What the AP’s Collaboration With the Nazis Should Teach Us About Reporting the News

Tablet Magazine ^ | June 05, 2017 | Matti Friedman

[Texas Fossil]

Did the Associated Press, the venerable American agency that is one of the world’s biggest news providers, collaborate with the Nazis during World War II? A report and new counter-report on this subject offer a few striking lessons—not just for students of history but for anyone concerned with the way news coverage shapes our perception right now.

A paper last year by the German historian Harriet Scharnberg titled “The A and P of Propaganda” and published in Studies in Contemporary History makes the case that beginning in the mid-1930s, the AP’s photo office in Germany made compromise after compromise to keep reporting under Nazi rule, obeying successive orders from the Hitler regime until it ended up as a Nazi information arm in all but name. Remaining in Berlin after its competitors departed in 1935 allowed the AP to serve as a “key channel” for German propaganda, she wrote, an arrangement the New York-based agency was eager to preserve—even if it meant removing all of its Jewish photographers in keeping with Nazi race laws, for example, and even if it meant issuing a statement to the official SS magazine swearing that the photo bureau was pure Aryan.

In the Nazi years, according to Scharnberg, the AP was selling German images in the United States and selling images from the United States in Germany, allowing photographs of American Jews and others to be used in some of the vilest racial propaganda produced by the Nazi state. The AP was, for example, the “leading supplier” of images for a propaganda book called The Jews in the USA, and in third place among suppliers of photos for the book The Subhuman.

[W650]

That may have been William L. Shirer and the book could have been, “The Nightmare Years” or “ Berlin Diary” or “ The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich”. He left Germany in late 1940 and returned after the war for the Nuremberg trials.

[oldvirginian]

“The New York Times was very accommodating to the Nazis as well in the 30’s.”

Until Hitler turned on Stalin, then the Times turned on the NAZI’s IIRC.
The Germans killing communists willy nilly didn’t go over so well with the communist party members at the Times.

[PGalt]

https://patriots.win/p/12igcqOGyj/when-the-associated-press-invite/c/

[Lisbon1940]

Possibly William Shirer.

[logi_cal869]

Oh, that was juicy. the linked German paper as well.

Thanks for posting (downloaded both).

[Grampa Dave]

What the AP’s Collaboration With the Nazis Should Teach Us About Reporting the News

Tablet Magazine ^ | June 05, 2017 | Matti Friedman

Posted on 5/16/2021, 1:18:46 PM by Texas Fossil

Did the Associated Press, the venerable American agency that is one of the world’s biggest news providers, collaborate with the Nazis during World War II? A report and new counter-report on this subject offer a few striking lessons—not just for students of history but for anyone concerned with the way news coverage shapes our perception right now.

A paper last year by the German historian Harriet Scharnberg titled “The A and P of Propaganda” and published in Studies in Contemporary History makes the case that beginning in the mid-1930s, the AP’s photo office in Germany made compromise after compromise to keep reporting under Nazi rule, obeying successive orders from the Hitler regime until it ended up as a Nazi information arm in all but name. Remaining in Berlin after its competitors departed in 1935 allowed the AP to serve as a “key channel” for German propaganda, she wrote, an arrangement the New York-based agency was eager to preserve—even if it meant removing all of its Jewish photographers in keeping with Nazi race laws, for example, and even if it meant issuing a statement to the official SS magazine swearing that the photo bureau was pure Aryan.

In the Nazi years, according to Scharnberg, the AP was selling German images in the United States and selling images from the United States in Germany, allowing photographs of American Jews and others to be used in some of the vilest racial propaganda produced by the Nazi state. The AP was, for example, the “leading supplier” of images for a propaganda book called The Jews in the USA, and in third place among suppliers of photos for the book The Subhuman.

The former AP building in Gaza: May 2021

Associated Press CEO Gary Pruitt Confirms the AP Works/worked in a Hamas Operated Facility!

[Texas Fossil]

Yes. AP said that they were lucky to have gotten out.

In spite of being warned specifically many times. Before the attack.

I've long said: AP = Always Propaganda

[Texas Fossil]

Yes, that is the #ComDem_Way!

[Texas Fossil]

Yes.

[Texas Fossil]

My pleasure.

[Texas Fossil]

Thanks for link.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

” Our source was the New York Times!” Russian ambassador in Dr Strangelove.

[T.B. Yoits]

One more piece that reinforces the truth that the idea of an “independent press” has always been fiction.

[Texas Fossil]

I’m 73, this is by far the worst that I have ever seen.

Something similar took place with Richard Nixon. Not same, but Press felt like they were the most important people in the world for bringing down the POTUS!

Since then they have felt it is their job to punish and remove any conservative POTUS of the US and same for Congressmen.

[Freedom56v2]

Yep...

[Vermont Lt]

Probably “Inside the Third Reich” by Shirer. He worked for CBS. He was there until 1940 if I remember.

[Vermont Lt]

Not Inside...but the rise and fall. Inside the 3rd reich was by Speer.

[Fred Hayek]

The New York Times was very accommodating to the Nazis as well in the 30’s.

With that and Walter Duranty’s shilling for Stalin, has there ever been a totalitarian Anti-American despot that the New York Slimes didn’t like?

[Rusty0604]

Looked that up and it was “The Berlin Diary”, thanks.

[NetAddicted]

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