Melvin J. Lasky

Der Monat

Stephen Spender

Irving Kristol

Encounter

This is the second volume of Melvin J. Lasky's The Language of Journalism series, praised as a "brilliant" and "original" study in communications and contemporary language, and as "a joy to read." When it was first published, it broke ground in focusing on the comparative styles and prejudices of mainstream American and British newspapers, and in its trenchant analysis of their systematic debasement of language in the face of obligatory platitudes and compulsory euphemisms. Lasky documents the growing crisis affecting honest, thoughtful, and independent journalism in the Western world. He extends the scope of his first volume in the trilogy and deepens the interpretation. He also adds a personal touch of wit and anecdote, as one might expect from an experienced international journalist and historian. Lasky's examination of the use of formerly forbidden language is a triumph of sinuous semantics. In his incisive analysis, we see the tortuous struggle of a once Puritanized literary culture writhing to break free of censorship and self-censorship. This volume on the phenomenon of profanity adds another dimension to Lasky's thesis on mass culture's trivialization of real social and political phenomena. It also underscores our society's embrace of banality, in standardizing politically correct jargon and slang. Readers of the first volume will find here a new range of references to illuminate the detail of what our newspapers have been publishing.

Profanity, Obscenity and the Media

The Language of Journalism: The Language of Journalism

Afeatured article in Die Zeit, the leading German weekly, begins with "Melvin, du hast gewonnen"--Mel, you have won! In his extraordinary account of the final days of the German Democratic Republic (DDR) we see the reckoning of a regime, and also the vindication of a life-long devotee of European democracy. It is unlikely that any comparable memoir will be written, since Lasky's career spanned the entire history of wartime and postwar Germany, especially in divided and Wall-torn Berlin.Voices in a Revolution, now in paperback, offers an in-depth portrayal of the Communist police state before the breakdown, followed by a blow-by-blow account of the drama of breakdown and regime transformation. Characters in the everyday cultural world of Germany come alive as harbingers and heralds of the end of the old and the necessity of the new.Lasky understands the role of accident as well as of necessity. The West Germans had all but abandoned the slogan of One People, One Nation when they were faced with the immense task of supervising just such a reintegration. The work ends with the awakening conscience at the very point that the Berlin Wall came tumbling down. This is a memorable work--one likely to sear the conscience of lovers of freedom and analysts of tyranny alike.

The Collapse of East German Communism

Voices in a Revolution

The concluding volume of Lasky's monumental "The Languages of Journalism," a series that has been praised as a "brilliant" and "original" study in communications and contemporary language. Other volumes in the series include "Profanity, Obscenity and the Media" and "Newspaper Culture."

The Language of Journalism: Media Warfare

The newspaper is to the twentieth century what the novel was for the nineteenth century: the expression of popular sentiment. In the first of a three-volume study of journalism and what it has meant as a source of knowledge and as a mechanism for orchestrating mass ideology, Melvin J. Lasky provides a major overview. His research runs the gamut of material found in newspapers, from the trivial to the profound, from pseudo-science to habits of solid investigation. The volume is divided into four parts. The first attacks deficiencies in grammar and syntax with examples from newspapers and magazines drawn from the German as well as English-language press. The second examines the key issues of journalism: accuracy and authenticity. Lasky provides an especially acute account of differences between active literacy and passive viewing, or the relationship of word and picture in defining authenticity. The third part emphasizes the problem of bias in everything from racial reporting to cultural correctness. This is the first systematic attempt to study racial nomenclature, identity-labeling, and literary discrimination. Lasky follows closely the model set by George Orwell a half century earlier. The final section of the work covers the competition between popular media and the redefinition of pornography and its language. The volume closes with an examination of how the popular culture both influenced and was influential upon literary titans like Hemingway, Lawrence, and Tynan.

Volume 1, Newspaper Culture

The Language of Journalism

eine internationale Zeitschrift

«Selbst als ein Ungläubiger stand ich demütig und beschämt vor den Ruinen dieses fremden Landes», notiert Melvin Lasky, als er im letzten Kriegsjahr mit der US-Army nach Deutschland kommt. Hier soll der Oberleutnant Material für eine Geschichte der Invasion sammeln, doch was er sieht, lässt sich nicht schematisieren: Chaos, Trümmer, Unmenschlichkeit überall. Fassungslos reist er durch tote Ruinenlandschaften, vom Elsass über Bayern, Kassel und Braunschweig bis in die versehrte Reichshauptstadt, skizziert die Anfänge der Besatzungspolitik und, vor allem, hört den Menschen zu, die er trifft. Ihre Stimmen – von KZ-Überlebenden, Widerstandskämpfern, alliierten Soldaten, Kriegsgefangenen, Nazis, Mitläufern und Ausgebombten – fügen sich zu einem beeindruckenden Mosaik des Jahres 1945 und machen das bislang unveröffentlichte Tagebuch zu einem einzigartigen Zeitzeugnis. Doch Lasky, Fremder, Feind und Freund zugleich, ist nicht nur ein genauer Beobachter und Chronist, sondern auch ein großer Erzähler. Ein Erlebnisbericht voll eindrucksvoller Szenen und Bilder, das Panorama eines zerstörten Landes zwischen totaler Niederlage und ungewisser Zukunft.

Melvin J. Lasky

Books

Your next favorite book is out there