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Overview"In this groundbreaking study, Joyce Hoffmann examines a critical twenty-five-year period in the work of one of the most influential journalists of the twentieth century. Theodore H. White was already a celebrated reporter when Jacqueline Kennedy summoned him for an exclusive interview in the aftermath of her husband's assassination. With her help, White would preserve what the First Lady claimed had been John F. Kennedy's vision of the New Frontier as an incarnation of that wistful, romantic kingdom--Camelot. Over the years, friends and advisers to Kennedy declared that they had never heard the president speak of Camelot. But White's article, which ran in Life magazine, created a myth that still endures in the popular consciousness. That story was just one of many by Theodore White that had a lasting impact on the nation. As a correspondent for several of the country's most popular magazines, he covered the crucial events of the 1940s, '50s, and '60s. His best-selling book The Making of the President 1960 changed political reporting forever. A gifted and likable man with a remarkable skill for ingratiating himself with others, White earned the confidence of key political, military, and diplomatic leaders. First in the Far East, later in Europe, and finally in Washington, D.C., he became a confidant and adviser rather than an adversary to the figures he covered for the news, following a pattern set by elite journalists. Even as he played the impartial reporter, White kept secrets in order to maintain access to his important sources, and he occasionally allowed his subjects, including John F. Kennedy and Nelson Rockefeller, to make changes in his work before publication. Clinging to the illusion of objectivity, White--like other leading journalists in the postwar years--wrote about the world not as it was but as he believed it ought to be. Hoffmann relates the little-known episode in White's career when he intentionally obscured the truth about Chiang Kai-shek's corrupt and inept Nationalist government because he believed that undermining China's cause would be ""a disservice to democracy."" No other book so thoroughly documents how a first-rank journalist can become a political insider and distort the news without losing the gloss of impartiality that is supposed to accompany the profession. Impressively researched, skillfully written, Theodore H. White and Journalism as Illusion is an unflinching look at a key figure in the history of American journalism and at the profession itself." Full Product DetailsAuthor: Joyce HoffmanPublisher: University of Missouri Press Imprint: University of Missouri Press Dimensions: Width: 15.20cm , Height: 2.00cm , Length: 22.90cm Weight: 0.545kg ISBN: 9780826210104ISBN 10: 0826210104 Pages: 192 Publication Date: 31 July 1995 Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate , Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly Format: Hardback Publisher's Status: Active Availability: Out of stock  The supplier is temporarily out of stock of this item. It will be ordered for you on backorder and shipped when it becomes available. Table of ContentsReviewsHoffmann (Journalism/Old Dominion Univ.) compellingly argues that one of America's most distinguished journalists used his prestige and eloquence to manufacture influential illusions about great men and events rather than to tell the truth as he saw it. The Jewish son of a radical socialist father and a deeply religious and patriotic mother, Theodore H. White grew up a poor outsider in Boston of the '20s and '30s. Accepted to Harvard but unable to afford it, he worked as a newsboy for two years, reapplied, and was accepted again, this time with a scholarship. According to Hoffmann, these experiences imbued in White a deep desire to be accepted that encumbered [his] life. In China after graduation, White he accepted a job with the Nationalist Chinese Ministry of Information, essentially producing propaganda for Chiang Kai-shek's embattled regime, while also acting as a correspondent for the Boston Globe. Later White became China correspondent for Henry Luce's Time magazine. Hoffmann argues that White compromised his journalistic integrity, writing glowing articles about Chiang despite inner convictions (expressed to friends) that the Kuomintang regime was brutal, corrupt, and incompetent. As the war progressed, his reporting became more truthful, but he would discover that after having created a false image in the public consciousness, correcting that image was enormously difficult. According to Hoffmann, White's work created a consensus in American public life that tended to trust the decisions of the American government during WW II and the Cold War. The culmination of this process was White's involvement in the Kennedy administration (his classic The Making of the President 1960 made a hero of JFK) and his self-conscious creation, with Jacqueline Kennedy, of the myth of Camelot. Hoffmann shows that White's adulatory coverage of subsequent presidents sprang from his love of his hard-won position as a journalistic insider in the world of policymaking. A fist-rate look at how news - and history - can be created and manipulated. (Kirkus Reviews) Author InformationJoyce Hoffmann is Assistant Professor of Journalism at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. 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