The Southland Times TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 1942. Press Freedom in War Time

Southland Times, Issue 24861, 29 September 1942, Page 4

The Southland Times TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 1942. Press Freedom in War Time

PRESIDENT Roosevelt has no special reason to like the American Press, which almost unanimously, and in many cases bitterly, opposed his election to office. But he understands, what many politicians and even some Prime Ministers do not understand, that the freedom of the Press is a fundamental democratic principle which transcends all personal likes and dislikes. In a statement on a forthcoming “Newspaper Week” in the United States Mr Roosevelt has reaffirmed this principle in plain and emphatic words. He has called upon the American people to rededicate themselves “to a freedom that is as vital as our daily bread, the freedom to think, speak and write the truth as we see it.” He has stressed the heavy responsibility for truth and integrity which rests upon the Press in war time, and has stated his opinion that the people’s confidence in their newspapers is well justified. Many persons think that when a newspaper upholds the freedom of the Press it is concerned only with its own right to criticize in editorial columns. But freedom of the Press does not mean, primarily, freedom for the Press to criticize. The publication of honest and searching criticism is part of the newspaper’s function, and not an unimportant part. But the essence of Press freedom is freedom to publish what the people are saying and thinking and writing—that is, freedom to report the news, fully and impartially, freedom to record the discussions of Parliament, local bodies and private groups, freedom to print the opinions of any man or woman. “The poorest and humblest man,” Mr Churchill has said, “has a right to criticize the most powerful administration.” The Press provides a medium by which that right may be exercised: that is its essential function, and that is what President Roosevelt had in mind when he spoke of a freedom “as vital as our daily bread.” Unjustifiable Censorship

It is necessary to consider only this one point to realize the added importance, and the added responsibilities, of the Press in war time. Wai- means the restriction of personal liberty in every sphere; it means, even in this country, that scores of thousands more people come under the control of the State; it means an enormous growth of bureaucracy. The chances of the State or the bureaucrats behaving unfairly towards individuals or minorities in the population are heavily increased; the remedies open to those who are treated unjustly are correspondingly reduced. In fact, unless Parliament remains an open forum for discussion (which in New Zealand at the present time it is not), almost the only remedy left to them is the right of access to the Press. But at the very time when the Press becomes doubly valuable as a guardian of democracy, attempts are invariably made to restrict its freedom. To some extent the restrictive measures are necessary and inevitable. No nation at war can afford to allow the publication of military information which would be of value to the enemy. The proper function of war-time censorship is to prevent the publishing of such information. But as Governments become more and more powerful, as they bring more and more men and women under their control, they inevitably try to carry censorship beyond its legitimate war-time function to the point where they can prevent the publication of any news or views that are distasteful to them. As a war enters its second or third year, there are very few of a nation’s activities, economic, industrial or social, which are not related directly or indirectly to the war effort; and it can be held that public discussion of almost anything would be damaging to the conduct of the war. In this way the cloak of war-time censorship can be thrown not merely over military secrets but over incompetence and injustice. Persons in authority can be placed beyond the reach of criticism of any kind. It is this tendency which the Press of every democratic country has to fight in war-time, and to carry on the fight it looks for the support of the people. They are the ones who will be the losers if the freedom of publication is finally withdrawn, for with its withdrawal they will lose possibly their last means of protection against injustice and persecution. It is worth remembering that the first victim of the Nazi tyranny was the free Press of Germany. The German newspapers have remained quite profitable; but the Gei-man people have lost their freedom. Problems of News-getting

Most newspapers are well aware of the difficulties of publication in war-time and of their own inability to perform their function as they would like—by giving all of the facts all of the time, and publishing only comment that is fully informed. The cable service available to the New Zealand Press is as good as any in the world, but messages from abroad pass through such a maze of censorships and they are often so heavily weighted with propaganda that it is difficult to present a full and accurate picture of the war. From, the time the cables are written, in London or New York, in the Western Desert or in the front lines at Stalingrad (assuming the correspondents can get there), until the time they are received on the sub-editor’s desk in a New Zealand newspaper office, they are subject to continual interference. Indeed, they are often subject to interference before they are written: there is an indirect method of censorship by which full facilities for working may be given only to correspondents who express “the official point of view.” The newspapers are fully conscious of their deficiencies in this field, and in others. They know that the picture they can provide is necessarily incomplete and that it is often blurred by propaganda and other distortions. What President Roosevelt has called “the duty of keeping the people fully and truly informed” is one that is exceedingly difficult—in fact, impossible—to discharge in war time. But if the people realize what the freedom of the Press means to them,

and accept their share of the responsibility of maintaining it by insisting on the truth wherever the truth can be told, then this freedom will never be lost and all the other democratic freedoms which have been surrendered to the needs of war can surely be regained.