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The emphasis placed on the print media,
and the ethical assumption of contemporary journalists to justly apply
their trade, influenced how reporters interpreted the proceedings at Paris.
Newspapermen recognized the Peace Conference as the greatest diplomatic
event of their generation. They persisted in acquiring information through
open communications that ultimately drove the delegates to institute various
forms of censorship and to perform negotiations within a nonpublic forum.
These disseminators of information operated within an environment in which
they literally interpreted Wilson's "open covenants" to mean free access.
The President, while stressing the notion of an unrestricted press, realized
that open diplomacy was not always feasible. (113) In the end, a
combination of private oral agreements, confidential negotiations, and
a worldwide press denied access to total information, doomed the negotiations
for the Treaty of Versailles.
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