The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1935-10-11
FRIDAY. OCTOBER II. 1895.
CENSORSHIP. YOU-AND US

WITH war and sanctions now well under way
and with hostile alignments crystallizng
throughout the world we want to talk frankly with
you about censorship and how it may affect the wal
news you read in your paper.
I'VE we're fooled once aplenty" one reader writes
Early in the World War for example England shut
of the cables to Germany and from then on all we
got through allied channels, What about it
now? What reason have we to believe what we are
reading today from abroad?"
The answer is that you are right to be suspicious.
BY no means should you put complete confidence in
foreign dispatches Use salt whenever you feel it is
needed We Will do the best we can to spot the lies,
and 50 will our correspondents abroad, but can't
guarantee accuracy when censorship is in the saddle.
SO VIC want to ask your help in a problem that must
necessarily be yours as we'll ours.
All we guarantee is plenty of diligence over
there and here-digence reinforced by consider
able experience with the tricks of censorship learned
from the World War We are more sophisticated now
than we were then War was a new and fresh thing
to us in those days and pretty green. good
deal of creduty was squeezed out in that affair SO
hope to guard against many of the things we
fell for once. But don't expect too much Be ready
to make your own discounts and your deduc-
tions
Censorship and war go together just as censor
ships and relationships do. A correspondent work
ing in Of censorship is not like correspond
ent working in a free country He is under wraps,
and can't defy the government including the mill.
tary forces, of the country where he is stationed
He just has to make the best he of a bad Jour-
nalistc situation, BY exercising wisdom born from
training, by checking his sources, by being on the
watch for propaganda plants" by writing objective
ly, he minimize the danger of being used"
But what he writes must be filed through the censor.
Propaganda is as much part of war are ma
chine guns and airplanes In many respects it is
the most important part. BY it nations in conflict
cseek to build up sentiment at home and support
around the world. The Belgian baby story was more
of an asset to the allies than a score of regiments.
s All is fair in war; and as some has said, the
first casualty in every is truth
5. SO you may expect propaganda from many
sources Even this side in a neutral country
4 trying its best to keep out of it," there will be
carefully hidden propaganda agencies working for
.this side and that putting forth stories plausible
enough the surface but loaded With the dynamite
just the same designed to dislodge your neutrality
and to deliver you over into one camp or another
IS Accordingly the best we can do is to ask YOU to
4 Join in being wary, and to assure you that YOU
can depend upon us to be just as cautious as it is
possible for us to be-
This is no time for artlessness either on the part
4 OF newspapers or newspaper readers We wish we
were all-seeng, but must agree with Mr. Doolev
= who said:
Newspapers are not perfect, and neither is the
human race"