INVASION COVER

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 152, 29 June 1944, Page 4

INVASION COVER

JOURNALISTS' PART "KEYED TO A HIGH PITCH" (0.C.) SYDNEY, June 22. The Australian Associated Press was well prepared to cover the invasion of Europe by the Allied forces, Mr. F. Lloyd Dumas told the half-yearly meeting of the association. Acting as chairman in the absence of Mr. R. A. Henderson, Mr. Dumas said that the thoughts of all newspaper men present were with the men overseas who were preparing to report the invasion. For the most part they were men who had worked through years of discomforts and dangers, and they would, no doubt, have to face an intensification of these conditions in their task of supplying Australian readers with a full and factual account of what was happening. "It is doubtful," said Mr. Dumas, "if any previous great event in history has been so well prepared for by newspapers and news agencies. The association's chairman and secretary recently returned from abroad and have told the board that the machinery of the A.A.P. service is keyed to a high pitch to meet the demands that will be made upon.it. "The association nas, in addition to its own staff men, the benefit of the services of leading world news agencies sifch as Reuters, the Press Association, the Associated Press and United Press, and such newspapers as The Times, Daily Express, Daily Telegraph, Daily 'Mail, and others, and of the New York Times and Herald-Tribune. « Posted to Strategic Points "All these organisations have their representatives-accredited and posted to various strategic points, and they will operate on the sea, in the air, and on the land. They combine to provide an extraordinarily complete cover for Australian newspapers." Mr. Dumas said that the operating expenses of the association had steadily risen. It now cost at the rate of more than £150,000 a year to collect and transmit the A.A'P. service to members, and this figure did not include any of the costs incurred by newspapers in preparing and presenting the matter to their readers. It was a high figure for a country with a population of 7,000,000, biit Australian newspaper readers received a world news service that would compare favourably with that of any country in the 'world, and that was .the standard they had aimed at. One problem of vital importance to Australia that remained unsettled, he said, was the inadequate communications facilities between Australia and the rest of the world. Belated efforts which they hoped would be effective were now being made to improve them. Much publicity had been given some time ago to a reduction in the Empire Press rate, but in the last 1a 1943, 37 per cent of the A.A.P. London service had to be sent at urgent rates to overcome de- ! lays, with the result the over-all cost of transmission was higher than before reductions.