Covering the War

When the four hour truce between Japanese and Chinese at Shanghai was called last week (see p. 21) officials hurried through the Woosung region hustling non-combatants to safety. They found a small hotel peppered with lead from both sides in the bombardment of the Woosung Forts. The vegetable garden adjoining it was pock-marked by shells. Within was the proprietor, a retired oldtime British navy officer named Capt. Frederick Davis who had operated the hotel for many years--the only white civilian remaining in the vicinity. His pet dog had disappeared; he had been living for days on such canned food as he had in the kitchen. Given a chance to clear out, Capt. Davis said scornfully: "This is my home and here I stay." And there he stayed.

That story was dug out of the confused scene around Shanghai last week by Associated Press. . . . Correspondent Peggy Hull of the Chicago Tribune found a German officer commanding well-drilled Chinese fighters. . . . Correspondent Victor Keen of the New York Herald Tribune drove to Japanese headquarters near Woosung in time to see a hapless Chinese condemned to death because his captors found money in his pocket ("evidence" that he was paid to kill Japanese). . . .

Exclusive stories like the foregoing pop up here and there in the Sino-Japanese news to the U. S.; but the war is not a war of great "scoops." Rather the scene is that of the U. S. Press machine functioning smoothly, making remarkably tasty hash of what it can see., but not bothering to see deep.

Largest wheels in the machine are the Associated Press, United Press and Hearst's International News Service which has four men whose technical leader is Dixon Hoste and whose most conspicuous member by far is garrulous, hysterical and frequently absurd Floyd Gibbons. Important papers have their own correspondents. In the Chicago Tribune bureau, Peggy Hull, fortyish. is the only female correspondent accredited by the War Department. She accompanied the Pershing expedition to Mexico in 1916, followed the A. E. F. in France, served in Siberia, is further distinguished by the longest by-line of all the correspondents in Shanghai. The three news services together send from 12,000 to 30,000 words a day at a cost of about $4,000. The flow of their dispatches is divided between RCA radio across the Pacific, and cable via Siberia and London. Either way transmission time to the U. S. is 30 to 50 min. (Some messages filed in duplicate both ways have met at the same instant in Chicago.) Urgent messages at $2.36 a word are flashed in n min.

As nearly everyone is aware, news from the Orient appears much fresher than it really is because of the half day difference in time. Ordinarily U. S. Sunday papers carry Shanghai news dated Monday.

Unlike the government at Tokyo, the Chinese make scarce pretense of censoring news at Shanghai. A Chinese official is supposed to read dispatches, but editors in the U. S. are not aware of him.

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