DownloadThe Portobello Bookshop Gift Guide 2024

Newshawks in Berlin

The Associated Press and Nazi Germany

Ann Cooper author Larry Heinzerling author Randy Herschaft author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Columbia University Press

Published:2nd Apr '24

Should be back in stock very soon

Newshawks in Berlin cover

After the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, the Associated Press (AP) brought news about life under the Third Reich to tens of millions of American readers. The AP was America’s most important source for foreign news, but to continue reporting under the Nazi regime the agency made both journalistic and moral compromises. Its reporters and photographers in Berlin endured onerous censorship, complied with anti-Semitic edicts, and faced accusations of spreading pro-Nazi propaganda. Yet despite restrictions, pressures, and concessions, AP’s Berlin “newshawks” provided more than a thousand U.S. newspapers with extensive coverage of the Nazi campaigns to conquer Europe and annihilate the continent’s Jews.

Newshawks in Berlin reveals how the Associated Press covered Nazi Germany from its earliest days through the aftermath of World War II. Larry Heinzerling and Randy Herschaft accessed previously classified government documents; plumbed diary entries, letters, and memos; and reviewed thousands of published stories and photos to examine what the AP reported and what it left out. Their research uncovers fierce internal debates about how to report in a dictatorship, and it reveals decisions that sometimes prioritized business ambitions over journalistic ethics. The book also documents the AP’s coverage of the Holocaust and its unveiling. Featuring comprehensive research and a memorable cast of characters, this book illuminates how the dilemmas of reporting on Nazi Germany remain familiar for journalists reporting on authoritarian regimes today.

Newshawks in Berlin is a powerful historical investigation that unpacks the ethical choices and hard realities of eyewitness reporting under a dictatorship. In writing that is nuanced and sophisticated, and yet as clear and readable as an AP dispatch, Heinzerling and Herschaft enlarge our understanding of American news in the Nazi era while providing vital lessons for journalists today. -- Steve Coll, author of The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the C.I.A., and the Origins of America's Invasion of Iraq
This honest, rare, and disturbing history shows how a respected American news organization could become compromised by Adolf Hitler’s propaganda machine. With a deep appreciation for wartime Germany and journalism’s conflicting demands, Newshawks in Berlin reads like an unforgettable warning from another era to our own age of dictators and "fake news." -- Elizabeth Becker, author of You Don't Belong Here: How Three Women Rewrote the Story of War
Newshawks in Berlin reveals how the Associated Press operated in Nazi Germany, and how Nazi officials infused propaganda into some of AP’s news coverage. Filled with surprises and rich in detail, a well-written, inside account of the tension between ethics and professional opportunism. Very relevant to totalitarian regimes today. -- Richard Breitman, author of The Berlin Mission: The American Who Resisted Nazi Germany from Within
Well researched and cogently argued, Newshawks in Berlin provides a compelling account of the challenges and compromises the Associated Press had to make when covering the Third Reich. -- Steven Casey, author of The War Beat, Pacific: The American Media at War Against Japan
Faced with the task of investigating the controversial record of the AP’s Berlin bureau in the Nazi era, the authors resisted any rush to judgment. Instead, they let the often-ambiguous evidence speak for itself. The result is a meticulously researched account that exemplifies the virtues of old-fashioned journalistic fairness. -- Andrew Nagorski, author of Hitlerland: American Eyewitnesses to the Nazi Rise to Power
A fascinating portrait of how the news agency functioned under the influence of a dictatorship while still informing as wide an audience as possible. * Foreword Reviews *
[Newshawks] richly mines AP’s vast archives and other sources to provide a fascinating inside account of a journalistic era that’s completely different from now but poses many of the same questions. * Associated Press *
A gripping, enraging account. * Wall Street Journal *
A powerful and timely exploration of the ethical challenges faced by journalists and news organizations in confronting tyranny and injustice. * The Jewish Voice *

ISBN: 9780231217170

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: unknown

400 pages