Joe McCarthy and the Press

While a Hollywood film revisits the 1950s anti-communist furor spawned by the late Wisconsin Sen. Joseph McCarthy, a Wisconsin journalist’s book studying the politician’s relationship with the media of his day has also been reintroduced to bookshelves.

In 2005, the UW Press released the first paperback edition of “Joe McCarthy and the Press,” by Edwin R. Bayley. Bayley, who died in 2002, was a longtime political reporter for the Milwaukee Journal who covered McCarthy firsthand. Bayley’s distinguished career later included work in the Kennedy Administration and as founding dean of the University of California-Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism.

“Joe McCarthy and the Press” was originally published by the UW Press in 1981. The book examines McCarthy’s manipulation of the media and ways that the press both helped and hindered his acrimonious rise to fame. Its re-release coincides with the Hollywood premiere in October 2005 of “Good Night and Good Luck,” an exploration of CBS broadcaster Edward R. Murrow’s clashes with McCarthy.

Interestingly, Bayley’s own coverage at the time was a target of the senator. A UC-Berkeley obituary news release about Bayley included this poignant anecdote: “Once, when Bayley was covering a McCarthy rally for the Milwaukee Journal, the senator spotted Bayley and introduced him to the crowd. McCarthy said, ‘Stand up, Ed, and let the people see what a communist looks like.'”

The book won the prestigious George Polk Award and the Frank Luther Mott Award for journalism research, both in 1981. For more about the book, contact UW Press Interim at (608) 263-1101, publicity@uwpress.wisc.edu.