NRJ Book: Covering McCarthysm: How the Christian Science Monitor Handled Joseph R. McCarthy, 1950–1954

Abstract

Covering McCarthysm: How the Christian Science Monitor handled Joseph R. McCarthy, 1950-1954 by Lawrence N. Strout (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1999, $55, 171 pp.) reviewed by Kim E. Karloff Those inside and outside the field of journalism have called it one of the most controversial issues of the 1950s: McCarthyism. In his book, Covering McCarthyism: How the Christian Science Monitor Handled Joseph R. McCarthy, 1950-1954, Lawrence Strout focuses on how one influential newspaper of the era reported on and, rather persistently at times, criticized the actions of the Republican junior senator from Wisconsin. The book spans from McCarthy's Lincoln Day speech in February 1950 to his censure by the U.S. Senate in December 1954. While student readers may bemoan the lack of a more scintillating examination of the motion picture industry and the attacks by the House UnAmerican Activities Committee on those in Hollywood who even broached a Communist thought in the late 1940s, Strout makes it clear from the get-go that this text's focus is on how one newspaper served as a balanced voice of moderation in an era of politically charged, and often politically driven, news coverage. There are no Hollywoodesque depictions here. The book is organized by year beginning with an overview of the Monitor's pre-McCarthy Cold War coverage and the February 9, 1950, speech to the Ohio County Republican Women's Club in Wheeling, West Virginia, in which McCarthy claimed that there were Communists working in the State Department. And it is here in the first chapter that one first finds the book's strength. The book's strength lies in the comparisons of coverage between the Monitor and other leading newspapers of the time. For example, Strout notes that the Chicago Tribune was one of the few large newspapers in the country to even carry details of the now famous 1950 Lincoln day speech. He notes that the Christian Science Monitor didn't cover the story until two days later (via the Associated Press) and the New York Times failed to mention the McCarthy speech until February 12 (in a United Press-produced story). In each of the following five chapters, Strout compares and contrasts the coverage of the Monitor with other elite newspapers of the day as well as provides a media self-critique of biases and balances in the press. As Strout notes:The Monitor took a stand against McCarthy, and proposed solutions to his method of smearing individuals....the Monitor's credo 'to injure no man, but to bless all mankind' precluded it from name calling and other crude methods of offering opinions, unlike the (San Francisco) Examiner and the (Chicago) Tribune, but not unlike the New York Times. Besides extended and thoughtful discussions of press objectivity and balanced reportage, highlights of the book include the examination of General Douglas MacArthur's dismissal, McCarthy's attacks on then-Secretary of State Dean Acheson and General George C. …