Book Reveals: New York Times Buried Holocaust News

http://www.israelnationalnews.com ^ | Mar 14, '05 | www.israelnationalnews.com

[deepFR]

The New York Times consistently buried Holocaust news in its back pages and downplayed the victims' Jewish identity. So states the first scholarly study of how the Times covered the Nazi genocide. Buried by The Times: The Holocaust and America's Most Important Newspaper," by Prof. Laurel Leff, has just been published by Cambridge University Press.

Among the book's key findings, according to The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, are the following:

* Holocaust news was consistently relegated to the Times' back pages. Of the 1,186 articles that the Times published during 1939-1945 about Europe's Jews, only 26 (about two percent) of them appeared on the front page, and even those articles "obscured the fact that most of the victims were Jews."

* New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger, an assimilated Jew of German descent, feared that the newspaper would be engaging in special pleading and thus deliberately downplayed news of the Holocaust and the Jewish identity of the victims.

* The Times only rarely published editorials about the annihilation of Europe's Jews, and only once ran a lead editorial about the Nazi genocide.

* Because of its importance, the Times helped set the tone for the rest of the media's coverage of Holocaust news; the Times "might have been able to help bring the facts about the extermination of the Jews to public consciousness ... [instead,] the Times helped drown out the last cry from the abyss."

* When the Nazi death camps were liberated, the Times' coverage downplayed the fact that the victims and survivors were overwhelmingly Jews.

Author Prof. Leff, a former reporter and editor who teaches journalism at Northeastern University, is a leading member of the Academic Council of The Wyman Institute. The Wyman Institute is organizing Prof. Leff's speaking appearances around the United States.

Stuart Eizenstat, formerly the U.S. ambassador for Holocaust-era issues, called the book "engrossing and important," adding, "One can only wonder in great sorrow how many lives might have been saved if the nation's and the world's conscience had been touched by full and complete coverage by the Times of what remains the greatest crime of world history."

Marvin Kalb, elder statesman of American journalism, said that Buried by The Times "stands tall in scholarship, style and importance ... it is an exceptional study of one of the darkest failures of the New York Times..."

Prof. David S. Wyman, author of The Abandonment of the Jews, praised Buried by the Times as "the best book yet about American media coverage of the Holocaust, and an extremely important contribution to our understanding of America's response to the mass murder of the Jews."

The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, located on the campus of Gratz College near Philadelphia, is a research and education institute focusing on America's response to the Holocaust

[deepFR]

NYT wrong then, and wrong today.

[nopardons]

bttt

[LoudAmericanCowboy]

As much as prominent Jewish leftists want to deny it, most Jews, at least the ones I know, HATE and BOYCOTT the NYT. Yes, we believe in a liberal media too.

The NYT used to be Republican at one point.

[leadpenny]

I wonder what is said in the book about the "influence" of the FDR administration on what most newspapers printed?

[zarf]

Haven't we had enough of this Holocaust crap?

How many damn memorials do we need?

The Holocaust has been franchised to the point that it should be renamed McMassacre.

It has now become a pathetic, generic symbol of "man's inhumanity to man" with the Jewish experience during that sick period slowly sinking into the muddle of McVictimization.

The Holocaust is becoming a shield in which modern day Jew haters can defend themselves from claims of Anti-Semitism while bashing the Jews at the same time.

[dts32041]

Actually this shows a pattern from the NYT, Didn't they also cover up the Stalin purges of the Kulaks in the 20's and 30's and the Rwanda problems in the nineties.

Do you see a pattern here.

[thoughtomator]

Yep, continuing right up to the present day... Sudanese genocide news, back pages, obscuring the Islamic character of it in every story. Covering up for despotic regimes the world 'round, that should be the new slogan for the NY Times.

[BykrBayb]

Um, wow. I didn't realize all those people weren't worth remembering. Okay, we can all just forget about it now. No big deal. Thank you for putting it all into perspective. /sarcasm

[Zivasmate]

"Holocaust news was consistently relegated to the Times' back pages. Of the 1,186 articles that the Times published during 1939-1945 about Europe's Jews, only 26 (about two percent) of them appeared on the front page, and even those articles "obscured the fact that most of the victims were Jews."

This is unbelievable in context with how just about every day for the past 20 years, the Times features a FRONT PAGE column of the plight of some allegedly mistreated ethnic minority.

This has been an unabashedly anti-Semitic paper for 60 years. And, incredibly, it is gobbled up by most liberal Jews in New York City. Amazing!

[leadpenny]

Haven't we had enough of this Holocaust crap?

In general or what happened in the 30s and 40s in particular?

[zarf]

In general or what happened in the 30s and 40s in particular?

The 30's and 40's in particular.

[bad company]

Haven't we had enough of this Holocaust crap?

No we haven't.

[Enterprise]

What a profound example of how a paper can direct events by what it prints, and what is suppresses!

[elhombrelibre]

Yes, they did cover up those purges. The specific reporters name was Walter Duranty; he hailed the success of Stalin's collective agriculture in the Ukraine while the people there starved from a man-made famine. Kulaks was a name given to private farmers who'd been modestly successful. Stalin simply called all who disagreed with collectivism Kulaks. Also, he meant to suppress Ukrainian nationalism. This is one of the great untold stories of Soviet history, at least not told well to the general public. It's almost as poorly known as Operation Keel Haul where US and UK forces delivered hundreds of thousands of captured Russian prisoners after WW II to Stalin against the wishes of the prisoners. These prisoners were often shot within hearing distance of the US and UK forces who delivered them. Others went to the Gulag. Few survived.

[elhombrelibre]

I don't know what we gain by forgetting any of the enormous crimes inflicted on people. If it's a subject you have no interest in, no one will force you to pay attention. Surely you don't expect the survivors to not commemorate those they lost, do you?

[elhombrelibre]

Ping

[Alouette]

Haven't we had enough of this Holocaust crap? How many damn memorials do we need?

The Holocaust has been franchised to the point that it should be renamed McMassacre.

The appropriate way to memorialize the Holocaust is not by building museums, but by building schools, synagogues and yeshivos so that the next generation of Jewish people will be firm in their faith and observance. Not another freakin damn shrine to the dead.

Anti-Semites love Holocaust memorials. They look at the exhibits featuring piles of dead Jews and feel great satisfaction.

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[SJackson]

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[FreeReporting]

Holocaust crap ???

No. We respect and honour our dead.