<i>Newshawks in Berlin</i> is a powerful historical investigation that unpacks the ethical choices and hard realities of eyewitness reporting under a dictatorship. In writing that is nuanced and sophisticated, and yet as clear and readable as an AP dispatch, Heinzerling and Herschaft enlarge our understanding of American news in the Nazi era while providing vital lessons for journalists today.
- Steve Coll, author of <i>The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the C.I.A., and the Origins of America's Invasion of Iraq</i>,
This honest, rare, and disturbing history shows how a respected American news organization could become compromised by Adolf Hitlerâs propaganda machine. With a deep appreciation for wartime Germany and journalismâs conflicting demands, <i>Newshawks in Berlin</i> reads like an unforgettable warning from another era to our own age of dictators and "fake news."
- Elizabeth Becker, author of <i>You Don't Belong Here: How Three Women Rewrote the Story of War</i>,
<i>Newshawks in Berlin</i> reveals how the Associated Press operated in Nazi Germany, and how Nazi officials infused propaganda into some of APâs news coverage. Filled with surprises and rich in detail, a well-written, inside account of the tension between ethics and professional opportunism. Very relevant to totalitarian regimes today.
- Richard Breitman, author of <i>The Berlin Mission: The American Who Resisted Nazi Germany from Within</i>,
Well researched and cogently argued, <i>Newshawks in Berlin</i> provides a compelling account of the challenges and compromises the Associated Press had to make when covering the Third Reich.
- Steven Casey, author of <i>The War Beat, Pacific: The American Media at War Against Japan</i>,
Faced with the task of investigating the controversial record of the APâs Berlin bureau in the Nazi era, the authors resisted any rush to judgment. Instead, they let the often-ambiguous evidence speak for itself. The result is a meticulously researched account that exemplifies the virtues of old-fashioned journalistic fairness.
- Andrew Nagorski, author of <i>Hitlerland: American Eyewitnesses to the Nazi Rise to Power</i>,
A fascinating portrait of how the news agency functioned under the influence of a dictatorship while still informing as wide an audience as possible.
Foreword Reviews
[<i>Newshawks</i>] richly mines APâs vast archives and other sources to provide a fascinating inside account of a journalistic era thatâs completely different from now but poses many of the same questions.
Associated Press
A gripping, enraging account.
Wall Street Journal
A powerful and timely exploration of the ethical challenges faced by journalists and news organizations in confronting tyranny and injustice.
The Jewish Voice
The book surfaces new sources around an important aspect of the history of photography and highlights again this complicated moment in media history.
H-Soz-Kult
This is a thoroughly researched and poignant study of the complex relations between the Associated Press (AP) and Nazi Germany...Recommended.
Choice
Produktdetaljer
Biographical note
Larry Heinzerling (1945â2021) was a reporter, foreign correspondent, and news executive during a forty-one-year career at the Associated Press. He worked in foreign bureaus in Nigeria, South Africa, and Germany and served as director of AP World Services and deputy international editor.Randy Herschaft has been for the past three decades an investigative journalist with the Associated Press. The recipient of a George Polk and an Overseas Press Club Award, he was a member of the Pulitzer Prizeâwinning AP team that, nearly fifty years later, uncovered a massacre of civilians by U.S. troops during the Korean War.
Ann Cooper is professor emerita at the Columbia Journalism School. She is the former executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists and was a foreign correspondent for NPR, including serving as Moscow bureau chief from 1987 to 1991.