ITV ‘Bought’ Banda And Outwitted Newspapers

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29178, 12 April 1960, Page 22

ITV ‘Bought ’ Banda And Outwitted Newspapers

(Special Correspondent

LONDON, April 10. The growing power and influence of television vis-a-vis the press was strikingly illustrated when Dr. Hastings Banda, the freed Nyasaland leader, arrived' at London Airport after an absence of two years.

The Independent Television Authority, Britain’s commercial service, having “bought up” Dr. Banda, paid his air fare to London, and guaranteed to support Mm during his visit, successfully prevented 50 representatives of the world’s newspapers, radio, and television from hearing a word of opinion from him at London airport before bundling him into a car and hurrying him off for a television appearance.

In addition to the British newspapers, among those left fuming and interviewless at the airport were representatives of two American networks—N.B.C. and C.8.5.—C.8.C. television from Canada, 8.8. C. radio and television teams, and hosts of reporters from France, Germany, and other parts of the Continent

This unrewarded welcome for Dr. Banda on his return was in sharp contrast with the news conference he gave just before he left. On that occasion it took place in a tiny rented room near Charing Cross Station. The floor creaked, the light was weak and there were only two members of national newspapers present.

But when Dr. Banda stepped out of the aeroplane at the airport, after all the publicity which had attended him since his release from detention, his arrival turned out to be a muddled anticlimax.

The “Guardian’s” representative, who went to meet him, says it had in it some of the elements of a Feydeau farce, a Greek tragedy, and a Keystone, Kops comedy. “For the farcical we had the undignified scene of a man who is now regarded by his supporters as the future Prime Minister of Nyasaland being strong-armed through a crowd of screaming people by four solemn-faced junior executives of commercial television, told not to open his mouth, and being bustled down

back stairs to a waiting car,” says the “Guardian.”

“For the Keystone we had a spectacle of a wild melee of police, correspondents, photographers, and politicians glaring at each other, butting each other, racing down ‘up’ escalators, racing up ‘down’ escalators, and in the process knocking over several baffled bystanders.” Unproductive as the whole proceedings might have been to the newspapers it cannot be denied that Dr. Banda probably got far more publicity for his cause from the much-heralded television interview than he might have from the newspapers. The newspapers were, perforce, forced to watch the television interview themselves and report it, accordingly. But the whole proceedings have naturally been highly criticised by the newspapers.