Evening star., 1947-01-20
Press Freedom Rests
With People, Editor
Declares al Seminar
BY the Associated Press

NEW YORK, Jan. 20.-The peo-
pie, not the publishers particularly,
are the guarantee of free press,
SeyeIlon Brown, editor and pub
Usher of the Providence (R. L.
journal and Bulletin, told the
opening session of the seminar for
editorial writer's of the American
Press Institute today.
Speaking to editorial writers OF
newspapers from coast to coast, Mr..
Brown said:
"The newspaper which is primar-
lily an instrument of opinion Is not
well designed to safeguard that con-
cept of freedom of the press as be-
ing a precious possession, not of the
publishers. but of the people. which
is the real guarantee OF the free
press of America today.
Confidence in Service.
$50 long as the American people
feel that you cannot take away the
constitutional freedom of our pri-
vately owned press without deny
ing them access to true, objective
and reasonably comprehensive re-
port of news of the world, of the
Nation and of their community, We
shall have a dependable guarantee
of our rights.
LET them lose their confidence in
that service of the press, and no
Constitution, no statute law, no
court will long preserve those rights.
For the press is always a primary
objective of lust for absolute politi-
cal power, and no private interest
of publishers, however strongly en-
trenched economically, could alone
guarantee the freedom of the press.
Remarking that there cannot be
great newspaper without a great
editorial page, Mr.. Brown said that
editorial writer's know that facts Oft
en- distort the truth.
Indeed, we know that the handi-
cap under which we labor, to as
semble a factual news report of
sufficient dramatic interest to hold
the readers attention, makes dis
tortion inevitable. But the edi-
torial staff and the editorial page
can lessen that and bring the
montage into far truer perspective.
Safeguard Against Bias.
'We need have no fear that the
result of such permeative influence
of the editorial staff will be to color
the news. On the CONTRARY, prop |
erly directed, it will safeguard
against bias. The expression of
sound and tightly reasoned opinion
will never twist the thinking of the
reader. Such editorial opinion is
not propaganda and never employs
the technique of propaganda Its
objective is the pursuit of truth.
Propaganda aims at action"
Newspaper editors listed to speak
to the current seminar, which will
last four weeks, are Gideon Seymour,
Minneapolis Star Journal; Forest
Seymour, Des Moines Register and
Tribune; Ralph Coghlan, ST.. Louis
Post Dispatch; Herbert Elliston,
Washington Post; Reuben Maury,
New York Daily News; Geoffrey
Parsons, New York Herald Tribune;
Don Rose, Philadelphia Evening
Bulletin; John Gould, Lisbon (MeD
LIlIeI IpIlSc, dilQ bIOOkS hIklIlSOIl,
the New York Times.
Also Joseph Barnes, New York
Herald Tribune; Richard E. Lauter-
bach, Nieman Fellow of Harvard;
Pedro Cue, Havana Ell Mundo; Fred |
Woltman, the New York Wold-T -Tele-
gram; John Goette, International
News Service; Theodore H. White,
author of Thunder Out of China"
and James B. Reston, New York
Times.
A number of Government experts
also address the seminar, including
Eugene Meyer, former president of
the World Bank; Harold L. Ickes,
former Secretary of the Interior;
James w. Gerard, former Ambassa-
dor to Germany; Owen baltimore,
director of the Walter Hines Page
School of International Relations at
John Hopkins University; Dexter
Perkins of the University of Roches-
ter and Walter L. Wright, jr., of
Princeton University.