SPANISH PRESS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 6, 7 July 1938, Page 11

SPANISH PRESS

FRANCO IN CONTROL

MINISTER AND EDITORS

Complete control of all newspaper activities in Nationalist Spain is provided for in the long-awaited Press law, which has been promulgated here, said a Press Association message to the "Manchester Guardian" recently. It was signed by General' Franco and his Minister. of the Interior and of Press Propaganda. The preamble declares that the duty of the Press is to let the State know the wishes of the nation and to communicate to the nation the orders of the State. "Therefore," it says, "since the Press is the decisive organ in forming popular culture, and especially in creating a collective conscience, journalism cannot continue on the fringes of the State." The law sets up national and provincial registers in which all -corking journalists are entitled to enter their names. Newcomers to the profession, must undergo two years' probation, and the Minister of the Interior can erase from the register the name of any journalist found guilty of professional misconduct.' ALL. ARE RESPONSIBLE. Editors, owners, and printers share j responsibility for offences. The Mm- i ister is empowered to impose fines,' dismiss editors, remove names from, the register, and even confiscate a newspaper and its offices. No editor can be appointed without the approval of the Minister, by whom all existing appointments must be reviewed within fifteen days. V ■ . The Minister is.j;alsq empowered to regulate the number of newspapers and to suppress them for a "reasonable cause"—redundancy, for example. In such cases the .owners would be compensated. Besides the punishment for offences, against the regime any public or pri- | vate person can demand' the punish-1 ment of any paper publishing news which is "offensive, insidious, or merely untrue." General Franco and his Minister of the Interior have issued a new code for the, regulation of newspapers in those parts of Spain which the rebels hold, and we are told that the code gives to journalists "a professional status and prestige hitherto unknown," commented the "Manchester Guardian" editorially. "Journalism," it is officially announced, "cannot continue on the fringes of the State"; it is to come inside and be somewhat forcibly recognised ds "the decisive organ in the formation of popular culture, and especially in the creation of a collective conscience." THREAT OR PROMISE? ■ On the lips of those who are for equipping Europe with yet" another dictatorship that sounds rather more of a threat than a promise, and that impression is abundantly supported by the details of the new Press law. There will be a register on which all working journalists are. "entitled" to enter their names, but they need not flatter themselves that they will necessarily remain there in perpetuity. In addition to imposing fines (presumably for having been an inefficient keeper of the collective conscience) the Minister of the Interior can remove names from the register, dismiss editors, and, if those measures do not bring about, an acceptably conscientious tone, can seize the entire plant and premises. No editor may be appointed without, the sanction of the Minister, who is also empowered to suppress a newspaper on the ground of "redundancy," though in that case compensation will be paid. Truly the>profession of journalism has been invited, or commanded; to come inside the hopeful framework of a totalitarian Spain; but the process of entry bears a strong resemblance to the fate suffered by the young lady of Riga. There is, in truth, no place for a free Press on the back of a totalitarian tiger. General Franco has supplied the world with another reminder that "Inside only" is the rule for journalists under a dictatorship.