Word: news
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Even more disturbing than the lack of censors was the virtual absence of any news whatever from the Allied fronts. Reporters, barred for the present from the scene of war itself (though a limited number are expected to go later), were dependent on brief and cryptic official communiques. Europe had some 10,000 newspapermen covering the war (including A. P.'s 664,* U. P.'s 500, something like 7,750 men employed by foreign agencies) and most of them had nothing to report. Result was that they picked up rumors where they could. All week long...
...tall, white stone building in Bloomsbury (taken over from the University of London), a mile away from Fleet Street. Here are issued all official press bulletins. A teletype printer flashes them to newsrooms and agencies in Fleet Street. But most reporters, British and foreign alike, get their news direct from the mimeograph, write their copy in the great hundred-foot-square entrance hall of the Ministry, gas masks slung over their shoulders as they work, surrounded by thick mugs of bitter India...
...press restrictions had seemed intolerable in peace time, correspondents were free to cable whatever they pleased. They were bound by a system of responsibility: no censor touched their copy, but if they sent dispatches which the Ministry for Propaganda considered false or damaging they could be denied access to news sources or expelled from the country. The German Army was conducting a few picked reporters on tours of the war area in Poland. Consequently most of the authentic war news that reached the U. S. came from Berlin and told of German victories...
...only correspondents in Great Britain were complaining of the war's coverage. In the House of Commons Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain had to face a barrage of questions from honorable members who were worried by the scarcity of news. Mr. Chamberlain promised that he would "try to deal with the matter." London's own newspapers, galled by the censorship yoke, were loudly critical. The London Times blamed the Ministry for "a series of muddles and blunders" which, said the Times, the Prime Minister did not deny. Said the News Chronicle: "News is flooding out of Berlin into...
Instead of relaxing British censorship, at week's end the Government had clamped it down tighter than ever. News-pictures could not be sent by mail or wireless, cable transmission of wirephotos was restricted. No photographs of any kind could be imported into Britain. Most of the war pictures printed in U. S. papers were being taken by German Army cameramen, released by the Ministry for Propaganda in Berlin...