Announcer A:
The following program is part two of the United States press coverage of the Berlin crisis and of the general problems of foreign news reporting. Guests are Clifton Daniel of The New York Times, who was for fifteen years a foreign correspondent in
Europe, and James P. Warburg, writer and lecturer on international affairs. The Press and the People.
As moderator from Harvard University, the winner of the Peabody Award for television and radio journalism and the Lauterbach award for outstanding contribution in the field of civil liberties, Mr. Louis Lyons.
Lyons:
On our last program, our discussion centered around two or three main points on the Berlin Crisis. Our guests seem to agree we've had abundant reporting on the facts on Berlin but Mr. Daniel of The New York Times, felt that somehow the extreme gravity of the Berlin crisis has not come through in the news to the public. And Mr. Warburg had considerable criticism that our editorial writers have failed to clarify the issues and to take independent positions about our policy.
Well, gentlemen, to go on, Mr. Daniel, we know the United States press has excellent correspondents abroad notably the great staff of The New York Times corespondent. But what about the average newspaper, outside of a few metropolitan papers, that can't have its own foreign service? As to the picture its readers are getting? How consistent a day-in-day-out picture of foreign issues are the wire services giving them as you see it?
Daniel:
Mr. Lyons, I am distressed when I tour the United States, as I sometimes do when I go to one city or another, to pick up the papers and to see how little news on what I consider to be the great issues of the day, not merely foreign issues often, but domestic issues – how little news about these things can be found in the average metropolitan daily in the United States. I wonder, really, how people can face life and face the problems that life presents them with, as citizens of a great country, a country that presumes to be a world leader, with so little information.
Lyons:
Well now, some of these issues, such as the Berlin issue recently arisen, have behind them a history since the last war. Either the reader has got to keep this somewhere in the back of his head or the newspaper correspondent has to keep filling him in on this, which I suppose is almost impossible with such a premium on space. How much of a problem do you feel that is?
Daniel:
Well the problem of space is a great one. Every newspaperman knows about it; every television man, for that matter, knows about it. An hour is an inflexible length of time, as a column is an inflexible measure of space in the newspaper. The problem of space is a great one. The question is what editors think the space should be devoted to. I happen to disagree with a lot of them about the uses to which they put their space. I don't know that a recipe for, for cookies has the same value to a housewife that a good article describing to her and interesting her in the Berlin situation would have for her. Cookies are nice, but they aren't vital to our survival.
Lyons:
Cookies you say are nice. Well now, Mr. Warburg, on a recent program here, Theodore White, himself a distinguished foreign correspondent, author of that book on
Germany, Fire in the Ashes, said that the important news stories out of
Europe often are brushed off the front page because editors get more interested in a new picture of a bikini bathing suit. Well, he accepted The New York Times in that indictment, but not to embarrass Mr. Daniel, what do you say about this competition of various kinds and levels of news?
Warburg:
Well I think just exactly as Mr. Daniel does. I would like to, as we are being nice to the Times and deservedly so, I would like to disagree with this question of background treatment. For instance, on
January 28, I think it was, the Times had a two-column editorial on the
German problem. The first two or three paragraphs, as I remember, dealt with the background to the Berlin crisis. I don't think it is too much to say that you could summarize those three paragraphs in one sentence: We would have the best of all possible worlds and a just peace if it weren't for the Russians.
Now this is the old devil theory of the world crisis, which was first voiced by Mr. Truman and has been repeated by Mr. Eisenhower, that if it weren't for the Soviet Union we would have no problem at all. I admit that the Soviet Union constitutes a large part of our problem, but the post-war world is a world in revolution, not inspired by communism, exploited later by communism.
It is a very complicated world crisis and yet this background statement practically said there wouldn't be any
German problem if the Russians hadn't broken their agreements. As a matter of fact, if the Potsdam Agreement for the four-power government of
Germany had been scrupulously executed, it would not have led to a just peace. The Russians did break it. Actually, the French were the first to break it, but this kind of telescope background, I think, is worse than no background at all.
Lyons:
Well, Mr. Warburg, let me ask Mr. Joseph Lyford, who has been in charge of our research staff, keeping about forty newspapers under watch for the last four months, what sort of generalization is it possible to make about the editorials on this Berlin issue. Could we have a very brief résumé, Mr. Lyford?
Lyford:
Yes, Mr. Lyons, the, there has been very heavy editorialization in the larger papers. In addition to The New York Times, the Chicago Daily News, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Birmingham, Alabama, News, the Kansas City Star, the Milwaukee Journal, the New York Herald Tribune, the Louisville Courier-Journal.
In the early stages of this crisis most of these editorials seemed to be simply stating or trying to interpret what was happening, and ending with a "Let's be firm." I think perhaps, however, that Mr. Warburg may have overlooked the highly critical position of the Courier-Journal. Ever since the beginning, the Courier-Journal has been printing editorials such as one entitled, "We'll Never Yield in Berlin. But Is That Policy Enough?" Another editorial: "Old Berlin Policy Is Not Enough."
There have been several editorials like this. From the very beginning this is one paper that has raised serious questions. The Washington Post has done likewise in its editorials. The Milwaukee Journal, the Birmingham News, which, incidentally, seems to have, because of carrying Mr. Walter Lippmann seems to have had some of its editorial policy influenced by that.
Lyons:
Well Mr. Lyford mentions Mr. Lippmann, Mr. Warburg, which suggests that Mr. Lippmann, Mr. Alsop, Mr. Harsch of The
Christian Science Monitor, Mr. Sulzberger of the Times, a few other of these columnists on foreign affairs are in a good many newspapers and do devote themselves very seriously to such issues. What do you say as to the weight of the columnist in the newspaper?
Warburg:
Well I think there is a handful – you have mentioned most of them – of extremely useful interpreters of what is going on. If I were to make a criticism of the Times it would be that it doesn't have Lippmann's column. If it had, it would be the only paper I would read in
New York. I think Lippmann has done a fantastic job of clarifying issues, but very often he is talking, as you pointed out last week, he's talking about facts which people don't understand. And it's only the educated reader who can get the full benefit of Lippmann, because he assumes a knowledge that most people don't have.
Lyons:
You think you'd go that far, when you say only the educated people can follow Lippmann. I suppose you don't expect everybody is going to keep his mind on foreign affairs as much as he does on the ball game. But do you really feel that Lippmann's following is as limited as you suggest?
Warburg:
No, I don't think it is limited at all, because I think a lot of people who want to be able to have an opinion about something read Lippmann just so as to be able to have an opinion. But that is different from an intelligent judgment.
Lyons:
This is different from the proportion of people who would read any editorial, you think?
Warburg:
Yes. I would like to come back, if I may, to this New York Times editorial. I don't want to make a point of it, but I think this is important.
Lyons:
You take that up with Mr. Daniel, whom, I should say on his behalf, is not responsible for Times editorials, he's on the news side, but go ahead.
Warburg:
No, there's nothing personal about this anyway. The same editorial quoted a high American official as saying – and this was about disengagement – to isolate, sterilize, neutralize, and demilitarize the vital German people would drive them into the kind of wilderness that might again produce another Hitler; and warned against repeating the folly of Versailles.
Now, what I object to is that this is a distorted picture of what is being talked about. Nobody is talking about isolating or segregating the Germans or demilitarizing them. The talk is about neutralizing them, in the sense that they would be debarred from making a military alliance with East or West. You can be for that or you can be against it, but to give a picture of one of the alternatives in those terms I don't think is helpful.
Daniel:
Mr. Lyons, you made a point there, for which I thank you because if you hadn't made it I would have. I'm talking myself here today primarily about news coverage. Mr. Warburg is exercised about interpretation, comment on the news. I think it should be emphasized that whatever criticism I offer of the American press is not in any sense meant to be a criticism of the right of the American press to differ widely on these subjects, and I certainly don't disagree with Mr. Warburg's right to differ with The New York Times. I frequently differ with the editorial opinion of The New York Times myself.
Lyons:
I am sure reporters quite often do on any paper.
Daniel:
Oh, they do. And if you ever took a poll of the members of the staff of the Herald Tribune in New York, for example, you would find out how much they often differ from the official position of the Tribune. The same is true of The New York Times.
Everyone here has been very deferential to the Times, but I think it also needs saying that there are many papers across the country that are as serious in their purpose as the Times. They perform it differently sometimes, but their purpose is just as serious, and one paper has been mentioned here: the Louisville Courier-Journal. I think that mentioning the Courier-Journal emphasizes a point that we should emphasize, and that is that the Courier-Journal's particular attitude on the
German issue arises out of the fact that the editors of the Courier-Journal think about these problems, they don't just accept what is laid in front of them.
Lyons:
They've been mixed up in them. Mark Ethridge has been [inaudible] in the Balkans on this issue.
Daniel:
They are informed people. Exactly, they are informed people. Mr. Ethridge, the publisher, has served abroad. Barry Bingham, the editor and principal owner of the paper, has been an ambassador abroad. These people are informed. They think, they apply themselves. Perhaps what we are saying here is that what we need is not more great newspapers but more great newspaper editors.
Warburg:
I think that's absolutely true. I think a few very good papers have been omitted by Mr. Lyford. One is the St. Louis Post Dispatch, about which you can say the same thing that you say about the Courier-Journal. Another one or two are the Cowles papers in Minneapolis and in
Des Moines. And here again John Cowles has gone abroad...
Lyons:
We don't need very many hands apparently – and this comes up every week – to tick off the papers that are really doing a comprehensive job, both news and editorial, on the great issues. Well Mr. Daniel, a crisis always makes news, whether it is a prize fight, or a war, or a divorce case, or something else. It looks to some people as though about all the news we got on some of these great issues was when the crisis was so violent that nobody could miss it. What about the in between? How practical is it even for a paper with a great corps of correspondents to fill in the detail, the continuing events in any such way that you can expect people to keep interested and keep up with it?
Daniel:
Well you've mentioned divorce cases. That's perhaps a good illustration of what we are trying to say here. A divorce case, a sensational divorce case involving well-known people or notorious people is big news, and it gets a big play in most newspapers. That is not unnatural. It is a perfectly normal, human way to present the news.
But the serious newspaper, the newspaper that is interested in informing the people and in helping them to conduct their lives and their society in a proper way, will give you also the background to that divorce case. And by background, and th background doesn't just happen today or tomorrow, and I don't mean the background of the particular case, but the whole background of our society. Divorce has become an issue and a problem with us. One divorce case makes the point dramatically, but the problems of modern life that may cause people to go to the divorce courts are often just as interesting as the cases themselves, and are certainly more important to understand.
Lyons:
Well when you mention background, I would think a part of the background of this Berlin issue, as Mr. Warburg has suggested, is that when Khrushchev made his announcement about Berlin, he was seconded by Gomulka, the prime minister of
Poland. And that the relation of
Poland and
Czechoslovakia to this issue is part of the background. It seems to me we've had awfully little in our news about that. What would you say about that, Mr. Warburg?
Warburg:
Well I agree entirely. As a matter of fact, the most interesting point of departure for my money – the most promising point of departure for a negotiation leading to a general
European security agreement – is the Polish Rapacki plan. This has been practically ignored. Our government sloughed it off.
Even later, when it was revised to meet the major criticism – which was a good criticism – that it did not provide for a reduction of conventional armaments or a withdrawal of foreign forces, even after that revision the government has said nothing. Newspapers haven't mentioned it very much. Now the plan is not only an interesting point of departure for a negotiation, but it is interesting from another point of view. And that is that it comes from
Poland.
And for us to start picking up a Polish initiative would seem to me a very much smarter thing to do than merely to denounce the Russian initiative. You say Gomulka echoed Khrushchev; he did. But Rapacki doesn't echo Khrushchev. There are Poles who are more anti-Russian than we are.
Daniel:
Mr. Lyons, I would like, if I may, to emphasize that point of Mr. Warburg's. It seems to me that it was important for us to treat the Rapacki plan seriously, even though we in the end may have rejected it, simply to encourage the Poles in something that to us and to them is very, very important – and that is that they should begin to develop an independent line, independent of the Soviet Union, an independent life in the international, in the international community.
We, by simply sloughing this off and treating it as another Communist move, we held the Poles in a sense up to ridicule before the world, and particularly before the Russians. We may have done them harm, which I'm sure we didn't intend to do. But if we have done them harm, perhaps we should reconsider and let them know that we don't want to treat them as lightly as we seem to.
Lyons:
Yes, Mr. Lyford, did you have a factual background [inaudible]...
Lyford:
Yes, I thought it would be interesting to point out that in our research we discovered that practically the only discussion of the Rapacki plan in the press here is in the form of letters to the editor, of which Mr. Warburg is the author of several, and Norman Thomas.
The only straight news story is one that we found is a United Press story out of the United Nations by Pierre Huss, in which he says that the Rapacki plan ought to be exposed. But...
Lyons:
Well Mr. Warburg, what would you say about letters to the editor? And then we'll ask Mr. Daniel too. As a part of the whole mechanism of the press, part of the sources of our information, as to the hospitality of newspapers in general to letters on great issues, that aren't just little local items?
Warburg:
Well as a veteran writer of such letters, I find the press extremely hospitable. I think that the person who wants to use this medium has to show restraint enough not to come back again the day he has had a letter in the paper. In fact, I try never to send a letter to the same paper more than four times a year.
I have what amounts to an unofficial syndicate of about ten papers across the country and this produces an enormous amount of very interesting correspondence. I think it stimulates thought on the part of the people and stimulates them to write letters too. I think this is one of the great institutions of the American press. It shouldn't be abused, however.
Daniel:
Mr. Lyons, on that point I said that I was shocked sometimes to see how the news was treated in some newspapers in this country. I'm also astonished at how ill-informed and how unenlightening the letter columns are in so many newspapers. This applies quite often not merely to papers across the country but to some of them in our biggest metropolitan centers, in
New York and
Washington.
The fact of the matter is that the people of this country don't seem to be aroused about the problems that concern people such as Mr. Warburg. It is very hard to stimulate any discussion among them. This may be the fault of the newspapers, it may be the fault of television and radio – I rather think that perhaps it is.
But it is an astonishing thing that the gravest issues of our times can arise and only one or two people in a vast community of maybe hundreds of thousands of people will be moved to take pen in hand or to pick up the telephone and, if nothing else, denounce the editor for his point of view.
Lyons:
We've discussed the difficulties about getting the full range of points of view in the Western world. I suppose we are wholly blind as to the relations between the East German officials and the Moscow officials, as to what they really think of each other and about the Berlin crisis. Now Mr. Daniel, you have been a correspondent in Moscow. Are there special difficulties that seriously hem in what we can hope to get from the other side of the Iron Curtain as to the points of view and facts beyond those Khrushchev chooses to give out?
Daniel:
That is, you mean, are there serious difficulties in getting the point of view of the East Germans as distinct from the Russians?
Lyons:
Yes, or is there a very sharp contrast in the range of possibilities of adequate political reporting once you get beyond the Iron Curtain, as compared to what you have experienced on this side of the curtain in other capitals?
Daniel:
There are undoubtedly great handicaps in reporting behind the Iron Curtain. I'm sorry I didn't understand the question clearly. There are tremendous difficulties, but the difficulties are by no means insuperable, and having a correspondent on the scene, who can at least smell the smells and see the, feel the nip in the air and understand the...
Lyons:
Language, among other things.
Daniel:
Language is important. It's not the only requirement of a good reporter. It's a very useful one. But the difficulties are not by any means insuperable. The problem – the greatest problem – arising in the coverage of the Iron Curtain countries is, I think, persuading editors of the value of sending correspondents.
Lyons:
Let me for a minute get away from the Berlin crisis. I have these two resources on foreign correspondents here. Take our own hemisphere for a minute, Mr. Daniel, and then we'll ask Mr. Warburg to comment on this. We have very few correspondents either in
Canada or in all of
Latin America. And if you took out the Times correspondents, I'm sure you wouldn't need all your fingers to count the rest. Some editors say people just aren't interested in
Latin America, and they seem to imply that nothing much happens in
Canada. As a news editor, what do you say about that?
Daniel:
Even The New York Times I don't think has enough correspondents in this hemisphere.
Lyons:
Well they have two in
Canada, which is two more than almost anybody else has.
Daniel:
Yes, that's true. And we have, I believe, three full time men in
Latin America, which is three more than most papers, with the possible exception of the Chicago Tribune, which does a very good job, and a few others. I think we were taken very much by surprise by what happened to Vice President Nixon in
Latin America.
Lyons:
And your colleague, Herbert Matthews, said that in his thirty-six years in journalism the
Cuban story was the worst covered he had ever experienced.
Lyons:
You remember that Castro asked where the American press was when Batista was murdering people, and that hasn't been answered.
Daniel:
Very possibly it was the worst covered story, and we certainly were taken surprise, by surprise on the Nixon matter, and we deserved to be taken by surprise. If we, as a press, as a people, as a government, neglect these areas in the way that we have been neglecting them, we deserve to be taken by surprise and we are going to get some nasty shocks. And I'm afraid that they will, they also will be well deserved.
Lyons:
What do you say about this, Mr. Warburg?
Warburg:
Of course, the outstanding area in which we are completely blind men is China.
Lyons:
We can't blame our press if the government doesn't let us get into China, or can we?
Warburg:
No, I'm saying this is probably the most important country in the world.
Daniel:
Yes, we can blame our press.
Warburg:
We can blame our press for not making enough of a protest.
Lyons:
Not forcing the issue, you mean?
Daniel:
Exactly. We can blame our press, and we should blame our press. I agree with Mr. Warburg. We of the press have not been nearly vigorous enough in demanding what...
Lyons:
Well, one fellow who was vigorous enough, Bill Worthy, now has his case in court, I see by The Times yesterday. He hasn't got any passport any more.
Warburg:
This is a case, again, where there should be a loud public protest.
Daniel:
Let me say, why should Bill Worthy carry the burdens of the American press? A fine young man, but why should the whole load fall on him? The burden should be carried by people with much broader shoulders than Bill Worthy.
Lyons:
I'm sure. Well now, just take for a minute, take the
Philippines. Suddenly, the other day, we heard that they'd pulled Romulo home and we'd brought our ambassador back, and things have gone very sour. I had to fish all around to try to find what was back of this. Well what do you make of our reporting on the
Philippines, so recently of such great importance to us?
Warburg:
I don't think this is a question of reporting at all. I think this is a question of faulty government policy. Our government sails along from crisis to crisis –
Lyons:
You mean they didn't tell us?
Warburg:
No, it's not a matter of telling us...
Lyons:
Well surely some correspondents out there would have known something about it.
Warburg:
It's not a matter of not telling us. It's a matter of their not being aware of it. Nobody in
Washington pays any attention to a budding crisis until it erupts.
Daniel:
Let me disagree with Mr. Warburg. We have been entirely too amicable here today. I feel that this is a duty of our newspapers. And one of the great functions of the press has always been to prod the government and push the government. Of course it is the fault of our government for allowing these things to flare up and get out of hand, as this thing has in the
Philippines.
But the first duty – I don't want to be presumptuous – but the first duty lay with the press of the country to see that the facts were reported; and if the diplomats who were out there didn't see the facts, we should have called them to the State Department's attention. Mind you, I think that the State Department can be more quickly influenced by one article in a newspaper than it can by a thousand staff conferences held out of the view of the public and out of the view of Congress.
Lyons:
Well, thank you Mr. Daniel. It's refreshing to find the newspaperman turn critic of the newspapers, and Mr. Warburg, the critic, defending them. And I'm afraid we've come to the end of our time. Thank you, gentlemen.
Only a half dozen of our greatest newspapers maintain and organize a corps of foreign correspondents of their own. In most newspapers the continuing story of world-wide developments seems to filter through to us only fitfully. The papers are organized chiefly to report local news, and their editors appear to have a limited interest in news outside their communities, and in many cases a limited understanding of it, and too many of them appear to be convinced that their readers' interest is similarly limited.
Our press certainly has the resources to keep us informed of the world we live in. These discussions of the press on Berlin and our foreign reporting generally have shown us how important good news coverage is to our position as a world power.
In a democracy, sound policy depends on an intelligent public opinion supporting our leaders. Our failure in reporting on
Cuba certainly damaged the American position in the
Caribbean, and our failure to learn about the anti-United States feeling in
Latin America was indirectly responsible for the treatment our Vice President received in Venezuela and Peru. In the grave crises, as in Quemoy and Berlin, poor reporting can be even more serious. Edward R. Murrow said here on this program that a miscalculation can lead to national disaster. It's the responsibility
of our press to help prevent any such miscalculations. Well until next week on The Press and the People, this is Louis Lyons.