The union times., 1944-06-24
Questions Rigged To Meet Prejudice?

Millions of American radio listeners are being taken in by the Town Hall Meeting of the Air program, ''In Fact" ," edited by George Seldes, charged this week.
 The forum program, heard by an estimated 2O,OOO,0OO people every Thursday night on a coast to-coast Blue network hookup. just acquired sponsor, the anti labor Readers Digest.
 In an exclusive dOcumented ex- pose, Seldes revealed that the pOr- ton of the program in which the audience asks questions of the main speakers is actually rigged up in the office of the Town Meeting moderator, George V. Denny, Jr.
 ssAt the beginning of each meet ing', Seldes said, s'and before it is put on the Blue network, one of Mir. Denny's employees, Miss Betty COkely, hands out some 25 cards on which questions have been written out in MT. Denny's office, we are informed.
 During the public debate after the main speakers have stated their views, the public is permitted to present its questions. Since all the 25 questions handed out by Town Meeting have already been approved by it, and the holders in the audience, many known to the Town Hall group, have all ready been given colored cards known as recognition cards which they wave in the air and which MT. Denny spots from the platform, it is a fact that the rigged questions con- stitute the major part of the public debate"
 Asked whether she considered it ethical to palm off prepared ques- tions on the radio audience as spontaneous, Miss Cokely said that Denny decided the question period had to be pointed up'' and the only way to do SO was to prepare the questions and plant them on stoOges in the audience.
 I'm addition to preparing its own questions, Town Meeting is able to squelch undesirable questions from the floor by using U. s. military regulation which requires all spon- taneOus programs to alter every question asked over the air. Pur- pose of this is to prevent Nazi agents from sending code messages to the enemy.
 While altering questions handed in by members of the audience, Town Meeting moderators are also author ized by Denny to reject any questions they do not approve, thus acquiring the role of political as well as mili- tary censors.
 Of six types of questions which a Town Hall document says should be avoided" one is labeled "derogatory questions" Explaining what comes under this heading, Town Meeting says: Occasionally a questioner will attempt to launch an attack on the government, an individual group or corporation by an inferential question which constitutes an anonymous smear. Regardless of the truth or fa1- sity of such an attack, it is unfair and must not be permitted"
 Commenting on this, Seldes said : "You cannot ask George E. Sokol- sky, a favorite of MT. Denny's, if it IS true that he was a secretly paid agent of the Natl. Assn. of Manufac- turers, an organization of the biggest corporations of America, whose pri- mary purpose is to destroy the labor unions. Mr. Denny frequently picks Sokolsky to present the anti labor, anti-liberal side of questions, introduces him with glowing words not mentioning the job Sokolsky did for Japanese corporations also-and expresses any and all questions which challenge the fundamental question of whether or not Sokolsl1y is fit to ap- pear on a radio network dedicated to the great American principles of truthfulness, honesty and democracy"