Connecticut western news., 1882-08-30
ENGLISH WAR CORRESPONDENTS.
Regulations which Govern the Making of their Reports.


 The War Office has issued & series of regulations for controlling the license of newspaper correspondents when ac. companying an English army actually in the field. They are sensible enough, and will probably be of some practical use if they are consistently and vigorously put in force. The main points insisted on are that every cor respondent must be licensed and is only to write for one paper, and that he is to be under the authority of staff officer, to whom he is to submit everything he writes, and who will have power to keep back everything likely to be prejudicial to the interests of the army. Not only may the staff officer keep back what he pleases, but he may alter what he does not like, and it was the exercise of this power which raised the wrath of some correspondents who came under the operation of rules almost identical during the Afghan campaign. 1t is obvious that much tact and good sense is needed if alterations are to be made, for it is hard that correspondent should be made to say something that he never did say. On the other hand,
 the staff officer may be reasonably averse to cutting out whole paragraph when the alteration of 8 word or two
 may leave the general sense quite un. changed, and yet remove all objection to what has been written. The cor respondents are also not to be allowed to go where they like, and must keep to assigned places, and the staff officer will supply them with information, and will do his best to see that their letters are duly forwarded. It is impossible to forbid correspondents coming with an army and plying their adventurous and audacious calling. As they must come, the only thing is to keep their activity and their inventiveness within such limits as 1t is found possible to impose. And it must be allowed that cor respondent who staid when he was told to stay, who got his information from staff officer, who wrote out what he had so learned, and then had it revised by his informant, would be as unob- Jectionable correspondent as could be wished, and would be as unlike rest less, bullying, sensation-mongering correspondent of the old school as @ tame cat is unlike wild eats The chief obstacle to this mode of arranging things is that correspondents would have little opportunity of eclipsing each other, and of accommodating their con. tributions to the peculiar character of the newspaper that employs them. It is not so much character, knowledge. or ability of the correspondent that determines the kind of intelligence he sends home. It is the nature of the journal for which he writes that settles what he writes. If his journal is sensa. tional he must be sensational; he must be constantly penetrating the most terrible secrets, and niust announce at least three awful catastrophes a week. If his journal goes in for solemn and burlesque omniscience, he must write as if he was directing the campaign with the assistance of few rather foolish Generals. Correspondents of these types will be always trying to get round the staff officer, to take their chance and see how much he will p&ss of may happen to overlook. He will have very nala York, and pushing and vigilant correspondent may hope that man so hard worked may be occasionally caught mapping. .-Saturdag Revsess. Y