The Waterbury Democrat., 1941-07-22

EGG has just completed survey of newspaper participation in broadcasting. The results won't be announced until the hearings get going, but to get its data, the com mission sent big long questionnaires to the nearly 900 radio broadcasting stations now licensed. Instead of asking newspapers how they were tied up with, and how they hand led radio and radio news, the radio stations were asked how they were handled by the newspapers.
 TEN
 WORKERS
 Tn brief, what the radio stations were asked specifically, was: List of all the local and out-of-town newspapers in the radio area. 2- Whether newspapers charged radio stations for printing programs. g. Relations between newspaper ad- vertising and radio advertising de- partments, including information on rates charged one medium by the other for space or time. A. Relations between newspaper and radio publicity and promotional &C., tivities, and how these are paid for. 5-F'ull information on news broad casts used by the radio stations. G. Station methods of obtaining local news. 7-How news broadcasts are edited and sponsored. 8-Name of every person working for the radio station who is in any way connect ed with a newspaper, and what his duties are. 9-Business connections between radio station and newspa- per. 10-Degree consultation be- tween radio station and newspaper management on matters of policy.
 The broad nature of this inquiry and the detail of the information requested, down to the names of individual employees mixed up in both radio and newspaper, give the tipoff to what the FCC is looking for. What it apparently fears is that your favorite newspaper or any other newspaper will get some kind of nefarious control over all the methods of news dissemination in the community, and thereby work against the public interest.
 While the commission insist that its forthcoming hearings are to be unbiased, and solely with the view of determining what its future poll icies should be in granting radio station licenses to newspapers, the fact remains that its policy in the past has been to give preference and to grant radio station licenses to non-newspaper organizations whenever newspaper end Q Ilon- newspaper company have both been applicants for permits in the same territory.
 Licenses already granted to news paper-owned or controlled stations are not to be disturbed, the com mission declares, but as station lic- enses are granted for only one-year periods, a change in policy could mean that as licenses expired they might not be renewed.
 Tn the existing field of standard broadcast, the commission declares that more than third of the sta tions now operating are identified with newspapers. It is this third that might be hit hardest should the EGG embark on some new policy, In more than 90 local ities, the only radio outlet is in the control of the only local newspaper. NEWSPAPERS
 WILL BE THERE
 While the FCC is obtaining its basic information on the relation between newspaper and radio sta- ton from the broadcasters, this does not mean that only the radio men will be represented at the hear ings. The newspaper men will be there too, particularly those who have interests in existing stations and those who have applied for lic- enses to operate the new FM sta- tions.
 One curious sidelight of the hear ings is the fact that while a ma jority of the EGG members have aroused the ire of the newspapers interested in radio station opera tion,, the commission has also irked the broadcasters no end by it's anti monopoly decrees of last May, in- tended to make all stations free agents and permit any station to buy any other stations programs, thus breaking up the chains.
 WASHINGTON
 UATTnENyVr
 Since 1885, the government-owned distillery in the Virgin Islands has distilled 74O,OOO gallons of rum for which the Treasury has received $443, 900 Army now has 544 posts, 90 of them being big camps. There are now two daily scheduled airline flights between the United States and the Panama Canal Zone Consumers divi- sion of OPACS is backing nation al canning drive to prevent waste of fresh fruits and vegetables now on the market. Two Department of Agriculture scientists have found 6 way to make evaporated milk more condensed and so save ship ping space. About ie,000 out of the l07.OO0 government defense houses contracted for. have now been completed. Lumber men have asked OpM to set up Q central purchasing office to keep unrelated government agencies from c0mpet- ing against each other. Para chute jumpers special shoes cost e0 a pair, as against e33D for ordinary service shoes. Among soldiers, books on poetry are more popular than books Oil war, eay the 300 alaau nllala iliann ulnaa