The Wilmington morning star., 1942-07-14


censorship, it would still be an
immensely difficult work to enable
the people to understand the what
and the why and the how of the
many unusual things that they
must do and put up with in war
time. The longer the war lasts.
and there is every prospect that
this will be very long war, the
more important it will be to see to
it that the press and the radio are
able to keep the people informed
upon matters like rationing, price
and wage fixing, the draft, taxes.
salvage, priorities and allocations
which touch directly the daily lives
of every one. 1t is in this field of
war information that the govern
ment has thus far been least sue
cessful. Let us call it for con-
venience the field of civilian par
ticipation.
This will enable us TO regard
the field of military news as dis
tinct. Here, too, there is very
much that can and must be i'm
proved if the nation is to have con-
fidence and the capacity to nudge
and criticize constructively and the
conviction of the high seriousness
of the war. But military events
and the diplomatic actions which
are indissolubly bound up with
them must be subject to the cen
sor, and therefore they present
quite different problem from the
measures which have to do with
civilian participation.
The same procedure cannot be
used in the military and the ci-
william fielo-in the field where cen
sorship must operate and in the
field where the purveying of infor-
nation is daily need.
Obviously, there is twilight
zone between the two fields: they
are not clearly and absolutely sep
arated.' For example, all the facts
about the oil supply of the East
coast include facts about the dis
position of tankers and of escorts
which must be censored. Never
theless, as a practical matter, the
censored facts are an unimportant
part of the information that CT
villains need to know, and as re-
CARDS oil, the problem of the gov
ernment is not how to conceal a
few facts but how to explain the
whole situation.
My own impression is that in the
civilian field the government has
fixed it's attention on spot news to
the neglect of the difficult business
of enabling the newspapermen who
must inform the public to inform,
themselves. A certain amount Of
''back ground and 'off-the-record"
information is, of course, provided.
But it is, I believe, so insufficient
that the newspaperman who wants
to understand the what and the
how and the why CT a measure
say, the system of A, Is and X
cards-must scramble around for
himself, using such private, irreg-
ular sources Cf INFORMATION as he
enjovs. ..
The government has never real
lied fully what every working
newspaperman knoWs-that news
papers are not produced by tele-
graphing official announcements to
be set up by printing presses. How
news is presented and explained
and commented upon depends
upon how well the correspondent
and his editors understand the
whole situation of which the i'm
mediate days news is only frag-
ment. In fact, news in the narrow
sense of the term is like the visible
part of an iceberg which, in fact,
is nine-tenths under water: free
press as distinguished from gov
ernment bulletin board cannos do
it's part unless newspapernlen all
the way down the line to the home
office have a substantial working
knowledge of the iceberg under the
water.
Thus, when a government agen-
cy starts novelty, like rationing,
it makes up its mind after receiv-
ing reports, holding oral confer
ences and exchanging written
memoranda. These are the ice
bergs under the water. What the
government agencies do not do,