Reporting the war

Reporting the War features the lives and work of journalists who brought news of the war from the European and Pacific theaters to the home front. More than one hundred captioned illustrations accompany Frederick Voss's account of the correspondents, photographers, and field artists who braved enemy fire, slept in foxholes, and were prisoners of war. With a pantheon of talent including Ernie Pyle, Edward R. Murrow, Helen Kirkpatrick, Margaret Bourke-White, Carl Mydans, Bill Mauldin, and Ernest Hemingway, the Fourth Estate's reporting of World War II surpassed all previous war coverage. For the first time, new technologies enabled almost instantaneous transmission to a waiting audience back home. Radio listeners heard the voice of Edward R. Murrow, speaking from a London rooftop during a German air raid, and newspapers ran stories and pictures of battles in the Pacific and Europe, sometimes only hours after the reporters witnessed the scenes. And for the first time women covered the war, earning the respect of their male colleagues for insightful, accurate reporting. . This book also profiles the combat artists who visually portrayed the war. George Biddle's paintings of the war in Italy, Bill Mauldin's cartoons that enraged General George S. Patton, Tom Lea's paintings of the Battle of Peleliu - these and other depictions captured both the grisly and humorous sides of war. Describing the censorship that often restricted the dispatches war correspondents sent from Axis countries, Reporting the War also discusses journalists' efforts to accommodate national security needs at home. Finally, Voss examines the African American press, whose campaign for "Double V" - victory over fascism abroad and racism at home - was viewed with suspicion by the white establishment.