Direction Magazine was smart, well-designed but short-lived magazine that hung-on only a brief while during the late Thirties/early Forties. The magazine existed to spread the world about new talent and shed some light on injustice, both home and abroad – and that is why this seems to be a curious article for them to run with. Inasmuch as their editors were in favor of U.S. intervention in Europe, this 1941 article wished to alert their readers that American radio broadcasters were serving-up pro-Allied propaganda.
The fellow who penned the column, John A. Prentice, believed it was rare for isolationists to ever be granted time before the radio microphones and quite common for newscasters to linger a bit longer on any news item that listed the hardships in France and Britain. Objectivity was also missing in matters involving the broadcasting of popular song:
“Kate Smith missed none of the emotional nuances in such songs as The Last Time I Saw Paris and A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square. Lynn Fontanne gave such an evocative reading of Alice Duer Miller’s The White Cliffs that she was called upon to repeat it on several succeeding broadcasts.”
Read about the radio program that was produced by the WPA writers and actors branch in order to celebrate American diversity; click here.
Read about the American reporter who became a Nazi…
Read our article about the treason of Ezra Pound.
