James Aronson

James "Jim" Aronson (1915–1988) was an American journalist. He founded the far-left-leaning National Guardian. He was a graduate of Harvard College and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

Work before the Guardian

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 New York Herald Tribune, the New York Post and The New York Times from 1946-48.

Founding the Guardian

Aronson founded the National Guardian in 1949 with John T. McManus and Cedric Belfrage. It continued publishing until 1992.

Other work

Aronson also worked as a professor at Hunter College of the City University of New York. In 1981 he was invited to Mainland China to teach newswriting by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Aronson was the first American to be invited to teach such classes since the Communists pushed the Nationalists off the mainland. 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 Cedric Belfrage. New York: Columbia University Press, 1978.

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