The Research Of The Locus Of American Journalist Theodore H. White's Political Ideology

Research for foreign journalists is an important part of journalism.Current research situation of domestic focus on the journalists who has close contact with The communist party of China(CCP), such as Edgar Snow, Israel Epstein and Agnes Smedley, and has made great achievements. However the researchers ignored some journalists also occupies an important position who didn't have very close contact with the communist party of China. Of this kind of journalists, Theodore H White is a representative.The researching of the change of Theodore H White's political ideology can fill the blank of foreign journalists study in certain extent.In White's whole life,his political ideology had changed many times.Because of the poverty of his childhood, White eagered to get rid of poverty to enter the elite class, and Harvard University gave him the chance.After graduating from Harvard University,he came to China In his advisor Fairbank's recommendation.China was in the period of Anti-Japanese War When White came here.At first,White worked in Propaganda department Chinese nationalist party (KMT).After Japanese airforce attacked Chungking, he began to support KMT.However, he found that KMT was corruption and incompetent, so he visited and supported CCP, he thought that CCP will be the leader of China.After The second world war, White came to Europe to report the progress of Marshall Plan.In Europe, he saw America's influence,and his love to America came to the top.From then on he claimed that he support cold war and hated communism. When he went back to America, he was investigated by McCarthy,but he still love American values,and created the making of president 1960 after American president election in 1960, in which he beated the drum for American values.Now he really blended in elite class of America.The academic research of White mainly includes two aspects.One is papers that in memory of White, mainly found in journals published in 1970s and 1980s.In recent year there are some papers like this but get nearly no breakthrough.The other is research for illusion news of White, the representative work is Theodore H. White and Journalism As Iillusion writen by Joyce Hoffmann, which is one of very important reference of this paper.The viewpoint of this paper is, the essence of origins and developments of White's journalism as illusion is the changes of his political ideology.This paper analyzed the changes of White's political ideology according to the time sequence, The first part elaborates what the childhood home environment do to White's political ideology;The second part is the key,in this part the author discussed White's irresolution between KMT and CCP, and the reason for this irresolution.The third part discussed how did White find the influence of America when he was in Europe.The fourth part discusses mainly after White's returning to the United States from Europe to America's presidential election, through the report, White thoroughly embodied the American elite class.This innovation of this paper is, by reading and analysing White's autobiography that difficult to find in domestic, on the basic of researching of White's journalism as illusion, concludes that the essence of White's journalism as illusion is the changes of his political ideology.At the same time, this paper found that entrenched American values is the essential reason of the changes.The searching for Theodore H. White can fill in blank of the study of foreign journalists in domestic to a certain extent.