Peter Braestrup

Peter Braestrup
BornJune 8, 1929
Manhattan, New York
DiedAugust 10, 1997(1997-08-10) (aged 68)
Rockport, Maine
EducationYale University[1]
FatherCarl B. Braestrup

Peter Braestrup (June 8, 1929[2] – August 10, 1997) was a correspondent for The New York Times and The Washington Post, founding editor of The Wilson Quarterly, and later senior editor and director of communications for the Library of Congress.[3] Retiring from journalism in 1973, he founded the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars' Wilson Quarterly, and in 1989 moved to the Library of Congress.

Braestrup's 1977 Freedom House-sponsored book,[4] the two-volume Big Story, criticized US media coverage of the Vietnam War's 1968 Tet Offensive.[3] The book, which argued that the media coverage of the offensive was excessively negative and helped lose the war, "is regularly cited by historians, without qualification, as the standard work on media reporting of the Tet offensive".[5]

  1. ^ Library of Congress Public Affairs Office. Peter Braestrap, Dir. of Communications, Dies", PR 97-134, Library of Congress website, August 13, 1997. Assessed December 28, 2008.
  2. ^ Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum, Oral Histories -- Peter Braestrup Archived June 11, 2010, at the Wayback Machine
  3. ^ a b Herszenhorn, David M. (August 11, 1997). "Peter Braestrup, 68, War Reporter And Library of Congress Editor". The New York Times.
  4. ^ The Big Story: How the American Press and Television Reported and Interpreted the Crisis of Tet 1968 in Vietnam and Washington, Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1977
  5. ^ Chomsky, Noam; Herman, Eduard S. (1994). Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. London: Vintage. p. 211. ISBN 9780099533115.