The military versus the press: Japanese military controls over one U.S. journalist, John B. Powell, in Shanghai during the Sino-Japanese war, 1937-1941

Abstract

Military controls over journalism and journalists during wartime have long existed in various forms. As multinational relations become more complex during a war, the military controls can extend beyond the journalists of warring countries to journalists of neutral countries. This thesis uses a case study to answer why and how the military controlled independent journalists and publications of the neutral states. Specifically, this thesis investigates why and how the Japanese military controlled one independent U.S. journalist John B. Powell and his journal The China Weekly Review in Shanghai during the second Sino-Japanese War, August 1937 through December 1941. Powell's case exemplified the dilemma facing independent journalists of neutral states in a foreign war: they report a foreign battlefield with no institutional protection or logistical support from their home countries, while encountering severe military controls from the warring countries. From this research emerges a new pattern, in which nation A's military controls nation B's journalists in a war with nation C (ABC pattern).