Last year, German historian Harriet Scharnberg released a paper showing that, during and immediately preceding World War II, the Associated Press engaged in a photo exchange with the SS, serving as a pipeline for photos from Nazi Germany to American news outlets and providing the Nazis photos which they used in internal propaganda. Last month, the AP released a detailed report of its own, countering some of Scharnberg’s claims, copping to others, and contextualizing its actions.
Brooke speaks with journalist and former AP correspondent Matti Friedman, who recently wrote a piece for Tablet called “What the AP's Collaboration With the Nazis Should Teach Us About Reporting the News.” They talk about the actions the AP took, how the ethical and reporting questions that the photo service faced during WWII persist today and whether highly censored information is sometimes worse than no information at all.
Then, Brooke speaks with John Daniszewski, Vice President and Editor-at-Large for Standards at the Associated Press, who oversaw and edited the AP’s internal report regarding their Nazi entanglements. He argues that, while the substance of Scharnberg’s paper is correct, the mission to report the news justified many of the agency's actions.