James Aronson (1915–1988) was an American journalist. He founded the ''

National Guardian ''The National Guardian'', later known as ''The Guardian'', was a left-wing independent weekly newspaper established in 1948 in New York City. The paper was founded by James Aronson, Cedric Belfrage and John T. McManus in connection with the 194 ...

''. He was a graduate of

Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher lea ...

and the

Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism is located in Pulitzer Hall on the university's Morningside Heights campus in New York City. Founded in 1912 by Joseph Pulitzer, Columbia Journalism School is one of the oldest journalism s ...

Career

Aronson, known as "Jim" to his friends, worked at several publications prior to founding the ''National Guardian''. He worked on the staffs of the ''

Boston Evening Transcript The ''Boston Evening Transcript'' was a daily afternoon newspaper in Boston, Massachusetts, published from July 24, 1830, to April 30, 1941. Beginnings ''The Transcript'' was founded in 1830 by Henry Dutton and James Wentworth of the firm of D ...

'', the ''

New York Herald Tribune The ''New York Herald Tribune'' was a newspaper published between 1924 and 1966. It was created in 1924 when Ogden Mills Reid of the ''New-York Tribune'' acquired the ''New York Herald''. It was regarded as a "writer's newspaper" and competed ...

'', the ''

New York Post The ''New York Post'' (''NY Post'') is a conservative daily tabloid newspaper published in New York City. The ''Post'' also operates NYPost.com, the celebrity gossip site PageSix.com, and the entertainment site Decider.com. It was established ...

'' and ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' from 1946 to 1948. Aronson founded the National Guardian in 1949 with

John T. McManus John Thomas McManus (1904 – November 1961) was an American journalist active in progressive politics in the 1950s and 1960s best known as co-founder of the ''National Guardian'', a left-leaning newspaper. Background McManus was born in New Yor ...

and

Cedric Belfrage Cedric Henning Belfrage (8 November 1904 – 21 June 1990) was an English film critic, journalist, writer and political activist. He is best remembered as a co-founder of the radical US weekly ''National Guardian''. Later Belfrage was referenced ...

. It continued publishing until 1992. Aronson also worked as a professor at

Hunter College Hunter College is a public university in New York City. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools. It also admi ...

of the

City University of New York The City University of New York ( CUNY; , ) is the Public university, public university system of Education in New York City, New York City. It is the largest urban university system in the United States, comprising 25 campuses: eleven Upper divis ...

. In 1981 he was invited to mainland China to teach news-writing by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Aronson was the first American to be invited to teach such classes since the Communists came to power in 1949. In China he found that the content and style were what the Maoist government wanted to change about Chinese journalism, not the purpose.

Works

* ''The Press and the Cold War'' (1970) * ''Something to Guard: The Stormy Life of the National Guardian, 1948-1967.'' With

. New York: Columbia University Press, 1978.

References

External links

Times change; fifth remembered
The Nation; Dec. 27, 1986
Aronson Award
at Hunter College
I Was a Polisher at a Chinese News Factory
Columbia Journalism Review, March/April 1996 20th-century American journalists 20th-century American writers 1915 births 1988 deaths American male journalists American newspaper reporters and correspondents Boston Evening Transcript people Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism alumni Harvard College alumni Hunter College faculty Marxist journalists New York Herald Tribune people New York Post people The New York Times writers {{US-journalist-1910s-stub