"Undoctored Materials For Thought’

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30178, 9 July 1963, Page 9

"Undoctored Materials For Thought’

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter— Copyright) LONDON, July 5. A senior British Judge. Lord Radcliffe, today said the world was suffering from a surfeit of comment and a paucity of news. "If we can do anything to correct this imbalance I think it will be good,” he said.

Lord Radcliffe, who presided over the Vassall spy tribunal, was speaking ait a luncheon given by the directors of the British Commonwealth International Newsfilm Agency. Among those present at the luncheon were the DirectorGeneral of the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation. Mr G. H. Stringer. The corporation is a < subscriber to 8.C.1.N.A. The agency is owned, as a

non-profit organisation, by the British Broadcasting Corporation, the Rank Organisation, the Australian Broadcasting Commission, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and Reuters.

“It takes a sophisticated concern,” Lord Radcliffe said amid laughter, “to distinguish curr.i. ?nt from news. To distinguish the words ‘it is believed in well informed circles’ from ‘I think’. “There are plenty of people in the world today who are ready to tell others what to think but there are very few who are ready, without ulterior purpose, to give them the unidoctored materials for thought.” Lord Radcliffe said the news film agency had achieved a remarkable success in its six years and there was no major station in Western Europe - that did not receive the service. It supplied news film im-

partially to Soviet Russia, China and the United States and was a major supplier to Africa. News film also reached the agency from those countries. “That is a remarkable essay in world coverage which has yet to be increased and yet to be developed,” said Lord Radcliffe.