A NEWSPAPER’S DUTY IN DEMOCRACY TO-DAY

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24815, 4 March 1946, Page 4

A NEWSPAPER’S DUTY IN DEMOCRACY TO-DAY

A FREE PRESS

[By JAMES LANSDALE HODSON]

London, February IS.—'Hiose who haven’t had experience of living in a free democracy such as Britain and the British Commonwealth find it anficult, no doubt, to imagine what an important factor the newspaper press is in that democracy, a press free to criticise the Government to its heart s content, to expose abuses, condemn malpractices, wage war on corruption, and generally act as watchdog. How admirable it would be if every government in the world were under such a searchlight, and if censorship everywhere were done away with! The relationship of the press, Parliament, and peoples is receiving fresh consideration in this country at the moment, partly owing to shortage of newsprint, whicn keeps our daily papers, with few exceptions, down to four pages the Government is constantly being urged to release more paper—and partly owing to a book on the topic written by Francis Williams who is now the Prime Minister’s adviser on public relations and who during World War II was Controller of News and Censorship. I’ve never met Mr Williams, but after reading him I find him a man after my own heart. He’s a professional journalist, former editor of the “Daily Herald,” and a man who holds that no government, however enlightened it may think itself, is tit to control newspapers or publication of books. He believes it’s the job of newspapers to search out truth and print it, to act as day-to-day historians, and not to ask themselves whether the powers that be dre going to be pleased by their so doing. I’ve always argued that it isn’t the work of writers to be yesmen. They are born critics and born judges; and if they don’t hold the scales and assess praise or blame, I don’t know who will. When I worked as war correspondent I urged that correspondents had not only a duty to the Army but to the Commonwealth as a whole; that it was their task to be critical when criticism was justified. Criticism Necessary Of course criticism is never popular, either in war or peace. And the stronger a government is, the more it resents, as a rule, anybody’s slinging arrows at it. That is human nature. Still, criticism must be levelled. Our democracy will not work without it. Similarly, in times of crisis, there’s always a tendency to resist plain speaking. Ministers of State can often think of reasons why this or that shouldn’t be printed, contending that it will offend this or that foreign government. Sometimes they take the line, “Better say something less than the truth, because the truth is unpalatable.” Or again they may on occasion argue, “Why tell people, anyway?” It is the task of the newspapers to be unmoved, in nine cases out of 10. by those protestations; it is their uuty to print facts and let the people judge. Democracy cannot be strong and in good health unless its people are treated like adults; and to be adults folk must be thoroughly informed. Lacking a fund of information which they nelieve to be sound, impartial, and free from propaganda, people grow cynical and begin increasingly to talk of “We” and “They” “They” being the gpvernment. This estrangement, this divorce between rulers and ruled, is obviously a source of weakness in a nation, one difficult to avoid at the best of times, but impossible to avoid if folk are spoon-fed end treated like children. We learnt in Britain during the war that our people will stand and accept any bad news or tough situation and square up to it, provided they’re told the situation frankly. Treated thus, they found that bad news could indeed brace them. At the moment we’ve a press in Britain which, as to about two-thirds of it—and it maybe more—is politically opposed to the Government, in the sense that it is anti-Socialist, though the bulk of newspapers approve the Government’s foreign policy. *On the nationalisation of certain industries and in some other respects they’re entirely opposed or very critical. This I personally hold to oe not a bad thing when a Government happens to have a very large House of Commons majority. This critical and questioning press acts as a necessary check and balance. When, the Tories were in office, it seemed to me that our press was unbalanced, because Liberal and Labour opinion found too little expression. As an ideal to aim for it would probably be well if the newspapers were more evenly divided between Tory and Socialist and Liberal.

It is easy, however, to over-estimate the political influence of the press, for Mr Churchill was defeated with the

press pretty solidly behind him; and we know how President Roosevelt was three, times elected in the United States with the press 75 per cent, (or more) steadily against him. In Britain we’ve another safeguard, in that it doesn’t follow that nominally Conservative papers will always toe the Conservative line. The “Yorkshire Post” and the “Daily Telegraph" revolted over Munich. Moreover, there are always journalists working on Conservative papers who are themselves Radicals or Socialists, and whose influence at times makes itself felt. The best journalists have never been slaves either to love of money or to newspaper owners’ authority; the crusader in them keeps breaking out; their love of justice, their sympathy for the bottom dog, keeps thrusting up its head. Strength of Democracy But I should be one of the last to Fretend that our press, favourably as think it compares with that of other countries, is as good as it could be and ought to be. Our newspapers don’t carry out enough vigorous and impartial investigations into industries, political parties’ machinery, etc. They ' don’t interpret enough between one country and another. We haven’t enough strong papers independent of every political party, papers which will take their own line and be just, condemning or praising as seems to them, and them alone, right. There is a great shortage of editors. We haven’t enough journals which will permit a man to write his honest views when they’re against that.paper’s policy; in short, we haven’t enough true freedom of the press. Journals with circulations which run to millions are usually so anxious to be bright and entertaining that they don’t perform thoroughly enough the more serious task of enlightenment. Indeed they’re often timorous of trying, afraid of the effect on their circulations. And yet I believe they may well misjudge their public. Reading of serious writing increased enormously in Britain during the war, and has only slightly fallen off, if at all. Books have boomed, partly because of the blackout, which kept us indoors at night, partly because few articles have been on sale in shops, but also because men and wome> have thought more deeply about various aspects of life. The sale of serious weekly reviews has risen steadily. There’s a waiting list to buy the weightier morning papers, and when newsprint is more plentiful, the circulation of those journals will rise at once. All this, it seems to me, is a most admirable sign of the strength of our democracy. Lord Northcliffe with his helfpenny “Daily Mail,” founded just 50 years ago, tapped a public newly educated to read. Have we not now another reading public, those educated at secondary schools and stimulated by the 8.8. C., to draw on? Difficult Role I believe we have, and that we shall see the birth of further newspapers, not aiming at either enormous circulations or enormous profits, but intent on the journalist’s true work, investigating, interpreting, and informing. The. need is all the greater when, as is inevitable, more and more government control touches the individual's welfare at one point or another, and when, whether we like it or not the power of the Prime Minister End his Cabinet grows rather than diminishes. The “Fcp.rth Estate” has a duty to perform, vital to our democratic method. Part of that duty is to make folk recognise and feel that in peace, as in war ; they’re bound up in the community end are a nation in which each citizen has his responsibilities. But the, main function of the press, as I see it, is to form one of those checks and balances that are necessary in. any social or political system to keep a watchful eye on the government, sounding a note of alarm when needful, resenting and speaking out against infringements of citizens’ cherishing those freedoms of speech, writing, religion, and worship tnat/are imperative for man’s true dignity, and in short doing their best to act as just judges of what goes on. It is a difficult role, demanding high qualities of honesty and courage; and, sometimes, the better it is done the more the government of the moment may dislike it. And the reading public itself will often prefer a journal which glosses over the harder side and pretends all is for the best in this best of possible worlds. None the less, stouthearted journals will plough steadily on doing their duty. Without them our democracy cannot properly function. And never have they been more needed than in this new 'world into which we’re moving.