Hostility hurts press groups

Press, 11 June 1977, Page 7

Hostility hurts press groups

N/. BA-Reuter Washington Senici executives of three big United States news organisations said yesterday that growing hostility of Third World countries towards Western news agencies was sharply restricting the free flow of information. Mr Otis Chandler, publisher of the “Los Angeles Times,” said that additional impediements were restrictions on United States correspondents in the Soviet Union and the tota> exclusion of American resident correspondents from China. He told the Senate foreign relations sub-committee on international Jations that some developing countries ap-- .ared to be patterning theii information policies after tl.ose of the Soviet Union and China. “In terms of impediments,

intimidation, and exclusion [of Western correspondents. L few African, Arab, and i Asian States have gone even further than the Soviet Union did under Josef Staiin It< isolate their societies •from outside scrutiny, and i others are nearly as seclujsive,” h' said. • Mr Andrew Keiskell, chairman of Time Incorpora l ed, 'said that last year the international edition of his rnagazi was banned ii. 18 countries and its distribution was severely limited in a number of others. More serious than the problem of banning or exclusion, be M aid, was the difficulty of access to news in developing countries. Mr William Sheehan, vicepresident of A.B.C. News, told the panel that Government censorship was his organisation's main problem in covering news overseas.