A YEAR OF CURRENT AFFAIRS

Korero (AEWS), Volume 2, Issue 1, 17 January 1944, Page 18

A YEAR OF CURRENT AFFAIRS

By

The first issue of Korevo (A.E.W.S. Background Bulletin in its new form) marks as near as need be

the first birthday of Current Affairs Branch A.E.W.S. '

The branch consisted at first of three men (two journalists and a librarian) with the use of half a table —A.E.W.S. headquarters was still in the hands of carpenters. Publication date was two months off, and in that time we had to get supplies of paper, make arrangements with a printer, choose a list of subjects, decide on a format, and work out a scheme of distribution.

At first we were shooting in the dark. No one knew in advance what sort of subjects men would be willing to talk about, or what style of writing would go down with the Army. Luckily, the second ' shot fluked the target. “ Our Population Problem ” was an immediate success as a discussion bulletin. It showed hundreds of apprehensive platoon officers that men could and would talk sensibly about social problems.

Some of the bulletins we worked hardest at were the biggest failures as discussion material. “ War in Russia ” was an early production because the report was —these were the days of Stalingrad—that the men were interested in Russia. The report was right; our response was wrong. “ War in Russia ” was an excellent short account of the fighting in Russia to that date, probably as good a.short account as had appeared anywhere. As discussion material it was almost useless because, although it answered many questions, it raised hardly any that the ordinary soldier felt competent to discuss. Incidentally, soldiers have very clear and precise ideas about what they can discuss, and greatly dislike venturing opinions which take them outside their field of knowledge. They know what they know.

If the Discussion Bulletin is now — arrangement of material, choice of subject, style of writing, method of framing

questionsa reasonably satisfactory instrument, that is because, perhaps for the first time in adult education, there has been an efficient system of reporting back. We have, as it were, built into the bulletin the comments, suggestions, and criticisms of hundreds of E.O.s and U.E.O.s here and in the Pacific.

Before we could do this we had to learn the difference between relevant and irrelevant criticism. The first bulletins were popular with officers because they were a novelty and were well printed. They were judged as reading-matter for a spare quarter of an hour. Criticism on that basis is worth little because the discussion bulletin is meant for discussion. Only the man who has taken a discussion bulletin with a group, or watched others at the job, has a useful opinion on its merits.

We are sometimes asked how long it takes to bring out a discussion bulletin. The answer is six weeks to three months. That surprises most people, because you can read through . a bulletin in a few minutes. Chesterton once wrote to a friend : “I am sending you a long letter because I hadn’t time to write a short one.” The discussion bulletin would be much easier to write if it were twice or three times as long. What takes time is deciding what to leave out and looking for simple and short ways to get over complicated ideas. The early bulletins suffered from overcompression ; after reading one you felt like a man who had eaten his three days’ emergency ration at a meal. We have had to learn to be brief without being congested.

Then there is the collection and checking of facts. The man who assembled the material for Women and the War ” visited these persons and institutions : W.A.A.C. H.Q. ; W.A.A.F. H.Q. ; W.R.N.Z.N.S. ; W.A.A.C. Camp, Miramar ; W.A.A.C. Publicity Officer, Wren Establishment near Wellington, Director of Army Nursing Services ;

Director, W. W. S. A. ; Director of Nursing, Health Department; S.O. Overseas W.A.A.C. personnel, Army H.Q. ; National Director, Y.M.C.A. ; Director of Women Personnel, P. and T. Department ; Director of Women Personnel, Railways Department ; Public Service Commissioner ; Secretary, Department of Labour ; Officer in Charge, Women’s Land Army ; National Service Department ; Wellington District Office, National Service Department ; Clerk in Charge of Staff, Wellington Tramways. Then the real job began— job of writing four thousand words from material which would have made a large book.

“ Women and the War ” was written and rewritten three times.

“ What results are you getting ? ” That is another frequent question, and it is still too early for an answer. But when this matter was discussed by the E.O.s during the recent course at the Army School of Instruction it was agreed that there is often a sort of delayed action effect. A promising discussion can peter out because the group leader t has mishandled it, but in a few hours it will suddenly revive in a hut or a camp institute. More than that, the ideas which a bulletin tries to get across will sometimes germinate in men’s minds before becoming active. That was the case with “ Exploring Discussion.” As discussion material, this bulletin was voted hopeless by most platoon officers ; nevertheless, lecturers and discussion leaders were startled weeks afterwards to be told severely that they were using “ emotive language.”

One discussion bulletin a week was the original programme. The unanimous verdict of E.O.s and U.E.O.s, after a brief trial, was that one discussion bulletin a fortnight would be ample. At the same time there was a general demand for a bulletin of general reading related to discussion bulletin topics. The background bulletin was the response to this need. It is now doubled in size, because the reading-matter you can pack into sixteen pages is just enough to start an appetite. It has also been given a name, because henceforth it will be something more than a selection of reprint material about the war and international affairs.