Davis, Elmer, and the Office of War Information

Although primarily a journalist, Elmer Davis is important to the public relations profession because he was known nationally and internationally as the director of the Office of War Information during World War II.

Davis was born in 1890 in Aurora, Indiana. His career in journalism began when he was a boy “printer's devil” on the Aurora Bulletin, but printing the newspaper was not his destiny. He enrolled in Franklin College, where he earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1910. While at Franklin, he wrote articles as a correspondent for the Indianapolis Star and was paid $25 per story. He went to Oxford University in 1910 as a Rhodes scholar but had to leave when his father became ill. He returned to the United States and took an editorial position with Adventure magazine.

A year later, he left that job to be a cub reporter at The New York Times, where he remained for 10 years. He reported on a wide variety of subjects. His coverage of evangelist Billy Sunday earned him fame and fortune. At the time, reporters were paid by the space their stories occupied, and the Billy Sunday stories were long for news stories and lucrative for Davis. However, readers did not consider his stories long because they were easy to read and interesting. Samuel T. Williamson, a fellow Times reporter, said Davis “benefited from his facility with the English language which made it possible for him to write a long story so phrased that a copyreader couldn't cut it much” (Burlingame, 1961, p. 69). A skillful analyst of contemporary politics, when he wrote editorials and features on American politics, he was widely read and respected. He also wrote History of the New York Times, 1851–1921 in 1921.

Davis left the Times in 1923 to become a freelance writer. He tried fiction and nonfiction and published I'll Show You the Town in 1924, several novels, short stories, and a volume of essays, Show Window (1927).

In 1939, Davis received a call from the CBS news chief asking him to fill in for one night for news analyst H. V. Kaltenborn, who was reporting from Europe. He accepted, was an immediate success, and became a full-time CBS analyst. His nightly five-minute newscast was heard by 12.5 million people, and he became known for his straightforward style and dry humor. After two and a half years, he had earned the trust of radio listeners and the confidence of newsmen. Edward R. Murrow wrote to Davis, “I've spent a lot of time listening to broadcasts from many countries…and yours stand out as the best example of fair, toughminded, interesting talking I've heard” (Radio Days, 2003, n.p.).

On one broadcast Davis recommended that the government organize news information under one organization, saying that the public needed and wanted more news. He said, “The whole government publicity situation has everybody in the news business almost in despair, with half a dozen different agencies following different line.… Under one head, with real power, they might get somewhere” (Burlingame, 1961, p. 186).

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