Review: The Press and the Cold War
| Date | 01 June 1972 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070207202700221 |
| Published date | 01 June 1972 |
| Author | Philip Deane |
| Subject Matter | Review |
324
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
of
the Light
Programme)
despite
criticisms
of
it
by
some
of
the
better
educated
who
tended
to
prefer
the
Home
Service
(pp
47
and
588),
he
does
not
link
this
class
difference
with
opinion
already
being
expressed
that
the
BBC
after
the
war
should
be
stripped
of
its
monopoly.
To
illus-
trate:
Briggs
does
not
refer
to
the
critical
articles
appearing
in
1944
in
the
Economist
(as
cited
in
R.H.
Coase's
monograph on
British
broad-
casting),
or
to
the
almost
even
division
in opinion
as
reported
by
the
polls
on
the
advisability
of
introducing
commercial
broadcasting.
Erik
Barnouw, on
the
other hand,
is
an
outspoken
critic
of
the
American
broadcasting
system
in
the
years
of
its
greatest
triumph,
writ-
ing
with
the attitudes
and
values of
an
American
liberal.
Unlike
Briggs,
Barnouw
has
not
had
access
to
the
records of
the
broadcasting
organiza-
tions
in
his
country; his
principal
sources
are books
and
articles,
inter-
views
and
recollections.
Nevertheless,
he
does
a
first-rate
job
in
bringing
together the
diverse
strands
in
his story,
and
he
has
a
keen
eye
for
the
main
issues.
It
is
a
tribute
to
American
journalism,
or
perhaps
to
the
open
quality
of
American
society,
that
so
much
can
be
told about
what
went
on behind
the
scenes,
for example
in
the
years
when
the broad-
casters were cravenly
giving
way
to
McCarthyite
pressures.
Barnouw
describes
programme
trends,
the
reliance
upon
various
successful
formulas,
the
foreign
interventions
of
the
CIA,
the
completeness of
the
military-industrial
control
of
television,
the
dissent
of
the
subculture,
and
the
news
services
that
at
times
provided
a
beacon
in the
television
wasteland.
It
is
comforting
that
in
this
field as
in
some
others
America
provides
its
own
best
critics.
F.W.
Peers/University
of
Toronto
THE
PRESS
AND
THE
COLD
WAR
James
Aronson
New
York:
Bobbs-Merrill
[Toronto:
Thomas
Allen],
1970,
x, 3o8pp,
$10.50
Mr.
Aronson
has
collected
in
one
convenient,
indexed
volume
the
major
instances
of
news
suppression,
bias,
and distortion
by
the
United
States
press
in
the
struggle
between
Washington
and
communist
regimes.
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