of leadership and government of that nation under Chiang Kai-Shek. Since the 1930s, there was a tendency to view Chiang Government favorably because of the atrocities and aggressions being committed by Japan against the Chinese people. Unfortunately, the Chinese Government under Chiang was horribly corrupt and incompetent, and, compounding its problems, treated the Chinese peasantry unjustly on occasions --- such as confiscating all their crops without compensation. Conditions being created that would, over time, give fertile ground on which the Communists under Mao would easily exploit. Because any reporters' dispatches on the dysfunctionality of China's Nationalist Government were suppressed, neither American decision makers nor the public had a clear conception of just how bad things in China were with respect to American interests. Both would be in for a shocking surprise when in only 4 years after the War, the Republic of China would collapse dramatically in 1949, ushering in a Communist regime that would go on to commit the greatest genocide in history --- and remains in power with an iron grip to this day.
Overall, an interesting book for those desiring to learn about WW2 journalism; however, I think that one would need to so some additional reading on this topic to have a complete knowledge on it.
It would have been better if a section on how the news business in the 1930s and 1940s worked --- how were journalists hired, what was the average career path, how did they get their reports sent, who makes the editorial decisions in the newsrooms on what gets published, what gets reedited, and what gets rejected. Perhaps because the author himself is a journalist, he assumes that the reader already knows all this, but it would have been better for the reader to have more background, prior to reading the war stories of the combat correspondents involved.
As there is no such background given, I surmised some things in general, implied to me from what I read. First, there seems to be a pedigree attached to journalists with an Ivy League or other elite college degree --- the fact that the author emphasized this in the brief bio of each reporter suggests to me that, to his mind as a professional journalist, such carry a high status.
Second, news correspondents are an insular bunch --- with their own unique corporate culture. This culture seems to emphasize ambition --- getting ahead of the competition even at all costs --- sees itself as sophisticated and erudite. It abhors censorship --- not so much on the grounds of First Amendment, freedom of the press grounds --- but as a barrier to them getting the ahead of the other reporters on the same beat. It is generally a humanistic, godless group ----- no mention of faith ever is made of playing any part in their lives or background of any of the war correspondents --- and it seems that many willingly plowed into extramarital affairs and dumped their spouses if better options came while overseas.
Third, journalists then, as now, prize objectivity and impartiality in the abstract. In the reality, they are as subject to their own biases and impressions as viewed from their values and formative years and background as any of the rest of us.
Finally, notwithstanding their belief in their own erudition and sophistication, it seems that many journalists could be astonishingly obtuse and myopic --- so focused on getting the scoop as to lose perspective on why host country censors and our own military censors might not see things the way they do. For example, there are cases during the Blitzkrieg where Denmark, Norway, and France were being overrun, law and order are breaking down, the complete situation is in chaos ---- and the new reporters are deriding and ridiculing the censor for not transmitting their dispatches as they'd written, ignoring that the poor individual involved hardly knows the full picture --- other than that a catastrophe is unfolding ---- and that such may not want to go down as the one in history whose poor decision gave the enemy that one extra piece of intel that made it possible to administer the coup de grace to their national independence.
There is no doubt that many of these correspondents were amazingly brave in their effort to tell the story. It does raise some philosophical questions to my mind --- is the man who gave his life to save his unit or his country of higher nobility than the man who gave his life to get the big scoop that would distinguish his career, but also inform the public of what was happening? It's an interesting question.
Another aspect that I often saw with some of these war correspondents was for them to presume that first knowledge of an event equated to perfect or superior knowledge of the big picture around it. On a number of occasions, some play armchair general, critiquing tactical decisions by the on scene commanders --- even though most lacked any military background or access to the full intel that such had.
The author seems to feel that no near the amount of censorship in World War 2 that there was --- was really necessary, and he makes some good points to that end. However, as someone with a military background, has seen the press screw over a shipmate by lying to him that his comments were "off the record" --- then publishing his comments ----- and seeing the ruthless ambition, there is no doubt in my mind than many WW2 journalists would have published any story they could get away with, having not a second thought --- even if it damaged the war effort, gave the Axis Powers a propaganda victory, or sabotaged relations between the Allied Powers. So I have to disagree with his views on this.
However, he does have a point with several areas about the excessive censorship --- which resulted in either misinforming the public or causing American political leaders to have a rosier view of situations than really existed or resulted in conditions needing correction never being adequately addressed in term resulting in dreadful consequences later. One area was racism within the US military. While many of us know that racial segregation and limits on black service members from being in certain military assignments existed, racial discrimination and strife were far more pernicious likely than what most Americans at the time knew. This went to the extent that black soldiers were de facto forbidden from going to certain locations ---- like restaurants or brothels --- that white ones claimed for themselves --- and to the extent that interracial violence occurred, all too often with blacks getting the worst of what amounted to lynchings. Because news reporters were censored from reporting on these incidents and conditions, many members of the public, in Congress, and in politics did not take action during the war to correct these problems --- problems that, in concert with racial problems in society writ large, would explode in the 50s and 60s, much to the surprise of many Americans largely ignorant, oblivious, or indifferent to how bad race relations really were.
Another issue in which censorship bit us in my opinion was in how American soldiers treated the German population as German territory was gradually captured during the War. While most of us are well aware of the widespread rapes and pillaging of Germany by the Red Army, this also, albeit to a much lesser extent, also occurred with the US military. Reporters either were censored from reporting stories of such atrocious behavior ---- or they self-censored, many after seeing the concentration camps feeling little pity for a people who willingly collaborated with the Nazis or looked the other way. However, this censorship allowed war crimes to go unpunished --- and, I think, long term, created a false expectation from future US military leaders during Vietnam that future journalists might do the same when excesses occurred by American forces then. In addition, it also created a blindness in military leaders to overlook the importance of treating occupied populations well and being culturally aware of native populations---- oversights that, in my opinion, would also cost us dearly in Vietnam.
Finally, excessive WW2 censorship adversely effected both the public and US decision makers from having a clear idea of conditions in China and the quality of leadership and government of that nation under Chiang Kai-Shek. Since the 1930s, there was a tendency to view Chiang Government favorably because of the atrocities and aggressions being committed by Japan against the Chinese people. Unfortunately, the Chinese Government under Chiang was horribly corrupt and incompetent, and, compounding its problems, treated the Chinese peasantry unjustly on occasions --- such as confiscating all their crops without compensation. Conditions being created that would, over time, give fertile ground on which the Communists under Mao would easily exploit. Because any reporters' dispatches on the dysfunctionality of China's Nationalist Government were suppressed, neither American decision makers nor the public had a clear conception of just how bad things in China were with respect to American interests. Both would be in for a shocking surprise when in only 4 years after the War, the Republic of China would collapse dramatically in 1949, ushering in a Communist regime that would go on to commit the greatest genocide in history --- and remains in power with an iron grip to this day.
Overall, an interesting book for those desiring to learn about WW2 journalism; however, I think that one would need to so some additional reading on this topic to have a complete knowledge on it.
September 10, 2020
It's slow, but very informative. The best chapters are from the beginning of the war. If you are interested in journalism in a time of war or WWII history, this could be a worthy addition to your reading list.
March 3, 2024
Although this book gives a lot of detail about the reporters and their coverage of the war, one of its most important themes concerns ever-current issues like censorship and self-censorship, and my favorite peeve -- correspondents who cozy up to dictatorial regimes, supposedly so that they have "access" and can get the important stories. William L. Shirer railed against this practice, and in later examples, we have Peter Arnett in Iraq.
I think this is an important, and well-referenced study. It dragged a bit, but every part was fascinating and informative. Recommended for anyone interested in war reporting, ethical dilemmas of reporters, and censorship.
I think this is an important, and well-referenced study. It dragged a bit, but every part was fascinating and informative. Recommended for anyone interested in war reporting, ethical dilemmas of reporters, and censorship.
September 21, 2017
WW2 Foreign Correspondents' stories
Although I only read between 80 & 90 % I found it an interesting survey of the many American Correspondents & how they risked all to get the stories out in the many theaters of war.
Although I only read between 80 & 90 % I found it an interesting survey of the many American Correspondents & how they risked all to get the stories out in the many theaters of war.
July 5, 2018
It was OK.
War sucks.
Government censors, on all sides of the war, prevent the public from getting the whole truth - sometimes for life-saving reasons and other times nonsensical.
Reporters are brave - but I wonder how many are adrenaline-junkies too.
War sucks.
Government censors, on all sides of the war, prevent the public from getting the whole truth - sometimes for life-saving reasons and other times nonsensical.
Reporters are brave - but I wonder how many are adrenaline-junkies too.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews