Professional Touch

The U. S. Government has no broadcasting station of its own. When U. S. officials want to broadcast their departmental achievements, they have to go to the Washington studios of the major networks. If the Government should announce that it was about to set up its own radio station, political razors might begin flying through the air. But last week, when the Government opened its first broadcasting studio in Washington, all was quiet along the Potomac. For the studio is not a station. Its programs must be wired to Washington's commercial stations, broadcast through regular commercial channels.

Housed in the new Interior Building's seventh-floor penthouse, the studio is planned for the launching of new ideas in Government broadcasting. The idea man is Shannon Allen, acting radio section director of the Interior Department's Division of Information. A onetime NBC production man, he has the job of coordinating broadcasting activities of all Interior Department bureaus, furnishing radioactive bureau heads with the professional touch. For the dry statistical reports that are now the rule, Director Allen hopes to substitute dramatic treatment, has issued script samples to educate officials. Sample sample for a disquisition on reclamation, modern style:

Westerner: Shades of Buffalo Bill, mister! You should've seen these deserts four years ago. White and dry like a steer's skeleton.

Visitor: And now?

Westerner: Use your eyes, mister. Look around you. These blighted miles of hot sand have been made fit places to live in. Think of it! One day worth nothin' 'cept to go crazy thirstin' and watchin' vinegarroons crawlin' by the cacti, and today worth one billion dollars in taxable property! That's progress for ye, mister, that's progress!

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