Unfreedom of the Press (9781476773483) by Levin Mark R

Author:Levin, Mark R.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2019-05-21T04:00:00+00:00

SIX

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THE NEW YORK TIMES BETRAYS MILLIONS

BRITISH JOURNALIST CLAUD Cockburn once wrote: “All stories are written backwards—they are supposed to begin with the facts and develop from there, but in reality, they begin with a journalist’s point of view, a conception, and it is the point of view from which the facts are subsequently organized. . . .”1

And so it was when it came to reporting about the Holocaust, where, among other things, journalistic groupthink and other professional malpractices—suppression and outright self-censorship—came together to create a monumental betrayal of millions of European Jews and the American public, and in what was the greatest example of American media recklessness and deceit ever perpetrated by the press.

In 1984, Dr. David S. Wyman, in his book The Abandonment of the Jews, explained that “[o]ne reason ordinary Americans were not more responsive to the plight of European Jews [during the Holocaust] was that very many (probably a majority) were unaware of Hitler’s extermination program until well into 1944 or later. The information was not readily available to the public, because the mass media treated the systematic murder of millions of Jews as though it were minor news.”2

Yet, on November 24, 1942, unambiguous evidence of the Nazis’ ongoing extermination of European Jews was made publicly available, but was largely ignored by the media. “Lack of solid press coverage in the weeks immediately following [November 24] . . . muffled the historic news at the outset.”3

In fact, newly released documents prove that the Allied powers knew firsthand of the mass murder of Jews by December 1942. As first reported on April 18, 2017, by the Independent, a British newspaper: “Newly accessed material from the United Nations—not seen for around 70 years—shows that as early as December 1942, the US, UK and Soviet governments were aware that at least two million Jews had been murdered and a further five million were at risk of being killed, and were preparing charges. Despite this, the Allied Powers did very little to try and rescue or provide sanctuary to those in mortal danger. . . . In late December 1942 . . . UK Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden told the British parliament: ‘The German authorities, not content with denying to persons of Jewish race in all the territories over which their barbarous rule extends, the most elementary human rights, are now carrying into effect Hitler’s oft-repeated intention to exterminate the Jewish people.’ ”4

In the United States, Wyman asserted, “two or three clear statements from Franklin Roosevelt would have moved this news into public view and kept it there for some time. But the president was not so inclined, nor did Washington reporters press him. In retrospect, it seems almost unbelievable that in Roosevelt’s press conferences (normally held twice a week) not one word was spoken about the mass killing of European Jews until almost a year later. The President had nothing to say to reporters on the matter, and no correspondent asked him about it.”5

Roosevelt and his State Department—which was

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