Socolow Writes Slate Article on Erroneous D-Day Media Reports
Slate published an opinion piece by Michael Socolow, an associate professor in the Department of Communication and Journalism at the University of Maine, titled “The day we didn’t invade Normandy.” The article focuses on the erroneous media reports that were made on June 3, 1944 announcing that D-Day had begun. Millions of people likely heard the report on as many as 500 stations nationwide. The false report sprang from a preplanned news flash that was accidentally released by a young typist in the AP’s London bureau who pressed the wrong button on her teletype transmitter, the article states. “Though far more Americans heard the false D-Day report than tuned in to Orson Welles’ ‘War of the Worlds’ broadcast, the erroneous news flash, and the public’s reaction to it, is now largely forgotten. Actual coverage of D-Day, starting three days later, wiped it from historical memory,” Socolow wrote.