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Revision as of 17:11, 10 September 2010
, 17:11, 10 September 2010→Larger magazines
Where then lies the blame? Who should have been questioning the bombing practice? According to some ethicists, the job of criticism belongs to the community of scholars.<ref>Paskins and Dockrill, '''Ethics of War''', p. 48.</ref> This is reasonable, but the academic community is in many ways a cloistered and insulated one. The age of total war immersed the general population in the fighting effort. Therefore, the relatively small segment of informed students of war could not be expected to educate the masses. That is a task better associated with the mass information media. I have chosen magazines as a focus of scrutiny because they reached the people, the people who fought the total war with their hands, their minds, and their sons and daughters. The lives of all those killed in the bombing campaign deserve the respect of this examination. A woman who lived through the fire raid of Hamburg said, "It was hell on earth. It was obvious that Hitler had to be destroyed, but did it have to be done this way?"<ref>Martin Middlebrook, "The Battle of Hamburg" (New York: Scribners, 1980), p. 338, as quoted in Kennett, '''History''', p. 186.</ref>
Where then lies the blame? Who should have been questioning the bombing practice? According to some ethicists, the job of criticism belongs to the community of scholars.<ref>Paskins and Dockrill, '''Ethics of War''', p. 48.</ref> This is reasonable, but the academic community is in many ways a cloistered and insulated one. The age of total war immersed the general population in the fighting effort. Therefore, the relatively small segment of informed students of war could not be expected to educate the masses. That is a task better associated with the mass information media. I have chosen magazines as a focus of scrutiny because they reached the people, the people who fought the total war with their hands, their minds, and their sons and daughters. The lives of all those killed in the bombing campaign deserve the respect of this examination. A woman who lived through the fire raid of Hamburg said, "It was hell on earth. It was obvious that Hitler had to be destroyed, but did it have to be done this way?"<ref>Martin Middlebrook, "The Battle of Hamburg" (New York: Scribners, 1980), p. 338, as quoted in Kennett, '''History''', p. 186.</ref>
==Larger magazines==
The first portion in the analysis of American periodicals covers those magazines with enormous circulation rates. The hands-down leader of these media giants was Reader's Digest. Because it then did not accept advertising, the Reader's
Digest was not included in the standard directory's ranking by circulation,<ref>The '''Ayer Directory of Publications''' (Philadelphia: IMS Press, 1944), p. 1189.</ref> but other sources show that the journal had a U.S. circulation of about 7,000,000 copies in 1944. The Reader's Digest was unique, though, in that its readership was much higher than
its mere circulation rate.
<blockquote>''In estimating the "readership" of their magazines most publishers like to apply a multiple of 3 or 4 to their circulation. The Digest can afford to be modest. It estimates its total readership at only 25,000,000. This is obviously very conservative. An estimate of double that number would probably be closer, since repeated surveys have
shown that each issue is read both by more people and with greater thoroughness than is the case with most magazines.''<ref>James Rorty, "The Reader's Digest: A study in cultural elephantiasis", '''Commonweal''', 12 May 1940, p. 78.</ref></blockquote>
The Reader's Digest's immense size was primarily due to its popularity among average middle class America. It merits special scrutiny as the one journal uniquely able to steer popular opinion. Concerning strategic bombing in Europe, the Reader's Digest presented its view to the American public in a series of seven articles, two of which postdated the capitulation of Germany.
==References==
==References==
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