2020 Conference

CANCELLED

May be rescheduled at a later date.

Reporting World War II: American Correspondents at the Front-Lines

April 23 - 24, 2020

 

At

Intrepid  Sea, Air, & Space Museum
New York, NY

 

Organized by:

Institute on World War II and the Human Experience

Intrepid Sea, Air, and Space Museum

Contemporary History Institute at Ohio University

 


Photograph of war correspondent, journalist, editor and author Cornelius Ryan from the Cornelius Ryan Collection at the Ohio University's Alden Library.

 

This international conference brings together an interdisciplinary group of scholars who will examine how American journalists and newspapers covered World War II. The conference intends to consider war-time reporting prior to the entrance into the conflict and how American correspondents followed GIs across the globe after the December 7, 1941, Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.  The role of the journalists as objective reporters, propagandists, intelligence agents, and as witnesses to history are among the themes explored at this conference. Papers will consider the contribution of African American, Jewish, and women reporters as journalists and the unique work of correspondents serving in uniform. 
 
Reporting World War II: American Correspondents at the Front-Lines will be hosted by:
Institute on World War II and the Human Experience at Florida State University
Contemporary History Institute at Ohio University
Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum
Fordham University Press
Stars and Stripes.

Major support was received from Iron Mountain and the Office of the Provost at Florida State University, with additional funding provided by Adam Matthew Digital, Society for Military History and Student Veterans Center at Florida State University. 

 

Pre-registration is required to find out more, click on information. If you have any problems registering for the conference please send Anne Marsh an email at amarsh@fsu.edu.

Thursday, April 23, 2020
 
8:00 AM -9:00 AM Pre-registration Check-in
 
Continental Breakfast
 
9:00 AM-9:30 AM Welcome
 
Spoke Person Elaine Charnov, Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum
 
Julia Zimmerman, Dean Emeritus, Florida State University Libraries
                                Former Dean, Ohio University Libraries
 
Spoke Person TBD, Iron Mountain (?)
 
Max Lederer, Stars and Stripes
 
Fred Nachbaur, Fordham University Press
 
9:30 AM-11:30 AM - Session One
 
Chair:  Bob Reid, Stars and Stripes
 
Learning and Adapting: The American Media and the "Phony War”: September 1939-April 1940
Steven Casey, London School of Economics
 
Miss Bonney Reporting from the Arctic Front
Henry Oinas-Kukkonen, University of Oulu
 
‘Neutrality Irks Irish as Hate of Nazis, Grows’, Helen Kirkpatrick’s Reporting to Undercut Irish Neutrality Policy, 1939-1942
Karen K. Garner, State University of New York Empire State College
 
11:30 AM -1:00 PM Lunch
 
1:00 PM – 1:15 PM
Presentation by Adam Matthew Representative
 
1:15 PM-3:15 PM - Session Two
 
Chair:  John Whiteclay Chambers II, Rutgers University
 
Journalist-Operatives & Allied Secret Warfare, 1939-1945: SOE Agent Virginia Hall and the New York Post.
Claire Hubbard-Hall, Bishop Grosseteste University
 
What Were Women Doing There? Dickey Chapelle and Marguerite Higgins Report the War
Heather Stur, University of Southern Mississippi
 
Reporting from the Bureaus: The Lesser Known World War II Correspondents
Kendall Cosley, Texas A&M University
 
3:15 PM-3:30 PM Afternoon Break
 
3:30 PM-5:30 PM - Session Three
 
Chair:  Judy Barret Litoff, Bryant University
 
Two African American Journalists Confront World War II: Perspectives on Nationalism, Racism, and Identity
Larry Greene and Alan Delozier, Seton Hall University
 
Outstanding and Conspicuous: A Case Study of Three Women War Correspondents in the European Theater, 1944-1945
Carolyn Edy, Appalachian State University
 
Writing in an Old-World Language, Writing for the New World-Reader:
Reports from Jewish-American Parachutist Mayer Horowitz
Elena Hoffenberg, University of Haifa, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
 
5:30 PM-6:45 PM
Reception
 
6:45 PM-7:00 PM
Welcome

Kurt Piehler, Florida State University
Ingo Trauschweizer, Ohio University
Max Lederer, Stars and Stripes

7:00 - 8:00 PM
Documentary Screening - The World's Most Dangerous Paper Route
 
Friday, April 24, 2020
 
8:00 AM -9:00 AM Continental Breakfast
 
9:00 – 9:30 Jessica Williams, Intrepid’s Curator of History and Collections
 
9:30 AM-11:30 AM - Session One
 
Chair:  Julia Zimmerman, Florida State University
 
Reporting Reconnaissance to the Public: A Comparative Analysis of Canadian and American Reporting
Victoria Sotvedt, University of Calgary
 
A Butcher and Blot Force: Commandos, Rangers, and Newspaper Reporting in World War II
James Sandy, University of Texas at Arlington
 
‘A Surrounded Unit is Always a Newsworthy Object:’ Correspondents make Bastogne the Symbol of the Battle of the Bulge
James E. Mueller, University of North Texas
 
11:30 AM-1:00 PM Lunch - free for conference presenters (VIP Room, opens out onto Fantail)
 
1:00 PM-1:15 PM Ben Reid, Stars and Stripes
 
1:15 PM-3:15 PM - Session Two
 
Chair: Sarah Myers, Messiah College
 
‘The History Books Will Tell It All Carefully One Day’: World War II Correspondents on Bataan and the Mediation, Meaning, and Memory of Surrender.
Elena Friot, University of New Mexico
 
Bylines and Bayonets:  How United States Marine Corps Combat Correspondents in World War II Blended Journalism and Public Relations
Douglass K. Daniel, The Associated Press
 
Collected Truths of Iwo Jima in 1945: A U.S.-Japanese Comparative Rhetorical Analysis of Newspaper Coverage
Koji Fuse and Katharine Skinner-Luker, University of North Texas
 
3:15 PM-3:30 PM Afternoon Break
 
3:30 PM-5:30 PM - Session Three
 
Chair:  Max Lederer, Stars and Stripes
 
Omar Bradley’s War Against “Stars and Stripes”
Alexander Lovelace, Ohio University
 
After the Shooting Stopped: Journalism and Justice at Nuremberg
Nathaniel L. Moir, Kennedy School, Harvard University
 
Reporting the ‘Real War’: Discontent and Resistance in Military Newspapers
Robert Saxe, Rhodes College