BRITAIN AND THE PRESS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 29, 3 August 1939, Page 17

BRITAIN AND THE PRESS

GOVERNMENT & NEWS

NO NATIONAL BULLETINS

That must have been a singularly trustful and optimistic supporter of tha Government who inquired in the Housa of Commons whether, in order t« counteract "the monopoly control exercised by certain persons over tb* Press," there was any chance of tha Government itself issuing "a weeklynews sheet" that would give authoritative information on current events, says the "Manchester Guardian." One obvious difficulty with the present Government is to get any news out ot it at all on quite a number of subjects ia which the public is closely interested, Mr. Chamberlain is apt to be stickiness itself under interrogation in tha House; except when he is expanding to a gathering of Conservative women, and thanking them for contributions to his "fan mail" of personal appreciation, he has evolved an increasingly wonderful technique of stone-walling against any attempts to extract information, a technique that was demonstrated again recently when questions were asked about the Euxton plans case. And even when he does make a considered statement, in recent days it has to be gone over with what Sam Weller would have called "a pair •'of patent double million magnify in' gas miscroscopes of hextra power" in order to find out what it means. If the Government began to run any official news bulletin on the same lines it would b« about as helpful as a thick fog.

KINDNESS FOR THE FOURTH ESTATE.

So it is not surprising that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who can also wield a bonny bat in the matter of stone-walling, explained that the Prime Minister was not favourably impressed by the proposal for a national news bulletin. So one would assume. If this Government has any news its natural inclination is to sit on it; if it should by any chance know where it is going (or being pushed) it would ' much rather not say so. But the occasion did produce a pleasant little compliment from Sir John Simon, who observed truly that there was a good deal to be said for a free Press and also that "the standard of accuracy with which the news was presented in responsible sections of the Press waa happily high." at which glad. tidings blushing practitioners on the Inky Way can only bow to the best of their uncouth tradition and promise to look out for a chance to return the compliment. For theirs is not the only profession in which mares Jaave been known to rise reluctantly from their would-be cloistered nests. The excellent relations now established by the King and Queen with newspaper men reporting the tour for journals on both sides of. the Atlantic, may make a new page in Press history," for there has not always in the past been such good feeling in those quarters. VIEWS OF PAST KINGS. Relations between George IV as Regent and King and the "gentlemen of the Press" were anything but friendly, though the Press had every reason to exercise some freedom of criticism in that case. Queen Victoria was a good deal incensed by tha criticism —often outspoken in a degree rare indeed in these days—of her seclusion, of her fondness for John Brown, and of her "German" tendencies; and she would have been, more than human if she had not resented attacks on her Consort during the Crimean War even to the point of newspaper rumours that he might be sent to the Tower. King Edward Vn's first brush with the Press is recorded in a letter of his own to Mrs. Bruce in which he denounced the enterprise of a local journalist at Sandringham. Nowadays photograpbhs taken at big shoots are common enough, but this was in 1862. "Fancy, on Saturday last a reporter from Lynn actually joined the beaters while we were shooting, but as I very nearly shot him in the legs as a rabbit was passing he very soon gave me a wide berth. General bKnollys then informed him that his presence was not required and he 'skedaddled* as the Yankees call it. The next day he wrote an apology for his infamous conduct, and I don't think he will trouble us any more." Shooting parties and all other gatherings of "society** people have been taught to think very differently of Press photographers since then —or where would the "snob weeklies" of the illustrated sort turn today for their pictures?