BRITAIN’S BROADCASTING EXPERIMENTS.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20928, 6 January 1938, Page 6

BRITAIN’S BROADCASTING EXPERIMENTS.

Although the New Zealand Government goes serenely on, regardless of the criticism directed at the broadcasting services being given to the people of New Zealand for what has been described as the most expensive radio service in the world—from the listeners’ poin tof view—the dangers lurking in the use of broadcasting for propaganda purposes is becoming more obvious every day. The plans of the Imperial Government, in conjunction with the British Broadcasting Corporation to broadcast a daily news service in Arabic, has already raised a veritable hurricane of criticism in two or three countries. For some undisclosed reason the Italian Government is cherishing the false illusion that the British broadcasts are directed at Italy. But of course, such an assumption has no foundation in fact, unless the Italian Government fears that the change the British broadcasting service will force upon the Italian propagandists in the air, will make them pay a little more attention to truth. It is pertinent to remember, of course, that the Imperial Government is strongly adverse to the use of broadcasting for propaganda purposes. The decision to broadcast a news service in Arabic was really forced upon Britain, because of the reckless handling of the truth indulged in by several countries that sought to undermine British prestige by the use of broadcasting for the circulation of the most outrageous falsehoods. The experiment being tried in the Homeland will be watched with keen niterest, but it is doubtful if the Imperial Government would ever seize control of the broadcasting services for use as a channel for one-sided political propaganda to the same degree as has been forced on the people of New Zealand.