_Chapter IV_
THE ROVER NEWSBOYS ABROAD
“I want the people of every land to be as fully informed as we are,
through a press of varied inclinations toward the philosophies of the
day.”--Kent Cooper.
What the American press is at home--an arm of the State--it is abroad.
The press, and the forces behind it, have formulated an aggressive
program for pushing American commodity news into every corner of the
earth. The program is put in the form of a demand for adoption of
“freedom of the press as we know it” by all nations. The President,
the State Department, the Congress have formally adopted the news
industry’s program as a basic unit in American foreign policy.
The first major action of the United Nations Commission on Human
Rights was to set up a subcommittee on the “free press,” to consider
a resolution along American lines. There was strong pressure to adopt
the American view in its entirety. The U.S. has also insisted that many
foreign countries accept American correspondents and adopt American
news concepts if they want diplomatic recognition.
Speaking for the American newspaper industry, Kent Cooper has further
proposed that no country should obtain aid of any kind from the U.S.
without acceptance of these views. Official backing of Cooper has
gone so far that Congress even delayed a United Nations Relief and
Rehabilitation Agency appropriation in an attempt to impose a “free
press” condition for U.N.R.R.A. aid.
As a matter of fact, the wedding of press and State has carried the
“free press” demand far beyond the limits of news policy, no matter how
you define the latter. A privileged status is being demanded for the
news industry, as witness Cooper’s suggestion that correspondents be
given _diplomatic immunity_! But the matter is far from stopping there.
It is not generally known that the American news industry has now
attained virtual domination of the world news market--which means every
country except the Soviet Union and its immediate neighbors. The story
of the battle for world opinion control will be told in later pages.
Here it is enough to point out that official pressure for world news
“freedom” has a double purpose. First, it is aimed to break down Soviet
resistance, especially in respect to reported plans of Tass, official
Soviet news agency, to serve Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria,
Austria, Hungary and Rumania. Second, it is designed to further expand
and consolidate the powerful world position of the American news
monopoly against future challenges by its now feeble rivals.
In such a program, news is a naked arm of Empire. It cannot be
separated from the territorial, military-strategic, economic and
political aspects of American foreign policy. The increasingly
imperialistic tone of that policy, the spread-eagle drive for absolute
world power, is more and more reflected in the demands of the news
industry. Thus, Arthur Hays Sulzberger, publisher of the banker-minded
_New York Times_, frankly states the connection between the two. In a
speech containing the crude threat of atomic bombs and the flavor of
political blackmail, he declared:
I do not believe that free peoples can afford to trust
dictatorships. We should not share our military secrets, or make
any financial agreements, calculated to build the Soviet Union
until we in this country have more knowledge of her and her
ways.... I think we should put definite limits upon our cooperation
... until we have the same freedom of access to the news of Russia
as they have to the news over here....
Access to the news is, therefore, my condition for full cooperation
and I should hold to that position uncompromisingly. The
elimination of censorship would be but a small part of compliance
with this condition. _Access to the news means freedom to travel
at will--to talk with whomsoever one wishes--it means finding
communications systems available--it means the right of a business
man to see how his product is used or whether a market for it
exists.... I say this as a newspaper man, it is true, but in this
all-important freedom we in the newspaper profession act as your
agents._
What Sulzberger and the news industry are demanding, is acceptance
by the Soviet Union of the system of special privileges for private
enterprise that prevails here. At the very least, they would require
the Russians to agree that information is a commodity to be peddled
exclusively by morally irresponsible private organizations. If the
Soviet Union could be forced to bow to American private enterprise
in this instance, a capitalist wedge would have been inserted in the
Socialist system.
Lawful Spies
Any newspaperman who has worked abroad, or among foreign correspondents
here, knows that there is the closest connection between the work of
a correspondent and the interests of the State. Walter Lippmann, in
criticizing Congress for the attempted U.N.R.R.A. holdup, pointed out
that virtually all of a correspondent’s news comes from officials and
business men of his own country, plus some friendly foreign diplomatic
sources. There is no clear line separating the correspondent from
the Embassy officials of his country. There is even less sharp a
distinction between the _information_ exchanged by the correspondent
with Embassy officials and the “_intelligence_” supplied by agents and
outright spies.
The recent Pearl Harbor inquiry dented the old shallow idea of
“intelligence” which centered on beautiful Mata Haris and stolen
plans, though the recent Canadian spy-scare exploited this popular
misconception. The United States has just created a new national
intelligence agency on a more realistic basis. Gathering of every
kind of public and secret information, plus the over-all evaluation
of the total information, is the job of the new agency. Evaluation of
information at every stage is essential. Poor evaluation led General
Marshall to believe--and to tell a press conference--that the Nazis
would go through the Red Army like a hot knife through butter; later
that Japan was militarily a joke.
For the function of gathering information and evaluating it as it is
gathered, the correspondent is ideally equipped. Since his work is
conditioned to the objectives of the dominant interests in his own
country, and even of his own government to varying degrees, he cannot
be regarded as an innocent man from Mars, dispassionately reporting
history as it unfolds. As a matter of fact, news values are determined,
for the correspondent, with relation to state policy. Events are
not “news” unless they have some bearing on the progress or lack of
progress of specific American policies. The current American coverage
of the Balkans is typical. Correspondence from that area is almost
exclusively concerned with the Anglo-American effort to get “reliable”
governments installed. The correspondent makes no pretense of drawing a
positive picture of life in those lands.
But over and beyond what the correspondent reports, or does not report,
is his value as a contact man. It is not for nothing that Sulzberger
stresses complete freedom of motion and contact for the business
man and correspondent alike. In the Socialist sphere, and in rival
imperialist territory, the American newspaperman is part of a network
of capitalist contacts within the country to which he is assigned. He
is a war correspondent and intelligence agent in peacetime!
This question of contacts is as decisive for the newspaper business as
it is for intelligence work. And it provides an interesting link with
the secret history of the world news cartel. For just such contacts
were the foundation of the global news monopoly. And the cartel was,
from the start, unmistakably at the service of commercial and state
interests!
News Since Feudal Days
Near the middle of the past century, governments, bankers, rich
merchants, kept private couriers who travelled to all important
European capitals. By carrier pigeon--and in America also by pony
express--they sent specific information on prices and market
conditions, plus general political information required for their
long-range business planning. The couriers built up extremely valuable
contacts that would have made them very valuable to newspapers. But
newspapers couldn’t afford their costly services and the couriers
couldn’t afford to lose their rich clients by publishing their
information. Newspapers had the right to print news but no way to get
it.
The telegraph broke that situation wide open. It made the relative
isolation of the newspapers impossible; it spelled the doom of the
private news systems.[A] It ended feudalism in the information field.
But not everyone saw that immediately. Paul Julius Reuter, Prussian
government courier with many business clients and topnotch European
contacts, understood it at once. He determined to switch to newspapers,
offering a telegraphic news service to several papers at once. Germany
was no place for a progressive idea in 1851, and Britain was the
nation with the most extensive world interests, so Reuter set up shop
in London. His idea was a smashing success. Reuters soon was the
all-powerful government-backed British Empire news monopoly.
Charles Havas, a Hungarian, established a similar monopoly for the
French Empire and France’s sphere of interest, and Dr. Bernhard Wolff
did as much for Germany. In the United States, Associated Press grew
out of the same conditions, except that the agency, like the nation
itself, was almost wholly absorbed in internal development, almost
entirely disinterested in the rest of the world. Toward the close of
the century, however, there were signs that the tremendous productive
forces developed under American capitalism would ultimately seek _an_
empire if not world empire. The country began to show more interest in
_world_ news. Associated Press, to improve its monopoly position and
bar the possibility of successful competition at home, sought exclusive
rights to a supply of world news. It made a deal with the European
agencies.
That deal and the world news relationships of which it was a part, were
well hidden from the world prior to World War II, but the war completed
a change in the former secret relationships. Marking this change, A.P.
chief Kent Cooper published the story of the news cartel in 1942. His
book was called _Barriers Down_. Cooper published it only to mobilize
support for his “crusade.”
Cooper’s “crusade” is nothing more than a drive for world news
monopoly. _Barriers Down_ is designed to justify American imperialist
news domination by coating it with high moral purpose. The _London
Economist_, organ of battered British imperialism, notes in its issue
of December 2, 1944:
Mr. Cooper, like most big business executives, experiences a
peculiar moral glow in finding that his idea of freedom coincides
with his commercial advantage. In his ode to Liberty there is no
suggestion than when all barriers are down the huge financial
resources of the American agencies might enable them to dominate
the world. His desire to prevent another Goebbels from poisoning
the wells will be universally applauded, but democracy does not
necessarily mean making the whole world safe for A.P. In this,
as in other post-war issues--such as civil aviation--commercial
practices are habitually confused with such big words as “liberty
and the Rights of Man.”
Cooper’s book nevertheless lends the strongest authority to what would
otherwise be an almost incredible story of news imperialism. We shall
lean on it heavily.
_Chapter V_
SECRET HISTORY OF A CARTEL
The story begins in the 1840’s with the formation of the great modern
news agencies in obedience to the click of the telegraph key. At that
time, Great Britain dominated the world. France, a powerful state,
was nevertheless a link in the British system. Germany had not yet
fully emerged as a modern industrial power. Russia, ruling a sprawling
empire, was herself, in a sense, something of a political and economic
“colony” of the more advanced European states. The Far East was one
huge, thinly-disguised sphere for European exploitation, too, with
Britain hogging the lion’s share. The United States, in addition to
exercising little influence in world affairs, lacked the immediate
facilities for world news competition: Great Britain controlled almost
all cable and other communications.
Under these conditions, there arose what Kent Cooper justly terms “the
greatest and most powerful international monopoly of the 19th Century,”
the world news cartel. Considering that A.P. voluntarily participated
in it, Cooper’s highly moral tone is strange. It is true, nevertheless,
that the agencies “brought under their control the power to decide
what the people of each nation would be allowed to know of the people
of other nations and in what shade of meaning the news was to be
presented.”
* * * * *
Summarizing the situation, the A.P. boss continues:
For long years Reuters, acceptably to Havas and Wolff, had divided
the globe among the three according to Reuters’ idea of proper
spheres of influence for each.... Reuters received English-speaking
North America, in which since 1893 the A.P. had bought exclusive
territorial rights.
For long years Reuters, acceptably to Havas and Wolff, was granted
a free hand in Canada. Later this free hand was extended to
include Mexico, Central America and the West Indies where Reuters
and Havas held the sovereign rights. The two, however, admitted
no control whatever to Wolff, the German Agency, in the Western
Hemisphere. Reuters had Great Britain, including all the colonies
and dominions, Egypt, Turkey, Japan, China and what might be called
the suzerain states, or those in which England had exerted a sphere
of influence.
Havas [since succeeded by France-Presse] controlled the French
Empire, Switzerland and all the Latin countries, including Italy,
Spain, Portugal and those in South America. [Also the Balkans.]
To Wolff [later D.N.B. or the Deutsches Nachtrichten Buro] fell the
Scandinavian states, with Russia and all the Slav nations. Austria
also came under the jurisdiction of the German agency.
A Conflict Is Born
Reuters used its control frankly in the interest of the British Empire
and of British business interests. Havas and Reuters combined to
carry stories that would tend to ridicule American manufactures and
America, but they refrained from such handling of Britain and France
respectively. All over the world, news from America was top-heavy with
Indians on the warpath, lynchings in the South, bizarre crimes in the
North. Havas headed off American business competition with France in
South America--a Havas exclusive territory--by stories belittling U.S.
automobiles and other products. (Very reminiscent, one may note, of the
American news industry’s deliberate belittling of Soviet industrial
products and skills and planning, propaganda that misled even our
highest authorities prior to Stalingrad.)
Anglo-French ridicule was gall and wormwood to American Big Business
as it moved more and more into competition for world markets, world
influence and world power. It was more immediately vexing to Associated
Press but A.P. never went outside the gentlemanly bounds of the
conspiracy. It used the cartel as a club to beat back United Press and
other would-be rivals at home.
Nevertheless, an ultimate conflict between A.P. and Reuters was
inevitable. The United States was building up industrial might and
developing resources to overtake and pass Great Britain in the race
for world power. This was somewhat obscured, for the general observer,
by the rather more aggressive challenge of Germany. Germany, too, had
built up a modern industrial productive apparatus far greater than that
of Britain. It found the world already divided. Markets, raw materials,
the slave labor of colonies and their investment opportunities, had
been “parcelled out” among Britain, France and their satellites:
Holland, Belgium, Portugal. British and French guns were levelled
against any suggestion of sharing the plunder with the newcomers. So
German imperialism levelled its guns, too, and World War I was on.
Peak of Reuter’s Power
With Britain and France and Germany engaged in worldwide warfare while
the United States (until 1917) stood on the sidelines, Reuters, Havas
and Wolff were severely handicapped. Even under peacetime conditions
they could not compete with the American agencies on a commodity-news
basis. Their official or semi-official character restricted their
freedom of action and of judgment. The moment something really
important happened in Europe, they would hesitate, under official
pressure. For example, when the Nazis murdered Austrian Premier
Dollfuss, Havas sent nothing for hours while the Quai d’Orsay debated
how French-controlled areas should be informed of this event, how it
should be interpreted. The “officialese” in which such events were
reported sometimes achieved peaks of silliness. A dispatch to New York
from Havas bureau in Beirut, Syria, in 1934, said:
French governor visited hinterland first time since elections. On
every hand he was greeted with enthusiasm by populace which thanked
him for all France had done to relieve food crisis. Extremists
threw a few bombs but vigorous police measures reassured people.
Reuters was no less one-sided in its devotion to British interests, and
the national agencies of the smaller States were doubly handicapped. On
the one hand they were mere creatures of Reuters-Havas; on the other,
they were bound out to the service of their own State. The mere listing
of the national agencies dancing to the Reuters-Havas tune establishes
the political significance of the cartel. They were: Amtliche
Nachrichtenstelle, Austria; Agence Telegraphique Belge, Belgium; Agence
Telegraphique Bulgars, Bulgaria; Bureau de Presse, Czechoslovakia;
Ritzaus Bureau, Denmark; Agence Telegraphique Esthonienne, Esthonia;
Finska Notisbyran, Finland; Athena, Greece; Nederlandsch Telegraaf
Agentschap, Holland; Agence Telegraphique Lettone, Latvia; Agence
Telegraphique Hongroise, Hungary; Stefani, Italy; Kokusai, Japan;
Avola, Yugoslavia; Agence Telegraphique Lithuanienne, Lithuania; Norsk
Telegram-Bureau, Norway; Agence Telegraphique Polonaise, Poland; Rador,
Rumania; Rosta, Russia; Fabra, Spain; Tidningarnas Telegrambyra,
Sweden; Agence Telegraphique Suisse, Switzerland; Anatolie, Turkey.
These agencies were financially controlled by Reuters-Havas-Wolff, but
they could not have been independent even if there were no financial
control. In the first place, the cables were British and aside from
direct restrictions imposed by Great Britain on users of the cable,
manipulation of rates could determine the profit or bankruptcy of
a stubborn agency. On top of that, Havas and the smaller agencies
were not only news but also advertising agencies, monopolistic ones.
Newspapers, in Europe and Asia alike, got Reuters-Havas news service
free--in effect, and they had to use it if they wanted the advertising
by which they lived.
This dominating position gave the European agencies a haughty and
clumsy attitude toward transmission of news. They could delay or garble
the most important events. It also gave them no incentive to technical
advance. Havas was still using the stylus instead of the typewriter
in the 1920’s. So long as and wherever Britain and France remained
the ruling powers, the agencies could get away with it. But wherever
and whenever some other power could challenge Anglo-French rule, a
challenge to the news agencies would follow. South America was the
“where” and World War I was the “when.”
Conquest of South America
Havas was boss of South America according to the cartel contract. As
soon as World War I started, therefore, Havas decided exactly what
South Americans could be permitted to learn about the war. It goes
without saying that only the Allied side was to be reported. But
such was the inflexibility of the official agencies, that Havas was
unwilling to transmit even the German war communique when asked to do
so by leading South American papers. It could not unbend that much to
head off the obvious danger of losing South America to some American
rival agency.
This was A.P.’s great opportunity, but the agency was fearful of losing
the advantages of cartel membership if it made a bid for South America.
Manager Melville Stone considered that the cartel might oust A.P.
and admit the newer United Press to membership. Accordingly, he left
unanswered a request by _La Nacion_ of Buenos Aires, one of the world’s
leading newspapers, for A.P. service.
New pressures, however, were at work. Within A.P., Kent Cooper, then
only Traffic Manager, learned for the first time of the cartel and of
A.P.’s humiliatingly inferior position in it. He began what he likes
to call his “great crusade,” by which he means a thirty-year fight to
substitute American for British news domination of the world. From
outside the agency came insistent demands by the government for aid in
advancing national policy. The State Department made a crude subsidy
offer with the aim of bribing the South American press. Stone later
wrote:
The State Department asked me to employ the editors of almost
every leading paper in South America on handsome salaries as
correspondents of A.P. ... whether they sent us news or not ... and
the government would recoup us for anything we paid.... They want
something more than a mere news report.... They want some sort of
illuminating service from the United States to indicate that this
country is not money-grabbing or territory-grabbing.
Incidentally, a similar proposal was made for the Far East. A.P.
rejected the proposals. Moreover, “government propaganda” was one
important reason. Moreover, “government propaganda” organizations
were regarded as inadequate and unstable instruments for conquering
news control. A.P. felt the government interest, for one thing, was
not likely to survive the war. Even more important was the fact that
the American news industry has always heavily exploited its alleged
“independence of direct government ties” as proof of its non-partisan
character.
But far from refusing all forms of subsidy, the news industry fought
for and obtained aid in the form of “practical rates for news
transmission; rates attractive enough to encourage the export of
news from the U.S.” The government had for some years encouraged the
laying of new American-owned cables. Now, at the “behest of the State
Department,” the American-owned cable company gave lower rates to
American clients than to Havas, for news to South America. American
news went to South America after all, therefore, on behalf of the State
Department.
A.P.’s conservatism might well have cost it the chance to seize South
America. But United Press, unhampered by cartel obligations, started
operations there. That shook A.P.’s complacency. Cooper insisted that
the cartel give A.P. full freedom to operate in South America. Stone
said: “Go ahead and advocate as much liberty as possible, but don’t do
anything to bring a break between the A.P. and our European news agency
allies.” There was, however, no serious resistance. Reuters told Havas
to agree or else. Havas yielded.
Redividing the World
World War I was fought for the redivision of the world among the
existing imperialist powers. Germany lost her colonies and the German
Republic was reduced to the role of a vassal state serving the
American-Anglo-French victors. This situation was duly reflected within
the news cartel where Wolff lost territory and was permitted to serve
only Germany itself.
A.P. scrambled clumsily for a share in the spoils. Cooper hurried to
Versailles to ask the U.S. treaty delegation to fight for A.P. parity
with Reuters and Havas. This was to be expressed in the form of a
“free press” clause in the peace treaty. President Wilson’s right-hand
man, Colonel House, very sympathetic to the American news monopoly’s
desires, agreed to sound out the possibilities. He reported, in a few
days, that the question had been “taken care of privately” and he could
do nothing.
How it was “taken care of,” Cooper reports with great indignation. His
account, coming as it does from a member of the gang--a disgruntled
member but still one of the boys--is of great authority. It is
necessary only to warn that, writing in 1942, he showed no great
anti-Nazi fervor and discreetly dodged the ticklish problem of the
Soviet Union. He does not mention the great _cordon sanitaire_--the
strangling “safety belt”--set up around the new Socialist State after
World War I, but is full of pity for Germany.
Cooper says he learned that a cartel meeting had been held in which
the heads of Havas and Reuters had conferred alone while Dr. Heinrich
Mantler, head of the Wolff Agency, was left to smoulder in an anteroom.
When Reuters-Havas had decided the redivision of the globe, Mantler was
called in and told the bad news.
Reuters and Havas, matching the political terms of the Versailles
Treaty, built their own news agency _cordon sanitaire_ around
Germany. All the political states bordering on Germany were allowed
to have only news agencies owned or controlled by either Reuters or
Havas or both. In other words, the position of the news agencies
in those border countries was harmonious with the determination
of England and France to keep Germany hemmed in by little nations
mostly pro-Ally, such as Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Holland,
Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland.
A borderline area was the Saar Valley, the Palatinate and Rhenish
Prussia. The French Government wanted that for Havas. Reuters was
neither wholly unwilling nor enthusiastic, because Britain wanted a
moderately strong Germany to act as a check on France. Finally, and
subject to the Saar Plebiscite 15 years later, “they made a compromise
by which Wolff Agency might serve there, but a copy of Wolff service
should go to the Havas Agency, and if it was not satisfactory Wolff
could be removed from there.”
The victors were not averse to tearing slices of territory from one
another, either, so within the winning combination some changes were
made. Havas retained the bulk of the Balkans, but Greece and Turkey
passed “into Reuters’ [Britain’s] sphere of influence.”
Battle for Asia
A.P. remained a stepchild during all this time. It obtained a free hand
in South America, as already related. But in general, just as Great
Britain was slow to recognize and acknowledge the unmistakably superior
position of the rival American imperialism, so Reuters took a haughty
tone toward A.P. requests for adjustments in their relations. Outside
the cartel, accordingly, A.P. built up positions and alliances for an
ultimate showdown. Inside A.P., Kent Cooper gathered allies for his
more aggressive program against the still dominant go-slow policy of
Melville Stone.
While Britain was deeply involved in World War I, the U.S.
greatly extended the American communications network. Monopoly in
communications was deliberately fostered to “advance the national
interests.” This process, begun during World War I and continued
through World War II, is described in the previously-cited _Report
on Freedom of the Press_.[B] As this study is financed by a _Time_
magazine grant and has semi-governmental, semi-official news industry
standing, it is not critical of imperialist expansion. All the more
weight must be attached to its admission that State and industry are
one in communications and news-export.
These new government-fostered monopolies now played an important part
in the forward march of American news. Though A.P. had refused to do a
propaganda-job under government control, it was not at all reluctant to
let the government pay for A.P.’s expansion. This is what happened:
The Far East was the scene of the first open clash with Reuters.
Reuters’ absolute domination of world news produced some peculiar
effects on American-Oriental information exchange. West Coast
publishers, led by Hearst, were frantic about the situation. Cooper’s
first ally within A.P. was V. J. McClatchy, California publisher who
reflected the violent anti-British, anti-Japanese policies of Hearst.
McClatchy, in turn, won the support of Adolph Ochs, publisher of the
most powerful newspaper in America--the _New York Times_. A.P. was now
consciously but cautiously working toward an ultimate showdown with
Reuters.
McClatchy went to Washington in 1919 to seek Congressional aid. When he
told Congress about the news aspects of American imperialism’s secret
struggle in the Orient, the legislators were indignant. Reuters, it was
demonstrated, mangled all American news printed in Japan, China and
the Far East as a whole. Even news between the U.S. and the Philippine
Islands had to go by way of London for British profit and British
editorial slant.
Japan was the key news country in the Far East. Until 1914, the
country had no news agency of its own. Reuters not only controlled
the import and export of news but had the direct internal monopoly as
well. Japan had to pay Reuters what amounted to an annual subsidy,
after 1914, to get out of Japan and let the Japanese form a news
agency, Kokusai, which got all its non-Japanese news from Reuters. The
American news report for Far East distribution was now circulated by
Kokusai; Reuters-Havas Far East news to the U. S. was transmitted via
Kokusai. It amounted to an Anglo-Japanese alliance against the U. S.
The garbling of news that resulted was beyond imagination; British bias
strained through Japanese culture and policy!
Congress ordered the U. S. Navy to put its radio circuits at the
disposal of the agencies. The order specified rates that were, in
effect, a subsidy to permit the agencies to compete with Reuters.
Again, it was U.P. that moved first. A new Japanese agency, Nippon
Dempo, was set up and it used the U.P. “report.” Later, Nippon Shimbun
Rengo was formed to replace Kokusai. Rengo constantly sought A.P.
service, but the cartel would not consent. On the whole, British
control of Far Eastern news remained unimpaired.
This was the situation in 1925 when Kent Cooper became General Manager
of A.P. In 1927, Cooper went to Europe to negotiate a new “treaty”
with Reuters, Havas and Wolff. He wanted A.P.’s gains since 1893--the
rights acquired in South America, for instance--put in writing. He
especially wanted the cartel to admit A.P. to Japan on the plea that
other American agencies were there and were serving the home market
with non-cartel news.
As Cooper put it, he wanted a new contract primarily in the interest of
plain-speaking. He said: “It seemed to me that if the A.P. wanted to be
in on a division of the world as between the other three agencies the
contract should specify what territories were allotted to each.” The
new contract did exactly that. Without the shadow of double-talk, it
stated: “Reuters shall have the exclusive exploitation of the following
territories....” The British and Dutch Empires and most of the Far East
were included in these territories. Havas had “exclusive exploitation”
of Italy, Spain, Portugal and the Balkans as well as the French Empire.
Associated Press had “exclusive exploitation” of North America and
shared South America with Havas.
Now that is plain enough even for me, a disillusioned newspaperman
weary of piffle about “freedom of the press.” That is straight business
talk as among “legitimate” monopolists. It is, in short, a cartel
agreement for the division of the world market in news. But there is
a sequel to the story. When Cooper returned from Europe with his new
contract, A.P. Board members were horrified by the word “exploitation.”
Cooper explains their squeamishness by saying that “the word has taken
on a stigma in the United States which it does not have in Europe.”
An evasive word was substituted and the contract was approved.
“Exploitation” disappeared but the cartel reality remained.[C]
With respect to Japan, the head of Reuters, Sir Roderick Jones, made a
verbal agreement to permit A.P. dealings with Rengo. He could not put
it in writing, he said, because it would be a loss of face to Reuters
(that is, to the British Empire). Neither side had any intention of
yielding to the other, in practice. Power would tell, they knew, and
force would decide the issue.
The Showdown
They differed in their estimates of power distribution. The
relationship of forces had vastly changed since 1893. The United States
had been slow to enter world competition because it was busy with
internal development. But the delay actually improved its chances, for
when it finally laid down a claim for world position, it did so on the
basis of an incomparable home market. In the commodity-news industry
this was strikingly clear. At a meeting of the A.P. Board of Directors,
_Chicago Tribune_ publisher McCormick once offered some estimates in
this connection. The estimates were so impressive that Cooper got him
to repeat his statement for the benefit of any directors who had missed
the import. Said McCormick:
We are pretty much the most important country in the world and much
the richest country in the world, and in comparing America with
other foreign countries the press stands probably higher in America
than any other institution. I think it is a pretty good guess that
American newspapers print and supply two-thirds of all the world’s
news, and I think that the revenue of all the American newspapers
is probably three-fourths of all the revenue of the newspapers of
the world.
It was on the strength of this tremendously favorable competitive
position that A.P. laid down the gauntlet to Reuters in 1932. It
demanded “free competition.” Meaning that Japan, for instance, must be
free to switch from Reuters to A.P. service. All American monopolies
tend to demand “free competition” because they are now in a position to
strangle their isolated competitors. Nourished by a huge home market
built up with plenty of government aid, they no longer need direct
subsidy and want to establish a no-subsidy rule for younger and weaker
national news industries. The newspaper industry is in an even stronger
position than chemicals, steel and other monopolies. In no other
country has news-publishing grown into a business of comparable size
and power. In no other country does the newspaper business stand so
near the top in the list of Big Businesses.
A.P. understood this very well. Reuters misunderstood it badly. For
years it held out stoutly against A.P.’s right--verbally admitted but
never put in writing--to operate in Japan. Jones was confident that
A.P. would never risk a break with Reuters; he counted on the threat
that Reuters would take U.P. into the cartel if A.P. walked out. Cooper
deliberately led Jones into a trap, pretending eagerness to maintain
the alliance but needling him at all points.
“While I wondered how long it would be before this bubble of Reuters
world domination would burst, I was willing for Sir Roderick to blow
his own bubble so big that it would burst through his own exertion but
I would not puncture it myself,” Cooper gloats.
It burst in 1934. Carrying his pretense of humility and loyalty to the
uttermost limits, Cooper travelled from Japan to London to explain to
Sir Roderick that A.P.’s activities in Japan were within the meaning
of the contract. Pretending to mollify Jones, he encouraged him to
think that his own actions were due to weakness either of A.P. or of
his position within A.P. Accordingly, Jones refused to sanction the
A.P.-Rengo deal. He announced that the cartel agreement must be renewed
on the old terms or Reuters would allow it to lapse.
Reuters had fallen into a trap. Not only A.P., but the American news
monopoly as a whole was determined to humble the British. United
Press joined A.P. in an agreement establishing between themselves the
principle of “non-exclusive access to foreign news at its source.” This
meant that U.P. would not agree to replace A.P. in the European cartel.
So A.P. blandly notified Reuters that it “agreed” to let the “alliance”
lapse.
This announcement exploded with bomb-force in London. Sir Roderick’s
house of cards collapsed. Reuters was through as the news dictator of
the world and A.P. was king. Within a few hours Reuters, recognizing
what it had long failed to see, offered to capitulate. Jones hurried to
New York, begging for an audience. He was forced to humiliate himself
enough to satisfy Cooper who had been waiting years for that triumph.
Then the “alliance” was renewed--on A.P.’s terms.
World Conquest
American news domination of the world was now assured. The
“non-exclusive” principle did not in the least destroy the cartel;
it merely made the cartel an instrument of American policy. The old
system of recognizing political controls remained to some extent, in
that Reuters, for instance, retained the dominions and protectorates as
partially privileged territory. But a new system became the dominant
one. The new system opened territories once dominated by Britain,
France and Germany, to American news penetration, just as the basic
industrial-military potential of the United States was beating the
way for American political-economic penetration into those sacred
preserves. The “non-exclusive” principle governed the new contract.
The term sounds very lofty and moral. It seems to mean that A.P. and
Reuters would compete everywhere on equal terms and let the better man
win. Not only that, but A.P.’s American rivals would have the same
chance.
Alas, it meant nothing of the sort. The principle merely established a
new kind of monopoly in which political intervention of the State on
behalf of the monopoly no longer was so blatant. Competition was still
sharply restricted--not by cartel agreement but by economic pressure.
A.P. informed Reuters for instance, that the British agency was
absolutely free to deal with U.P. The new contract guaranteed that and
so did A.P.’s agreement with U.P. But, said A.P., if Reuters chose to
exercise that freedom, A.P. would choose to deal with Reuters’ British
rival, Exchange Telegraph, and so destroy Reuters! A.P. also informed
Reuters it would have to deal with Canadian Press through A.P.: thus,
Canada passed from the British to the American Empire!
That wasn’t really the end. World War II put the period on the new
contract. Havas crumbled all-at-once-and-nothing-first like the
wonderful one-hoss shay. Reuters’ internal crisis matured and in
1941 the agency was liquidated as a private profit-seeking body. It
was reorganized as the British equivalent of A.P. Within the Empire
it is struggling for survival against terrific American pressures,
just as the Empire itself is creaking under American expansionist
strains and the impact of the rising liberation forces released by the
anti-Axis war. Sideswiped as a British government propaganda agency in
a semi-official State Department document recently, Reuters indignantly
denied the charge. In doing so, it acknowledged the British surrender
to the American commercial-sensational news pattern which it resisted
for so many years. Said Reuters chief Christopher Chancellor: “We are
not purveyors of British news; news cannot be British or American--it
is an international commodity.”
The German D.N.B. has, of course, been liquidated. So has Japan’s
Domei. An American-sponsored German Agency, D.A.N.A., has been set
up in U.S.-occupied Germany with favorable competitive advantages as
against the British and French agencies. U. S. Treasury funds have
been used openly in the battle for news control of Austria and other
countries. In Japan, under exclusive American occupation, American news
dictatorship is assured. With Britain restricted to Southeast Asia,
the whole Far East is rapidly becoming an American private preserve.
And not even the limits of the thinly-concealed modern American empire
provide boundaries for the American news empire.
Only the Soviet Union and the new Eastern European democracies,
together with the anti-imperialist forces within the dominated
territories, stand in the way of complete global sway by the new
empire-aspirant and its news monopoly. Against them, the “free press”
monopolists are mobilizing the blackmail batteries of atomic diplomacy.
“It is unthinkable,” declares Kent Cooper, “that the peace will not be
dictated by America and Britain and that there should not be included
in its terms the principles affecting the press as I have outlined
them.”
_Chapter VI_
RESPONSIBILITY--A CHALLENGE TO THE PRESS
If World War I was a complex struggle for redivision of the
world between two imperialist groups, World War II was still
more complicated. An effective alliance of all forces opposed to
German-Japanese enslavement of the world was achieved. Yet behind this
alignment a good many battles were fought for imperialist advantage.
The capitalist powers had joined with the Socialist Soviet Union in a
Grand Alliance, but the military activities of Britain and the United
States indicated that their whole heart was not in the arrangement. The
Soviet Union was permitted for three whole years to carry the burden
of the fiercest assault known to history; under British pressure, the
Anglo-American military power was distributed along the relatively
inactive Empire lifeline. Thus, in effect, the allies fought Germany
with one hand and with the other built up positions from which to crowd
and “contain” the Soviet State.
Within the Anglo-American camp there was likewise double dealing. Each
party maneuvered with a view to postwar advantage for No. 1 at the
expense of his “gallant ally.” Early in the war, Washington could boast
that there was no need of a Second Front since there were already a
Third, Fourth, and even a Tenth Front. This merely revealed that United
States forces were scattered all over the globe with little relation to
the needs of the alliance but with obvious effects on future adjustment
of Anglo-American differences. As part of the “war effort” for
instance, a contract was made to build and operate an American military
airfield in Arabia, across the gulf from Persia, for three years
_after_ the war. This was but the expression of a series of deals with
Arabia, notably for oil, by which the U. S. became dominant there while
Britain was forced back into second place. The phenomenon was worldwide.
As a result, American imperialism feels superbly assured of its present
strength. That assurance is demonstrated by our current atom-bomb
diplomacy. All loan and other negotiations stress the determination
of our profit-swollen trusts to impose their rule over the world. In
the process, the British are often forced to divide former private
preserves, such as southern Iran, and virtually to abandon competitive
rights in huge areas once under their chief control, such as China. The
American methods tend to be oblique: military and technical missions
are established in the country in question, “upon request.” No request,
no loan. This method replaces the crude “Opium War” pattern in which
Britain built and maintained the world’s greatest empire of the past.
But the same bloody suppression of “natives” is behind both methods.
In recent months the British have slaughtered Greeks and Indonesians;
unwilling Marines have made Lidices in North China.
A dispatch to the _New York Times_ from Athens helps illustrate the new
method. After noting that the United States is far from withdrawing
from Greece, the dispatch says: “The State Department’s comments ...
sounded much like what the British had been telling the Greeks for some
time.... It is believed that the only substantial difference between
British and American views relates to the extent to which Allied
officials should be injected into the Greek civil administration. The
British originally intended to ask for a practical veto over acts of
the Central Bank and Ministries dealing with economic affairs. It is
now suggested that the British will suggest something much closer to
the concept enunciated by the State Department yesterday: technical
assistance to Greece ‘upon the request of the Greek Government.’”
In effect, as in Kent Cooper’s 1927 contract, the word “exploitation”
has been removed, but the imperialism is still there. And among the
industries making great headway in all “assisted” countries is the
American news industry. It is favored by the change in the ownership
of communications. Britannia no longer rules the waves--either of the
air or the sea. Telephone, telegraph, cable dominance is no longer
hers. Aviation, radio, multiple-address newscasting and facsimile
broadcasting, are off to a good start under the control of American
interests. And whatever advantages British imperialism still has,
she is forced by the State Department to relinquish in return for a
loan. Cable communications with British Empire points, for instance,
are still in British hands. Yet not long ago conferences were held in
Bermuda and Rio de Janeiro at which American government representatives
compelled the British to cut press cable rates from New York to Empire
points. This admitted American opinion-forming “news” to at least equal
status with similar British propaganda in the Empire itself.
Now the government is also going into the business of distributing
“news about America, by Americans.” The news agencies contend that
a government information service is “propaganda,” whereas they
“distribute the news as such, wholly unbiased and without intent to
influence.” This is an empty boast. Riegel, in _Mobilizing for Chaos_,
says: “The press associations differ in the amount of direct government
control affecting them, but all are obviously governed by the
newspapers they serve, and the destinies of all of them are inseparably
united with the destinies of the nations with which they are
identified. An impartial international news-gathering organization does
not exist.” The _Report on Freedom of the Press_ calls news-export an
“adjunct of diplomacy and national policy. This inevitable relationship
is no less real in the U.S. for having been avoided by the government,
resisted by industry, and needlessly confused by imaginary threats of
encroachment upon the First Amendment.”
State Department, A.P., U.P., I.N.S., alike provide “opinion-forming”
material designed to further the current dangerous drive for American
imperialist rule of the world. They are at one, moreover, in pressing
foreign news services to abandon their present spheres of influence
in favor of the American news monopoly. The Soviet news system, which
checks the functioning of outside opinion-formers in the Soviet Union
and helps limit their activities in Eastern Europe, is their favorite
target. But they have made little headway there.
When Randal Heymanson of the North American Newspaper Alliance visited
Czechoslovakia last year, government spokesman Dr. Theodore Kuska
talked with him. Dr. Kuska said the Czech film industry would be
nationalized and _newspapers would be published only by political
parties, trade unions and similar responsible groups_. “Only in this
way,” said Dr. Kuska, “can the press be regarded as truly free.”
It is not recorded whether the N.A.N.A. representative swooned on the
spot. But for the benefit of Brooks Atkinson, it should be pointed out
that some of the responsible groups Dr. Kuska speaks of cannot even be
heard in the American press. The conditions earlier described prevent
their publishing papers or obtaining circulation of their views.
Thus, control of the press and control of opinion is rigidly frozen
into monopoly shapes here; the Czech proposal seems to promise a much
broader freedom of the press.
Responsibility of the Press
Indeed, if Mr. Atkinson will look about him in the Soviet Union, he
will see an extension of the idea suggested by Dr. Kuska. As described
by Alexander Kendrick at an American-Soviet Cultural Conference in New
York recently, the Soviet press is unique. Before the Revolution, there
were 859 newspapers in the Czar’s realm, with a total circulation of
2,700,000 and a policy dictated by the Russo-Asiatic Bank. Today there
are 9,000 papers in 80 languages with a circulation of 40,000,000 and
several readers to every copy of each paper.
Compared to our papers, there are obvious differences: no sensation, no
spice, no scandal, no desperate competitive drive for entertainment.
The newspapers are all informative, they tend to be typographically
excellent, their news is presented in careful, balanced form so that
the constant reader is prepared to grasp new developments as they take
place. The cultural leaders of the country, scholars, critics, writers
and musicians, contribute to the papers.
The principal difference, however, is in their publishers. No paper is
published for profit. No multimillionaire can control public opinion.
No people’s organization is without a newspaper: trade unions, hundreds
of them; national groups; local, district and national government
councils; sport groups; youth groups; women’s organizations. They are
crusaders, too; not reactionary anti-vivisection crusaders like the
Hearstlings here, but stinging critics of public and governmental
bodies for sloppy execution of their tasks. And there is a contact
between the readers and the papers that would be inconceivable here.
Newspaper staffs hold regular meetings with readers to discuss
problems raised by the readers and most papers have an annual
readers’ conference at which editors make public accounting of their
stewardship. The Soviet Constitution guarantees printing presses and
stocks of paper to the organizations of the people, such as trade
unions, cultural and scientific organizations, etc. It has not remained
a paper promise: the press is entirely in popular hands. It operates
in a responsible way to further Soviet objectives by stimulating more
active support, by exposing failures.
There is, however, definitely no freedom of the press for
rent-collecting landlords, bankers, industrial monopolists. The Soviet
press is frankly not a formally democratic press but a press of the
working people. That no longer bars any important body of Soviet
citizens, since exploiting classes no longer exist there. The rule
operates primarily to assure an ever-expanding popular participation in
the nation’s political and economic life, while it hampers the work of
hostile foreign intelligence services. This would hardly seem the fit
subject of a diplomatic protest by the British Foreign Office or the
U. S. State Department.
A press of that kind would solve most of the problems of “freedom
of the press” in our country. It can be attained somewhat short of
Socialism, as is occurring in some parts of Eastern Europe. But such a
goal must be recognized as a distant one. Its attainment will require
the utmost effort of the whole American people. A first step is to
spread understanding of the class character and function of the press
as a whole.
What Can We Do?
Is there anything we can do about the present super-monopoly control of
our press which gags all but a handful of the 140,000,000 Americans?
The individual writer can hardly formulate meaningful proposals along
this line. Labor itself, particularly the larger progressive unions,
the C.I.O. as a whole, and strong combinations in industrial areas
where trade union membership is concentrated, must certainly give more
thought to the publication of newspapers. To be successful, they will
need labor’s formal participation but they must not be limited to trade
union scope. On the contrary, they should champion labor’s political
and other interests, as well as the interests of the people as a
whole. Labor must also seek a more direct voice in the few relatively
pro-labor dailies now in circulation, because direct participation
will reduce the waverings to which liberal papers tend. _Labor must
also combat the commodity-news pattern and help create an audience for
balanced, trustworthy information. A labor paper should aim at that
end._
Beyond that, labor and liberals should consider legislation to ease the
present monopoly. Postal and communications subsidies--free mailing,
in fact--plus other government aid, should be given to newspapers and
mail-circulation newsletters of responsible popular bodies. At the
same time, government subsidies should be taken away from the monopoly
press; private enterprise should be compelled to stand on its own feet
in the publishing business.
Finally, the truth about the American press--that it is the
uncontrolled and unlimited voice of monopoly capital--should not
operate to discourage constant pressure on the owners to deal fairly
and adopt more liberal policies. This is a democracy, whatever its
monopoly limitations; the publishers cannot completely ignore voices
that are numerous enough and insistent enough. But the pressure should
be concentrated where it has most chance to do good: on the powerful
pro-fascist press bloc responsible for the worst excesses of our
monopoly press. The recent picket lines and boycott of the _Daily
News_ in protest against columnist John O’Donnell’s anti-Semitic
provocations, demonstrate that results can be obtained. As a matter
of fact, the “Fascist fringe” is very vulnerable. A good, strong,
nationwide boycott, centering on the more blatantly fascist preachings
of the bloc, might very well act as a deterrent and check on both
policy and ownership. The curbing of the reactionary bloc would improve
the whole tone of the press. This is the nearest thing to an attainable
free press objective in the United States, at least for today.
It goes without saying that any realistic effort to improve our press,
must operate within the framework of a larger political program.
Only a program that understands the necessity for curbing the huge
monopolies--even within the limits of the capitalist system--can
seriously approach the problem of press freedom. None but a program of
independent labor-progressive political action can even aim at this
goal. Only a program that takes Socialism as its ultimate objective,
will consistently understand and face the problems along the way. This
places the heaviest responsibility upon Marxists and class-conscious
workers, manual and intellectual, newspapermen not least among them.
FOOTNOTES
[A] Banks, oil companies, etc., still have experts stationed in key
cities abroad to keep them posted on specialized business developments
of the greatest ultimate general political significance. “This kind of
intelligence service, which many foreign chancelleries might envy, has
been of great service to America’s foreign trade,” says O. W. Riegel,
in _Mobilizing for Chaos_. The vital news gathered by these private
agencies is withheld from the press, except when calculated “leaks”
will serve the interests of industry or of the State as a whole. The
press never howls about this kind of censorship.
[B] Published April, 1946, under the title of _Peoples Speaking to
Peoples_.
[C] Word doctoring is a national industry. The award for the best
public relations trick of 1945 went to Dr. Claude Robinson for helping
industry in its biggest job: “The proper interpretation of profits to
the public.”
_New Publications_
WHO OWNS AMERICA, by James S. Allen $ .10
PEACE OR WAR. THE PEOPLE AGAINST THE WAR-MAKERS,
by Eugene Dennis .03
SOCIALISM--WHAT’S IN IT FOR YOU, by A. B.
Magil .10
THE CASE AGAINST DAVID DUBINSKY, by William
Weinstone .30
THE PATH OF A RENEGADE, by Robert Thompson .05
WHAT AMERICA FACES, by Eugene Dennis .10
MEET THE COMMUNISTS, by Elizabeth Gurley Flynn .03
WHY NEGROES ARE JOINING THE COMMUNIST
PARTY, by Doxey A. Wilkerson .03
TELL THE PEOPLE HOW BEN DAVIS WAS ELECTED,
by Robert Minor .05
COMMUNISTS ON THE WATERFRONT, by Herb
Tank .35
WHAT ARE WE DOING IN CHINA?, by Joseph
North .05
AMERICA’S HOUSING CRISIS, by Louise Mitchell .05
ENEMIES OF THE PEACE: PROFILE OF THE “HATE-RUSSIA”
GANG, by Sender Garlin .10
THE FIGHT FOR A NEW CHINA, by Mao Tse-tung .25
NEW CENTURY PUBLISHERS · 832 Broadway, New York 3, N. Y.
Transcriber’s Notes
Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they
were not changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation
marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left
unbalanced.
On the Publisher’s page, to the left of “209” is a symbol that probably
is a Union label.
Footnotes, originally at the bottoms of pages, have been resequenced
and placed together at the end of the main text, but before the
advertisement.
Page 32: ‘Moreover, “government propaganda”’ occurs on two consecutive
lines, but the first one was incomplete, ending with ‘propa-’ (no
quotes). Transcriber completed it to make it comprehensible.