Word: radio
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Three incidents that set radio quaking: 1) Week ago Tuesday night A. P. Correspondent John Lloyd spoke over NBC from Paris at 8:30 EDST (1:30 a. m. Paris time). "The situation is now definite," he was explaining. "There are no more doubts. ..." when suddenly he was drowned out by a giant banshee yowl. "The air raid sirens are now bawling," Reporter Lloyd shouted, and he was heard no more. But the growling, whining, shrieking sirens wailed into U. S. listeners' ears for two full minutes. Then the Paris transmitter quit, and the world heard no more from...
...Washington, White House Secretary Stephen T. Early said for the record : 1) that in war the press is a seasoned veteran and radio an untried rookie, and 2) that if radio proved itself a "good child," well-mannered, etc., it would be left to itself; but if it turned out to be a bad one, the Government disposition would be to "teach it some manners." Under the Federal Communications Act the President could, in any national emergency or merely to safeguard U. S. neutrality, shut down any or all radio stations. Already the President had proclaimed U. S. neutrality...
...hooting Paris sirens and the suspense of the six-hour-long silence from Paris were considerably beyond the limit of radio's rules for mystery serials. Even in prizefight broadcasts a fighter may be cut, but he never bleeds, yet from Warsaw NBC had broadcast into U. S. parlors bashed brains, hacked-off hands, slaughtered children. Commentators, necessarily, were far from neutral. The European news reports broadcast were censored at the source, and amounted to little more than propaganda (even though the press printed no less censored news). In addition to all this, the cost had been terrific...
Toward week's end, CBS, MBS and NBC got together, agreed to "edit" the news (i.e., avoid repetitive bulletins, pair up varying reports, sift announcements from foreign radio stations). CBS decided on at least two foreign hookups a day, interruptions of programs for big news only. NBC planned to use its men abroad on a newly announced schedule of war news periods only when they had something to say, began to scout around for correspondents in neutral European capitals, in the hope of getting uncensored news...
...radio's best-laid plans for this war was to keep the radio audience hep to devious military movements and tactics. NBC had cornered General Hugh Johnson's spare time. CBS had Major R. Ernest Dupuy, old New York Herald man, World War veteran, author (If War Comes, with Major George Fielding Eliot), and West Point's public relations officer. MBS got Major Kent C. Lambert from Fort Jay, onetime exchange officer with the Polish Army. But last week, almost as soon as war began, all three went out of action...