The Washington herald., 1921-11-11
CONFERENCE WILL
GIVE REPORTERS
ACCESS TO NEWS
Facilities Here and in
Paris Are Oontrasted by
VIM Allen White.
CBz w,L ALLEN WHITE,

CBy VIM. ALLEN WHITLEY
The rooms in which the confer
sncs for The limitation of armament
win be held holds 1900 people, with
seats for 200 reporters. In Paris.
ths room Of the clock" where the
Peace Conference opened. had seats
COR less than 100. and the reporters
were tammed In an adjoining room
containing less that a dozen chairs.
Here the reporters st nearer the
conferences table than members OF
Congress and the Supreme Court In
Paris, reporters had to peep through
hree gaudfly draped doors like peep
ing Toms And no press arrange
ments for writing or flinR stories
N ths whole building were made.
Committee Rooms Accessories
But In Washington today the press
S given 400 ground-ncor seats and
N TIE basement Of the building press
rooms ntted with typewriters. tele-
r1ph operators and radio operators
are placed at the disposal Of the
But the Important difference IN not
fnss VIII be held. but In the ar
rangsments IN the Navy Building,
where the committee meetings will
Be held
In Paris. committee rooms were IN
aeeessible- Each Of the foreign del
esates was eioseted in a hotel These
notsls were closed except to those
p whom the delegations extended
cards OF entrance. And the offices
or the leaders Of the Paris confer
encs vers practically hidden ana al
ways closed -.
Few Saw Leaders
Very few reporters ever saw Pres
ident Wilson informally. Few saw
Clemenceau; and while the British
delegation was more accessible to
the British press than other dele
sadons were accessible to their re-
porters. the other delegations - the
Italian. Belgian and the Japanese
lived in another world.
Here IN Washington the delegates
and their secretaries all will gather
In one, building and in the same
building Will be the reporters Of the
worlds press In this building will
be q group of rooms ftted with tele.
graph operators, typewriters and
desks. lounging rooms and writing
rooms. and every practical conve-
nience to make writing easy and
news-gathering rapid and accurate.
In Paris, the French government
spent 100000 francs on the press,
but the money was spent on a mag
nificent mansion used as a club
house miles from the conference.
Concerts In Press Mansion.
In the clubhouse was a subsidized
restaurant. and at night beautiful
concerts were given in the press
mansion But the whole idea III
Paris was to keep reporters loafing
and thus minimize the news. Here
n America the government is doing
nothing for the press except to make
its work easy and its reports as re-
liable as possible. This does not
mean Official publicity, -..-..-
There may be precious little on
cial publicity. But given the geog-
raphy of the conference as It is.
any American reporter with legs and
brains can get the news. The re-
porters are too near the sources of
news to keep the news from the
press.
Guaranteed More News.
The sessions should bes open-of
course-for the sake Of accuracy. But.
open or closed. the newspapers are
bound to have more news than they
had in Paris. That much Is guar
anteed by the mere externals of
the conference. And those externals
are entirely the American express
sion Of the relation between the gov
ernment and the public as conveyed
by a free press The opening of
the conference starts well.
Copyright, Is21.)