Censorship of the press during World War 1
Initially the control of what the press could or could not publish during the First World War was determined and controlled with all of the aplomb of a Three Stooges film. For example the press was not allowed to publish the embarkation of a given regiment onboard a ship bound for France for fear of providing the enemy with information of the strength of the American forces, as well as the fact of their being onboard being received by the U-boats which were marshaled in the Atlantic. But the society pages of the same newspaper could and did describe a recently married young American officer, of whatever regiment, having recently wed before deployment with his described unit to France. Dates were included to add drama.
Woodrow Wilson established the Committee of Public Information in April 1917 to not only censor the information being provided to the American public but to shape it to control public opinion. It was both an office for the suppression of the press and an office to use the press. The CPI was the first official propaganda office established by the United States government in the history of the nation. It created and distributed its own newspaper, the Daily Bulletin, which was provided to other newspapers and radio stations. It was also available on all military posts and fleet bases.
At first the American press were largely pleased with the CPI and faithfully reproduced its “news’ in their own columns. That ended in late 1917, when the CPI provided news of American destroyers sinking numerous U-boats while escorting American troopships to France. When the destroyer captains were interviewed by the press there and professed no knowledge of any such success against the U-boats, the CPI’s credibility took a nose dive. With The New York Times leading the way, the American press and radio news industries became leery of any “news” being fed to them by the CPI. With their reported “facts’ no longer being accepted by the media, the CPI began promoting hate propaganda.
The CPI did not limit its activities to the creation of false or misleading news reports, especially after they were exposed as being a propaganda organization. Instead it embraced its role by producing materials which were for the consumption of those who did not regularly read newspapers and magazines. Many, if not most, of the propaganda posters which were produced by the United States during World War 1 were the result of the efforts of the CPI. They also produced “newsreel” footage purporting to depict conditions at the front, though nearly all were filmed at training bases in the United States.
The CPI both censored true journalistic efforts to inform the public of the conditions faced by American troops and misinformed them of the events surrounding America’s war effort. It was supported in this task by the censorship of mail sent home by the troops, (the responsibility of commanding officers who frequently delegated the job) and of the press reports filed by correspondents. The CPI was disbanded after the war, and in a later war a different approach to both censorship and propaganda was adopted by the American government. While the CPI was a war measure, it was designed and implemented to control public opinion rather than increase national security, a clear action of the government to circumvent the First Amendment.