Though much has been said about Japanese-American incarceration camps, little attention is paid to the community newspapers closest to the camps and how they constructed the identities and lives of the occupants inside. Dependent on government and military officials for information, these journalists rarely wrote about the violation of the evacuees' civil rights. Instead, they concentrated on the economic impact the camps--and the evacuees, who would replace workers off to enlist in the military and work for defense contractors--would have on the areas they covered. Newspapers like the Cody...

Community Newspapers and Japanese-American Incarceration Camps critically examines the tendency of journalists in all corners of the craft to be timid in times of war, precisely when the public's need for accurate information is so pressing.