Evening star., 1944-02-21

Since that hot and hectic day last
June when I arrived in Washing
ton to take over the affairs of a
then budgetless domestic branch of
owl, I have seen just what can
be done when the Government re-
ports conscientiously and compe-
tently to the people of the United
States on a given situation.
For example, the greatest Job
done in covering any battle since
the dim beginnings of warfare was
at Tarawa. Despite the fact that the
scene was 5000 miles from our
West Coast and more than 1000
miles from the nearest telegraph
office at Pearl Harbor, vivid and
accurate stories were on newspaper
desks in this country within "a
hours. In 48 hours some of the
best still photos ever taken in bat
tie were made available to news serv-
ices and to the individual newspa-
pers. Altogether the Marine Corps
Photographic unit covering the en-
gagement, plus the Signal Corps
and the Coast Guard cameraman,
sent some 1900 first-class photos
to Washington.
Progress Due to Two Factors.
This was evidence of what could
be done when the Government got
down to bedrock in reporting the
war. This is the kind of coverage
I had in mind when, on taking over
as domestic director of Owl, said
it seemed to me that our number
one function was "to obtain the
release of the fullest possible news
from the military front and on the
military progress" Such progress
has been largely possible because
of two factors
l. The full and complete Coop
Grafton of the newspapers in press
ing for the release Of news. This
cooperation was evidenced in many
ways, particularly in the support
of the Newspaper Advisory Commit
tee, headed by Roy A. Roberts of
the Kansas City Star.
2. The cooperation of the Army
and Navy. 1t is Owls job to sell
the Army and Navy the fact that
it is to their advantage to give us
all the news, not in military security
while it is still news.
1t is imperative that we in
sist on getting the news while it is
still news for the very obvious rea-
son that we have not had always
the full prophylactic value from our
defeats. Only the news of the de-
feat at KaSSerine Pass was given
to us while it was still sharp and
astringent enough to cut through
the heavy fog of optimism in which
we were being enveloped. The story
of that debacle made headlines in
every major newspaper Immediately
after it occurred and it brought us
back to our senses.
News Of Defeats Delayed.
However, for one reason or an
other, other smashing defeats, such
as Pearl Harbor, Macassar Straits,
Savo Island, and the occupation of
the Aleutians, were so delayed that
they received far too little atten-
ton.
1t might be argued that the con-
|scientiousness and the competence
of the reporting done at Tarawa
and, incidentally, in the battles of
the Marshalls, amount to proof that
the military are now being more
realistic in reporting the war. In
a certain sense, this is quite true,
but never for a minute, even i'm
mediately after Tarawa, did we
assume that we had reached a point
where we could relax our efforts
AS matter of fact, the guns at
Tarawa were hardly cool when we
had evidence that we still had to
be constantly on our toes.
This evidence came when Ger
man bombers turned the italian
port of Bari into what Axis propa-
gandists called Little Pearl Har-
bor." Two weeks elapsed between
the time the Germans staged this
highly successful attack and the
time our newspapers received the
story.