From Burma Battles to “the Bright Lights of Brisbane”

Abstract

At the height of the Pacific war, Australian Prime Minister John Curtin elevated American journalists' roles in his governance to elicit U.S. enthusiasm for his country's defense. This study reveals new insights into how another Allied nation's leader expanded American press interactions to influence the White House during World War II. As a former journalist, Curtin extended his candid press talks and the fledgling Australian radio and newsreel media to involve U.S. reporters in his campaign for an escalated offensive from America's Southwest Pacific headquarters in Brisbane, Australia. Yet he lost key American press support for preventing some of his country's troops from fighting in the Allies' battles in Burma. Through a rare analysis of secret diaries, confidential briefings, and unscreened newsreels, this article shows how Curtin developed remarkably uncensored American journalistic reports to reclaim positive news coverage of the U.S.-led advance from Australia to help win the war.

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Notes on contributors

Caryn Coatney

CARYN COATNEY is a University of Southern Queensland journalism lecturer with a PhD (journalism and history), MA (journalism), and BA (double honors in literature & history). The author would like to thank the editor and the two anonymous reviewers of Journalism History for their excellent recommendations. This research was supported by the Australian government under an Australian Prime Ministers Centre Fellowship, an initiative of the Museum of Australian Democracy. The author also thanks the University of Southern Queensland Faculty of Arts (now the Faculty of Business, Education, Law and Arts) for financial support.