McDaniel is a writer with a bachelor's degree from the University of Michigan. In the following essay, McDaniel discusses the subjects of power and the power of information in Waugh's novel.
Written in 1938, Evelyn Waugh's Scoop depicts a comic world of dishonest war journalists caught up in a rebellion in the fictional African country of Ishmaelia. The novel is based, in part, on Waugh's stint as a war correspondent in Abyssinia in 1935. On the surface, Waugh does not appear to take the subject of journalistic irresponsibility seriously. Though at times Scoop seems more farce than satire, the pointed comic criticism of a powerful press gone awry is more effective precisely because it is entertaining. Having been a correspondent himself, Waugh saw journalistic corruption first hand. In the foreword to Michael Brian Salwen's book Evelyn.....
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