This paper examines how the press influenced decisions made at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. Using the sociological theory of a society shaped by the media and exploring the ways in which journalistic bias defined the events surrounding the end of the Great War, the paper concludes that newspaper accounts, and the perspectives that journalists created to support the necessity of war, helped to define the viewpoints and attitudes of American, French and British societies at the conclusion of hostilities. The presence of the press, and the secretive influence offered by the participating politicians, doomed the Conference to operate within the realm of censorship, with the resulting secret negotiations determining the context of the final peace treaties.
Dino DelGallo, Sam Houston State University