After more than 20 years of holding regular off-the-record briefings with government officials, the American Society of Newspaper Editors abandoned the practice in favor of a new commitment to freedom of information, signified most prominently by the organization’s sponsorship of Harold Cross’s 1953 book The People’s Right to Know. This article draws on archival research to trace the evolution of daily newspaper editors’ commitment to the public interest, after stridently defending their desire for secret information from federal and military leaders.
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