news from the front war correspondents on the western front

[lismore]

Please

I am trying to find out wat the British or Allied rules were concerning censorship...

Are there any official sources where I can find out what the papers could write and what they could not?

Are there any official sources where I can find out what the soldiers could write down in their letters to their friends or relatives?

Are there books, or studies, or papers or...???

Thank you very much

[bob lembke]

From what I gather, there was no independent spirit of journalism at all, so I don't think they really needed rules. The "journalists" were totally "in bed" with the Haig types, and did what was felt had to be done to progress with winning the war, as that was perceived. For example, as the trial of the captain of the Lusitania went forward, due to an overzealous radio operator keeping an unofficial copy of radio logs, it became apparent to everyone in the room that the captain was being framed by the government, presumably as a scapegoat. Did the headlines shriek this? Of course not.

I am not an authority here, and would be interested in a different opinion.

I have Reppington's post-war book, and would like to get my hands on his war-time book, but I tend to almost totally discount such works and contemporanious secondary sources as utter propaganda unless otherwise proven.

Bob Lembke

[Martin Bennitt]

There's quite a lot on the press and the War in Philip Knightley's The First Casualty.

For contemporaneous stuff on how the press saw itself, see articles on here:

http://www.greatwardifferent.com/Great_War/index.htm#3

certainly self-censorship was the norm by reporters at the front (or in fact several miles from the front) and to a large extent at home, apart from a few radical publications with a low readership. But they all had DORA hanging over their heads.

See below, culled from an education website:

On 8th August 1914, the House of Commons passed the Defence of the Realm Act (DORA) without debate. The legislation gave the government executive powers to suppress published criticism, imprison without trial and to commandeer economic resources for the war effort.

During the war publishing information that was calculated to be indirectly or directly of use to the enemy became an offence and accordingly punishable in a court of law. This included any description of war and any news that was likely to cause any conflict between the public and military authorities.

In August 1914 the British government established the War Office Press Bureau under F. E. Smith. The idea was this organisation would censor news and telegraphic reports from the British Army and then issue it to the press. Lord Kitchener decided to appoint Colonel Ernest Swinton to become the British Army's official journalist on the Western Front. Swinton's reports were first censored at G.H.Q. in France and then personally vetted by Kitchener before being released to the press. Letters written by members of the armed forces to their friends and families were also read and censored by the military authorities.

After complaints from the USA the British government decided to look again at how the war was reported. After a Cabinet meeting on the subject in January, 1915, the government decided to change its policy and to allow selected journalists to report the war. Five men were chosen: Philip Gibbs (Daily Chronicle and the Daily Telegraph), Percival Philips (Daily Express and the Morning Post), William Beach Thomas (Daily Mail and the Daily Mirror) Henry Perry Robinson (The Times and the Daily News) and Herbert Russell (Reuters News Agency). Before their reports could be sent back to England, they had to be submitted to C. E. Montague, the former leader writer of the Manchester Guardian.

Over the next three years other journalists such as John Buchan, Valentine Williams, Hamilton Fyfe and Henry Nevinson, became accredited war correspondents. To remain on the Western Front, these journalists had to accept government control over what they wrote.

cheers Martin B