As readers of TIME'S Letters section (and, indeed, of the daily newspapers) well know, TIME has been hotly criticized in recent weeks for its coverage of unpleasant news in some countries friendly to the U.S., notably for stories of the economic crisis in Bolivia, the aftermath of revolution in Cuba, and government corruption in the Philippines. Replying to this criticism has given us the opportunity to restate some truths about TIME, and I thought you might like to see where we stand. The following is the text of one reply to a critic:

IT is your contention that American journalists generally--and TIME'S most particularly--are doing a disservice to the cause of freedom by reporting the news with too much freedom.

You repose the old question: What is truth? Fine. That is what good journalism is all about--the pursuit of truth. But a less elusive and more pertinent question might be: What is news? For some reporters, news can be simply what the government spokesman proclaims it to be in a given country, on a given question, or what the official press release says it is. For many this is not enough.

You say that "isolated facts, true in themselves'' are not necessarily the truth. Agreed. We believe that isolated facts are far from enough; we are very much committed to amassing the facts and, if we can, isolating the truth. "Truth," you say, "is wholeness, balance and harmony." These are three good words, and we work by them.

There cannot be--as you seem to be suggesting--shifting standards of reporting from country to country, depending on its coloration in the political spectrum, its alignment in the East-West struggle, its degree of neutrality or friendliness. There is only one way to report it, and that is as you find it.

You alluded disparagingly to our coverage of the Philippines and Bolivia. I could burden you with documentation on the painstaking job of professional reporting that backed up the stories in question, but I will say simply this: we have seen no evidence that we were wrong in either case.

IN countries the world over, the press struggles in the toils of one I form of oppression or another. Of course, in the Communist world, where press control is traditionally total, there is no perceptible struggle. But in freer countries there are subtler means of entrapment. There are the subsidized newspapers (and editors), the "guided" press, censorship, newsprint allocations, and more. All operate in the same direction--away from the people's right to know.

Our job at TIME is to try to get at the facts and their meaning, to find out what's really going on--in the U.S. or in Bolivia, in art or in politics. As responsible journalists in a free society, we take our job with the utmost seriousness, and I know of no publication that devotes more effort to covering the news and, indeed, to the uncovering of it. Thus, we are likely to be singled out among journals and be ourselves the subject of comment. And often it will mean that as practitioners of responsible journalism we shall be dealing--fairly and accurately, I hope--with unpleasant subjects from friendly lands. But how could it be otherwise? Unless, of course, you are calling for a guided press.

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