Scooped Again

Reuters, the British news agency, was deeper in the black books of the U.S. press than it had ever been before. And that was saying something. OWI's Elmer Davis was madder than he had ever been, but apparently just as helpless.

On one of the big news stories of the year--the meeting of Churchill, Chiang Kai-shek and Roosevelt at Cairo--Reuters had scooped the pants off the U.S. press. The result almost reached the proportions of an inter-Allied incident.

The Old Hush. Newsmen of the democratic nations, already chafing under censorship and official fumbling of news, had run into more of the same at Cairo. They were barred from news sources by barbed wire, got only prissy chit-chat in place of solid news. But with these restrictions they had no great quarrel. They knew that the safety of the conferees might hang on discreet silence.

Furthermore the U.S. press, that had long ago submitted to the yoke of voluntary censorship, was getting quite used to it. The conference ended, the conferees moved on--Chiang back to China, Roosevelt and Churchill to an "unknown destination" to meet Joseph Stalin. And in Washington on Tuesday morning, U.S. newsmen met with Presidential Secretary Steve Early to get the official communique about the meeting and the conferees' decision to whittle from Japan the empire it had been accumulating by force and guile since 1895.

What Was That Noise? The communique was "hold for release" at 7:30 Wednesday night. But the great bang planned by Allied information officers turned into a series of fizzling sounds. Reason: Reuters cracked the story ahead of time.

Even while reporters were gathering at the White House (and presumably, too, in London's Ministry of Information), a Reuters dispatch, datelined "Lisbon," went out by radio to the world. It announced that the Cairo meeting had been held, that the conference with Stalin was about to begin. By the time Washington correspondents were sputtering angry explanations to their managing editors, Berlin had picked the Reuters dispatch, was industriously ladling out counterpropaganda.

"You Did!" ... "I Didn't!" This sort of thing had happened before, and OWI, expressly created to keep the U.S. informed as rapidly as possible about war developments, had often promised that it would not happen again. The U.S. press went after Elmer Davis. Red-faced with shame and anger, he uprose, turned a bitter blast on his opposite number, British Minister of Information Brendan Bracken. Barked mild-mannered Mr. Davis: ". . . flagrant and possibly dangerous breach.... I hope . . . you will take steps to make sure that British censorship . . . keeps Reuters in line." Before a critical House of Commons Brendan Bracken indirectly replied that he would do "all I can," adding, "We have no responsibility for Lisbon nor for Reuters."

Bland Explanation. Meantime Reuters gave a bland and cynical explanation for its beat: that its Lisbon office, technically not bound by any Allied restrictions, had merely demonstrated "spontaneous journalistic enterprise." This seemed to be adding insult to injury. Perhaps U.S. news services would take the cue and instruct their Lisbon and other offices to show a little "spontaneous American enterprise" hereafter.

Back of U.S. news thinking was a longstanding suspicion of Reuters, a news agency run for profit, except when it is run for British propaganda.

Long ago Reuters had joined Havas and the Wolff agency (later Germany's D.N.B.) to monopolize all international news exchange. The monopoly was not broken until the early 1930s. Now Reuters (currently reported undercutting U.S. agencies in South America) was also getting set for postwar competition everywhere.

Reuters has demonstrated many times that it can provide tough competition: on such big wartime stories as General Wavell's appointment as Viceroy of India and Sir Stafford Cripps's resignation from the British War Cabinet, both of which were handled on a "hold for release" basis, Reuters inexplicably scored first. Now, by either hook or crook, Reuters had done it again. Looking at the past, U.S. newsmen looked at their future prospects for Government-controlled news with foreboding.

Hit Him Again, He's Irish--Well they might. Before the Reuters row had even begun to subside, U.S. newspapers were scooped again.

On Saturday, while reporters waited in Washington and London for a "hold for release" communique on the Roosevelt-Churchill-Stalin conference, Tass, the Russian news agency, cracked that story over the Moscow radio.

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