Byron Price was appointed as the director of the Office of Censorship in 1941 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. As the executive editor of the Associated Press, Price knew a thing or two about the beliefs and morals of journalists, and how far they are willing to go to spread the truth. Because of this, he had a tendency to be lenient, yet still secure in his role.
Price saw to it that the censorship regulations put in place were reasonable. They were, first and foremost, meant to protect the lives of Americans during the war — not keep them from information they had the right to know. Because of his performance, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1944.¹ Somehow, his performance managed to please both the U.S. government and the press.
Edward R. Murrow, one of the most well-known journalists, did most of his work over the radio and, later on, television. His broadcasts during World War I and World War II brough coverage right into the homes of Americans. They were descriptive, provocative, and left nothing to the imagination. In 1935, CBS hired Murrow as the director of talks.² Murrow started news and educational broadcasts that went on to provide explicit coverage of World War II.
When television came of age in the 1940s-50s, his broadcast journalism career took on a new medium. Though he still covered hard news, he also shifted towards providing entertainment to the American people during difficult times, doing things like interviewing celebrities and providing escapism from the real world.² Murrow himself stated that he preferred covering hard news over this type of lax entertainment, but he did what he could in order to help keep CBS in business during a large shift in technology.
Marguerite Higgins was the first woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting in 1951. She covered World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. She was one of the 100 women out of 1,600 other journalists that the armed forced accredited to cover World War II.²
Simply being a woman made her job more difficult than it had to be. She faced doubt and discrimination both from those in her own line of work and overseas. When traveling to Korea to cover the war, she was met with sexism for being an assertive, confident woman.³ To Higgins, one of the most important things about covering wars is being able to see the action firsthand. This allows for the most accurate retelling, something that the American people deserved to know. Her bravery and dedication set her apart from other journalists. During the war, her senior correspondent at the New York Herald Tribune threatened to fire her if she did not return from the Korean frontlines — and she still stayed.³
Higgins’ passion gained her some valuable stories of accounts that may have otherwise never been told, such as those liberated from the Dachau concentration camp in 1942.³ Her work was (and still is) regarded as courageous, not because she was a woman, but in addition to it.
² Video Lesson Week 10