Vindication

Labor's truculent Health Minister Aneurin Bevan had called British news papers "the most prostituted press in the world." The National Union of Journalists (which the weekly Economist labeled "the fifth column of the fourth estate") had been even more specific. It charged Britain's Tory press lords with operating monopolies, kowtowing to advertisers, distorting and withholding the news, and blacklisting (i.e., refusing to mention) political and personal enemies. To investigate charges of this kind, and perhaps to lay the groundwork for regulation of the press, the House of Commons voted to set up a Royal Commission on the Press.

Last week, after two years of hearings and deliberation, the commission planted a bombshell in the laps of its Labor patrons. To the shocked surprise of left-wing politicians and press, its 3&2-page report was a sweeping vindication of the private ownership of Britain's newspapers.

Flatly disputing Nye Bevan, the commission reported itself satisfied that "the British press is inferior to none in the world." Rejecting government licensing or control, it added: "In our view free enterprise in the production of newspapers is a prerequisite of a free press, and free enterprise will generally mean commercially profitable enterprise . . . We see no reason to think that newspapers attached to ... political parties, trade unions or other organizations would . . . have greater regard for truth and fairness . . ."/-

No Apologies. Like the U.S. Commission on Freedom of the Press (TIME, March 31, 1947), the 17-member Royal Commission was mainly composed of nonjournalists; it was headed by Sir David Ross, provost (now emeritus) of Oxford's Oriel College and a distinguished Aristotelian scholar. As Britain's press lords paraded before the commission, they made no apologies.

Lord Kemsley, owner of Britain's biggest newspaper chain (22 papers), testified: "The notion that I sit at my desk examining every piece of news as it comes in and saying 'publish this' or 'don't publish that' ... is too fantastic . . . [But] of course I am consulted and give decisions." Lord Beaverbrook, a lusty battler for free enterprise and Empire first, snapped: "I run my papers [Daily Express, Evening Standard] purely for the purpose of making propaganda ... On the few occasions when [my editors] have had different views on an Empire matter to myself, I talked them out of it." The commission also heard Lord Camrose (Daily Telegraph), Lord Rothermere (Daily Mail), Harry Guy Bartholomew (Daily Mirror) and 17 other witnesses, studied financial reports, and thumbed through sheafs of clippings.

The commission concluded that the National Union of Journalists' talk of blacklists and fears about monopoly were exaggerated: "There is nothing approaching monopoly in the press as a whole." But it noted that in 58 of 66 towns with daily newspapers, there was no competition except from London's nationally circulated papers. The commission warned: "We should deplore any tendency on the part of the larger chains to expand . . ."

No Middle. Most of Britain's newspapers flunked the commission's test of accurate, unbiased reporting, on stories ranging from the 1947 fuel crisis to a by-election, "either through excessive partisanship or through distortion for the sake of [sensationalism]." But the commission's strongest criticism was the lack of "variety of intellectual levels" in the press.

The reader, it decided, has not much choice in the area between a few authoritative, serious papers (e.g., the Times, the Manchester Guardian) and the scandal-mongering penny press (e.g., the Mirror, the Express).

With one commission recommendation, the otherwise delighted Tory press wanted no truck. That was the proposal to establish a 25-member General Council of the Press (20 publishers and editors, five lay men) as an official conscience, with a permanent eye on the ethics, responsibility and freedom of Britain's newspapers. Said the News Chronicle with vindicated vigor : "When it comes to giving this council the status of a court of morals . . . the commission is on very dangerous ground."

/-The policy of London's Daily Herald (circ. 2,000,000) is controlled by the Labor Party and the Trades Union Congress.

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