Censorship in the american press in World War II and the 'Code of Wartime Practices'

Seminar paper from the year 2007 in the subject Communications - Media and Politics Politic Communications grade: 13 University of Siegen course: Censorship - Concept & Case Studies language: English abstract: On June 25th 1943 American press editors received a confidential note the contents an purpose of which was hard to understand even for those who were familiar with the technical terms. It said: [...] you are asked not to publish or broadcast any information whatever regarding war experiments involving: Production or utilization of atom smashing atomic energy atomic fission atomic splitting or any of their equivalents. The use for military purposes of radium or radioactive materials heavy water high voltage discharge equipment cyclotrons. The following elements or any of their compounds: polonium uranium ytterbium hafnium protactinium radium rhenium thorium deuterium. What sounded like Greek to the selected adressees of the request in retrospective can be identified even by an amateur as the attempt to hide evidence that the US government was doing research on a nuclear device. It was about to play a decisive role in the ending of the Pacific War. Since the United States' entry in World War II domestic censorship had to draw a line very carefully: On the one hand the First Amendment to the Constitution grands the freedom of speech and the press; on the other hand sensitive information if revealed to the public could fall into the hands of enemy agents. To handle this task the government set in effect a voluntary censorship building up on every journalist's patriotic instinct not to publish anything that might be a threat to the war effort. How was censorship organized? What kind of information was censored? Is there an actual difference between voluntary and mandatory censorship? These are questions the following research paper will elaborate on. A brief overview of the practices of censorship in times of war w