George Seldes
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George Seldes (November 16, 1890 – July 2, 1995) was an influential American investigative journalist and media critic.
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Early years
Seldes was born in Alliance, New Jersey. When he was nineteen he went to work at the Pittsburgh Leader. In 1914, he was appointed night editor of the Pittsburgh Post. As a young journalist, he was influenced by the investigative journalism of Lincoln Steffens.
World War I
In 1916 Seldes moved to London where he worked for United Press. When the United States joined the First World War in 1917, Seldes was sent to France where he worked as the war correspondent for the Marshall Syndicate. At end of the war he obtained an exclusive interview with Paul von Hindenburg, the supreme commander of the German Army. but the article was suppressed and never appeared in the American press.
In the interview, Hindenburg acknowledged the role that America played in defeating Germany. "The American infantry," said Hindenburg, "won the World War in battle in the Argonne." But American newspaper readers never read those words. Seldes and the others were accused of breaking the Armistice and were court martialed. They were also forbidden to write anything about the interview.
Seldes himself believed that the suppression of the interview proved to be tragic. Instead of hearing straight from the mouth of Germany's supreme commander that they were beaten fair and square on the battlefield, another story took hold — the Dolchstoss (or "stab-in-the-back"), the myth that Germany did not lose in battle but was betrayed at home by "the socialists, the Communists and the Jews." This was the central lie upon which Nazism was founded.
"If the Hindenburg interview had been passed by Pershing's censors at the time, it would have been headlined in every country civilized enough to have newspapers and undoubtedly would have made an impression on millions of people and became an important page in history," wrote Seldes in Witness to a Century. "I believe it would have destroyed the main planks on which Hitler rose to power, it would have prevented World War II, the greatest and worst war in all history, and it would have changed the future of all mankind."
Lenin and Mussolini
Seldes spent the next ten years as an international reporter for the Chicago Tribune. He interviewed Lenin in 1922. but the Soviet government did not like Seldes's reports and he was expelled from the country the following year.
The Chicago Tribune sent him to Italy where he wrote about Benito Mussolini and the rise of fascism. Seldes investigated the murder of Giacomo Matteotti, the head of the Italian Socialist Party. His article implicated Mussolini in the killing, and Seldes was expelled from Italy.
In 1927, the Chicago Tribune sent Seldes to Mexico but his articles criticizing American corporations concerning their use of that country's mineral rights were not well received. Seldes returned to Europe but found that increasingly his work was being censored to fit the political views of the newspaper's owner, Robert McCormack.
Freelance
Disillusioned, Seldes left the Tribune and went to work as a freelance writer. In his first two books, You Can't Print That! (1929) and Can These Things Be! (1931), Seldes included material that he had not been allowed to publish in the Tribune. His next book, World Panorama (1933), was a narrative history of the interbellum period.
In 1934 Seldes published a history of the Catholic Church, The Vatican. This was followed by an exposé of the global arms industry, Iron, Blood and Profits (1934), an account of Benito Mussolini, Sawdust Caesar (1935), and two books on the newspaper business, Freedom of the Press (1935) and Lords of the Press (1938). He also reported on the Spanish Civil War for the New York Post.
On his return to the United States in 1940 Seldes published Witch Hunt, an account of the persecution of people with left-wing political views in America, and The Catholic Crisis, where he attempted to show the close relationship between the Catholic Church and fascist organizations in Europe.
Publication of In Fact
From 1940 to 1950, Seldes published a political newsletter, In Fact, which at the height of its popularity had a circulation of 176,000. One of the first articles published in the newsletter concerned the link between cigarette smoking and cancer. Seldes later explained that at the time, "The tobacco stories were suppressed by every major newspaper. For ten years we pounded on tobacco as being one of the only legal poisons you could buy in America."
As well as writing his newsletter, Seldes continued to publish books. These included Facts and Fascism (1943), 1000 Americans (1947), an account of the people who controlled America and The People Don't Know (1949) on the origins of the Cold War.
Blacklisted
In the early 1950s Seldes came under attack from Joseph McCarthy, who accused him of being a communist. Seldes was blacklisted and found it difficult to get published. However, He continued to write books: Tell the Truth and Run (1953), Never Tire of Protesting (1968), Even the Gods Can't Change History (1976) and Witness to a Century (1987).
In 1981, Seldes appeared in Warren Beatty's Reds, a film about the life of journalist John Reed. Seldes appears as himself, commenting on the historical events depicted in the film.
Seldes died in 1995 at age 104. A delegation of progressive journalists attended the memorial sevice at his home in Vermont and read from his books.
External Links
- Two obituaries from the progressive media (http://www.publiceye.org/glossary/seldes.html)
See further
- Tell the Truth and Run: George Seldes and the American Press, a documentary film by Rick Goldsmith
- First two chapters of Facts and Fascism (http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/George_Seldes/Facts_and_Fascism.html)