Pen and Sword: American War Correspondents, 1898-1975

5. The Culture of Press Censorship During Wartime

79 5 The Culture of Press Censorship During Wartime In chapters 2, 3, and 4, I indicated that over a period of many years censorship practices evolved along with the social practices of journalism . The turning point for the establishment of behavioral codes during wartime for censor and reporter alike was the second decade of the twentieth century. From then on the story of press freedom during war is the story of the integration of the journalist into the military system. This chapter will argue that the press—and this is an observation rather than a criticism—dances with the state at every turn. In other words, by redefining censorship as a cultural experience rather than as a set of restrictions externally imposed on the press, it is possible to reconfigure the relationship between the press and the state in the latter’s civil and military operations. This reconfiguration manifests seven general patterns in a complex tango where the state and the press engage in a highly structured set of steps that are at once formalized and intense. While dancers may be moving in different directions, forward and backward , they do so in concert, because both the government, especially in its military manifestation, and the press have the same goal: preservation of the rule of the people, by the people, and for the people. For this reason , all journalistic practice—but especially practice in wartime—raises larger questions than those about truth in warfare. Ultimately, it poses questions about the relationship between the public and state authority, and the role of the press in this relationship. 80 pen and sword The reigning assumption—at least in the United States, where the relationship between the state and the press is codified in the Bill of Rights—is that the journalist has the right, even the duty, to wade into dangerous waters and be critical of current military or political views. The whole practice of censorship asserts and strengthens the principle of a free press. Without its possibility, a free press does not exist. In fact, the ever-present possibility of censorship plays a crucial role in elevating the First Amendment to sacramental status among journalists, lawyers, judges, and scholars. Rules of censorship are often tacit. They structure the ethics of a censor’s behavior and outline the qualities of judgment he legitimately exercises. At the same time, the rules assume a set of behaviors and attitudes on the part of reporters. Codes of behavior for both parties, which have a history predating the wars this study covers, have been slowly put into place. The intransigence of such codes—either through imprudent judgment or rhetorical recklessness—evokes negative responses from the other party. The codes of censorship comprise a set of conventions that all parties understand in a practical way. When called upon, they can articulate them—if only partially. The codes entail how far reporters can go in explicitly addressing the subject of their stories. At the same time, reporters can encode their reports in such a way that no one could make an example of them. Even when no formal office of censorship is set up, even when journalists do not have to submit their stories to the blue pencil (as was the case in Vietnam), the conventions of censorship behavior are implicit in every act engaged in by reporters, editors, or military officers. If journalists are fish, censorship is the sea. Without water, fish die. Without the possibility of censorship, journalists cease to exist. The story of press censorship during wartime, then, is the story of the interweaving of several related but distinct factors: the occupational practices and conventions of the military and the press, the organized bureaucracy (both journalistic and military) administering judgment on the publication of a story, the strategies of interpretation invoked by journalists to adjust to any restrictions they might face, and the technologies of warfare affecting what could and could not be seen and understood about daily events in the theaters of war.1 Before the United States declared war on Spain in 1898, reporters tried to cover the Cuban insurrection from both the Spanish and the Cuban sides. Spanish censorship was set up shortly after the second Cuban insurrection took place in 1896. The Spanish immediately tightened the reins on news leaving the island. Press reports were checked to ensure The Culture of Press Censorship During Wartime 81 that the importance...