MAKING BRITAIN'S WAR EFFORT KNOWN

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 171, 22 July 1941, Page 6

MAKING BRITAIN'S WAR EFFORT KNOWN

THERE is reason for hope that the British Ministry of Information may at last become a useful Department, now that it has a new head. In the early days of the war the Ministry was so obsessed with the fear that information might be given to the enemy that it imposed stupid embargoes on all classes of news, and, by holding back stories which should have been published, gave the peoples of the Empire so utterly false an impression of the real situation that they were completely unprepared for the disasters which shook the foundations of civilisation. By its treatment of neutral journalists and its drastic censorship of their stories, it antagonised them and thus weakened our case abroad. By holding bacK, sometimes for many hours, accounts of the fighting, it gave the German propagandists a tremendous advantage, especially in the Americas and in Russia and Japan. There was an improvement after Mr. Duff Cooper's appointment, but there still remained a definite failure to realise the advantage of securing a favourable presentation of the news among the neutrals. Especially bitter complaints were made against the holding up of news to suit broadcast times. The appointment of Mr. Churchill's Parliamentary Private Secretary gives promise of better treatment to the newspapers of the Empire and of neutral countries, especially of America. Mr. Bracken's close contact with the Prime Minister will have given him an understanding of what news can safely and promptly be released without helping the enemy, while forestalling Goebbels in the propaganda field and supplying, from our own resources, the information which is so keenly sought in Empire and neutral countries. In the last war British news was sometimes held up far too long and sometimes given out in the wrong form, notably in the first news of the Battle of Jutland, but on the whole news and propaganda alike were handled infinitely better than in Germany. In this war the reverse has been the case. The German propagandist has played all the trumps, and we have not only lagged far behind but have actually prevented those most anxious to present our case from promptly doing so. A change now must almost inevitably be for the better. We will know very shortly how effective that change will prove.