 |
Newspaper spokesmen believed the study would prove nothing. Said the Committee's chairman, Norman E. Isaacs of the Louisville Times, 'Since the proposal called for a great deal of newspaper co-operation, it was the committee's judgment ...
News & articles published shortly after events occurred, they reflect the information available at that time and how people reacted.
A year of big news at home and abroad stimulated new gains in readership for the United States newspaper. Trouble in Hungary and the Middle East, and a presidential election, sent daily circulation soaring toward 57,000,000. On January 1, 1956, circulation had reached a record 56,147,359, by mid-year was up another 1.5 per cent and climbing fast. Advertising linage also reached a new high, up 10 per cent over the previous year in the 52 cities measured by Media Records, Inc., to 2,843,394,974 lines.
Weekly newspapers claimed a total 25,000,000 circulation. World-wide circulation of dailies had jumped to 255,000,000, according to a UNESCO survey. Most striking gains were being made in economically undeveloped countries. Newspapers were spreading even into African villages.
The expansion, stimulated by growing world literacy, was not accompanied by a comparable growth of press freedom. All of the world’s totalitarian governments restrained the press rigidly, and only four of the 40 non-totalitarian governments did not restrict press freedom in some way, according to a survey of the International Press Institute. Even the United States press was being intimidated by administrative measures directed against Communist subversion, the Institute reported. The study showed that press freedom has declined world-wide since the end of World War II.
In the United States, the newspaper press continued to work for legislation requiring freedom of access to public records at all governmental levels, city, county, state, and federal. In April Kenneth MacDonald, president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, reported ‘some disposition on the part of Congress to take positive action’ in requiring that the press have free access to news of governmental agencies. A House Government Information Subcommittee, after nine months of investigation under the chairmanship of Rep. John E. Moss, (D. — Calif.), reported: ‘We have found that there is ample justification for the complaints of newsmen and the Congress that the government has tried to clamp down on many types of legitimate information. We feel we have punched a few holes in the paper curtain of secrecy which has been lowered between the people and their government.’
Many newspapers pointed editorially to the arrest and conviction of Illinois State Auditor Orville E. Hodge for allegedly misappropriating large amounts of state money as demonstrating the importance of newspaper access to governmental records. Hodge was exposed first by the Chicago Daily News, then by other Chicago newspapers. Said the Chicago Tribune, ‘The Hodge scandal has again dramatically proved the importance of freedom of information and the right of the people to know how their money is spent by public officials.’
Developments touching on freedom of the press included a successful appeal by the Gallipolis (Ohio) Tribune against a contempt decision by a lower court for having printed the names of juvenile offenders. The sentencing judge claimed he had a right to forbid publication under a statute which provided that records and reports of the probation department should not be made public. The appeal court ruled, ‘No one ought to be found guilty upon a doubtful charge of indirect contempt, and especially so in a case involving freedom of the press.’
Senate investigation by the Eastland committee of Communist infiltration of the press resulted in January in the ousting of six persons from newsroom jobs on New York City newspapers, and a cry of ‘press intimidation.’ It had been charged against the ousted newspapermen that their conduct as witnesses before the committee destroyed their usefulness in the newspaper business. The New York Times asserted that it had been singled out for special attention by the committee because of a preponderance of Times employees among those subpoenaed to appear before the committee despite the fact that it was not one of the newspapers mentioned as having had a Communist cell. It was The Times’ contention that the Eastland committee was retaliating against that newspaper ‘because of its vigorous opposition to many of the things for which Mr. Eastland and his colleague Mr. Jenner and the subcommittee counsel stand.’ Replied Chairman Eastland, denying any effort to exercise Congressional pressure on the American press, ‘The hearings have disclosed many things including a significant effort on the part of the Communists to penetrate leading American newspapers.’
The press gained ground in Colorado in its campaign against Canon 35 of the American Bar Association, which prohibits courtroom photography. Its contention that with new high-speed miniature cameras and film the press photographer need no longer be a courtroom distraction was upheld by the Colorado Supreme Court in a unanimous decision. In place of Canon 35, the Court substituted a rule that judges of the lower courts may, at their discretion, permit newspaper photography and broadcasting. The decision was the biggest gain the press photographers had achieved in their nationwide campaign against Canon 35.
Newspaper treatment of the Independence Day kidnaping of month-old Peter Weinberger at Westbury, Long Island, caused a bitter controversy among press, police, and the child’s parents in which the general public participated vigorously. Nassau County detectives sought to have the press refrain from publishing the news of the infant’s abduction pending negotiations with the kidnaper. But one newspaper — the New York Daily News — claimed it already had gone to press with the story. The baby was found dead, abandoned by the frightened kidnaper. The tragedy reopened a long-time argument over whether newspapers should print or withhold news under such circumstances.
Labor columnist Victor Riesel suffered severe burns and loss of eyesight when an assailant threw sulphuric acid in his face April 5 on a New York City street. Mr. Riesel, whose columns on labor affairs in the New York Mirror are nationally syndicated, had crusaded vigorously against ‘racketeers in labor,’ and alleged Communist infiltration into labor unions.
The press moved serenely through its big job of presidential election coverage, apparently with less criticism of its efforts than four years previously when the ‘one party press’ charge was hurled by Mr. Stevenson. President Eisenhower again had the editorial support of a majority of the nation’s newspapers — 62 per cent, according to Editor & Publisher, against Stevenson’s 15 per cent. Both candidates claimed fewer individual newspaper endorsements than in the previous campaign (Eisenhower 740 against a previous 933; Stevenson 189 against a previous 202).
In July, Senator Pat McNamara (D. — Mich.) charged in the Senate that ‘publishers are parties to a campaign to keep from the public the truth about President Eisenhower’s physical condition.’ This assertion publishers vigorously denied. A proposed $650,000 study of press performance in the 1956 national political campaign, to have been conducted by Sigma Delta Chi’s Committee on Ethics and News Objectivity, ran into newspaper opposition and was called off. Newspaper spokesmen believed the study would prove nothing. Said the Committee’s chairman, Norman E. Isaacs of the Louisville Times, ‘Since the proposal called for a great deal of newspaper co-operation, it was the committee’s judgment that the study had no chance of reasonable success.’
The venerable bogey of newsprint shortage again haunted newspapers throughout 1956. By April the worst shortage in 30 years had developed, and three Congressional committees were investigating. Suggested remedies: expanding domestic newsprint manufacture, and reduction in advertising consumption by upping rates so that advertisers would buy less space.
In Detroit some 47,000 wage earners went back to work after settlement of a 46-day strike that closed the city’s three big papers with an aggregate 1,300,000 circulation daily. These papers, the Times, News, and Free Press appeared again Jan. 16 with adless, skeletonized editions after being closed since Dec. 1, 1955 by a strike by the stereotypers. A strike by the photo-engravers closed down three Cleveland dailies Nov. 1.
Purchase of the Chicago American by the Tribune Co., publishers of the Chicago Tribune, from the Hearst Newspapers, was announced Oct. 20. The American would continue publication in its present building and under its present management, the purchasers announced.
CommentYou may use these HTML tags and attributes: