Hagerty's Hard Words

Last week, just a month after he replaced John (What's My Line?) Daly as American Broadcasting Co. vice president in charge of news, James C. Hagerty, 51, served notice that he will bring to his new job the same blunt and outspoken qualities that marked his eight years as press secretary to Dwight Eisenhower. In a speech before an aluminum industry convention in Oberlin, Ohio, Jim Hagerty reported ample room for improvement in TV news coverage--including ABC's. Said he: "Too much emphasis has been placed on well-modulated voices and nice-looking faces. These voices and faces all too often are merely relaying the reports gathered by the wire service facilities. They seldom if ever actually leave the radio or television studio to cover the news. All too often they read someone else's work --or at the most rewrite it. They have little if any association with the stories they are reporting.

"There are some radio and television voices in Washington who, to my personal knowledge because I had to accredit the newsmen, never attended a presidential news conference in the eight years I was at the White House. There are also individuals who have never been to Capitol Hill to cover the Congress, or to the State Department, or any other departments and agencies of the Government.

There is little initiative in digging up stories, in working to develop others."

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