To Spread the Word

If the press were really a light to lighten the world, the world of 1952 would obviously be much less dark than it is. Nevertheless, journalists are educators, willy-nilly, and newspapers do more than colleges can to justify man's doings and dreams.

"The No. 1 problem in the world," says the New York Times's Sunday editor, Lester Markel, "is to educate public opinion at home and abroad to bring about a better understanding among peoples." The key men for this job, Markel thinks, are the world's newspaper editors. Last year, having raised $270,000 from the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations, he founded the International Press Institute, which now has members all over the world. The I.P.I. has now set up national committees of editors in 24 countries, and a permanent director has taken over at the institute's headquarters in Zurich. The director: E. J. B. Rose, 42, formerly literary editor of the London Sunday Observer (circ. 430,000), an Oxford man who was an R.A.F. wing commander during the war and later manager of Reuters features.

One of Rose's chief tasks will be to run I.P.I.'s research projects into ways of improving international understanding. Biggest current project: to find out how the flow of news among countries can be improved. I.P.I. has sent out questionnaires to 500 newsmen in all the free countries of the world, and is preparing to review correspondents' files, wire-service reports and the play of dispatches in the newspapers.

If people all over the world were better informed about the other people they call foreigners, it should become a less fearful, if not braver world. That is the modest hope of Editor Markel and I.P.I.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.