How Journalists Covered the Rise of Mussolini and Hitler
This is from 2016 but still relevant.
Reports on the rise of fascism in Europe were not the American medias finest hour
By John Broich, The Conversation
SMITHSONIANMAG.COM
DECEMBER 13, 2016
How to cover the rise of a political leader whos left a paper trail of anti-constitutionalism, racism and the encouragement of violence? Does the press take the position that its subject acts outside the norms of society? Or does it take the position that someone who wins a fair election is by definition normal, because his leadership reflects the will of the people These are the questions that confronted the U.S. press after the ascendance of fascist leaders in Italy and Germany in the 1920s and 1930s.
Benito Mussolini secured Italys premiership by marching on Rome with 30,000 blackshirts in 1922. By 1925 he had declared himself leader for life. While this hardly reflected American values, Mussolini was a darling of the American press, appearing in at least 150 articles from 1925-1932, most neutral, bemused or positive in tone.
Mussolinis success in Italy normalized Hitlers success in the eyes of the American press who, in the late 1920s and early 1930s, routinely called him the German Mussolini. Given Mussolinis positive press reception in that period, it was a good place from which to start. Hitler also had the advantage that his Nazi party enjoyed stunning leaps at the polls from the mid '20s to early '30s, going from a fringe party to winning a dominant share of parliamentary seats in free elections in 1932. But the main way that the press defanged Hitler was by portraying him as something of a joke. He was a nonsensical screecher of wild words whose appearance, according to Newsweek, suggests Charlie Chaplin. His countenance is a caricature. He was as voluble as he was insecure, stated Cosmopolitan.
Journalists were aware that they could only criticize the German regime so much and maintain their access. When a CBS broadcasters son was beaten up by brownshirts for not saluting the Führer, he didnt report it. When the Chicago Daily News Edgar Mowrer wrote that Germany was becoming an insane asylum in 1933, the Germans pressured the State Department to rein in American reporters. Allen Dulles, who eventually became director of the CIA, told Mowrer he was taking the German situation too seriously. Mowrers publisher then transferred him out of Germany in fear of his life
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-journalists-covered-rise-mussolini-hitler-180961407/