SHARP PROTEST

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 21933, 30 January 1946, Page 6

SHARP PROTEST

STATE DEPARTMENT NEW SERVICES CUT OFF DOG-IN-MANGER CHARGE (10 a.m.) ' WASHINGTON, Jan. 29. The Assistant Secretary of Stale. Mr. William Benton, protested vigorously against the decision of the Associated Press and United Press to discontinue their news services to the State Department. He raised three main objections:— First, the news agencies had adopted dog-in-the-manger tactics in refusing to take resnonsibility for supplying news for Government broadcasts to the world; secondly, the Associated Press and Unitccl Press were willing to sell their news to foreign agencies and used it in short-wave broadcasting; thirdly, the real issue was not fear of propaganda, as the agencies claimed. Their objections came primarily from competitive rivalries between them, both in the United States and abroad. The three great American news services’ reputation abroad was a priceless asset. The fact that they maintained independence of Government influence was one in which all Americans could take pride. The president of the United Press, Mr. H. Baillie, said he concurred in Mr. Benton’s statement about the three services’ reputation. ‘‘We are free of Government influence,” he said. “We also intend to remain independent of Government propaganda wherever and whenever it is disseminated.”

Mr. Christopher Chancellor, general manager of Reuter’s, in a speech at the Overseas Writers’ Club, praised the action of the directors of the Associated Press in withdrawing their news service from the State Department. He added that some Governments are at present considering the conversion of wartime propaganda units into peacetime publicity units, but the Associated Press directors had told not only American but British and all other Governments: “Wait a minute. Let us see where we are going.”