Monger, David2021-04-072021-04-072021Monger D The Press Bureau, ‘D’ Notices, and Official Control of the British Press's Record of the First World War. The Historical Journal, 2021. 1-26.0018-246X1469-5103https://hdl.handle.net/10092/101790Concerns about fake news and media manipulation are commonplace in contemporary society, and, throughout the twentieth century, historians regularly presented the First World War as an era of manipulated public messages. Yet, despite broad statements about the impact of press censorship in First World War Britain, publication of an official history of the ‘D’ notice system, and growing revision of historical understanding of the interaction between the state, the press, propaganda, and the public during the war, no thorough assessment of the content of the D notices issued by the Press Bureau to newspaper editors has been undertaken. This article provides a thorough analysis of the more than seven hundred notices issued during the war years. While drawing attention to several exceptions which exceeded plausible claims of a threat to security, it argues that most notices genuinely sought to protect potentially dangerous information and that casual assumptions about misleading state press management are not borne out by a close reading of the actual notices issued.en© The Author(s) 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press. This is an Open Access article, distributed underthe terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), whichpermits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.Journal Article2021-03-312103 Historical StudiesField of Research::21 - History and Archaeology::2103 - Historical Studies::210305 - British HistoryField of Research::20 - Language, Communication and Culture::2001 - Communication and Media Studies::200104 - Media StudiesField of Research::16 - Studies in Human Society::1605 - Policy and Administration::160503 - Communications and Media PolicyField of Research::16 - Studies in Human Society::1606 - Political Science::160604 - Defence Studieshttp://doi.org/10.1017/s0018246x21000145