RADIO WAR NEWS
Sni,—Vice is but a morbid excess of some appetite or habit that in controlled moderation constitutes virtue. The radio habit has in many cases developed into a vice.
The " News Bulletin " is broadcast on the Home Service six times a day. Other wavelengths distribute the same news. These broad- casts are mostly vain repetitions of items of " news " many of which are two or even three days old. Some " radio-maniacs " listen in to nearly every News Bulletin, and the repetitions of even trivial and unimportant items soak through to the subconscious mind and produce an unreasonable and groundless fear or " phobia." When a mother hears several times a day, for three days, that a cottage in a remote village has been bombed and a child killed, she becomes apprehensive for her own children when she hears the explosion of a bomb in the sea or on a field ten or more miles away. When she hears one of our own 'planes flying overhead she cannot distinguish it from an enemy 'plane either by eye or ear, and runs out into the street to discuss the identity of the aircraft with her neighbours. Some village gossip will surely identify it as an enemy 'plane!
I venture to suggest that the War News Bulletin be broadcast only twice a day, and that no item of news of enemy air offensive be repeated more than twice on any wavelength ; and that the great improbability of any one particular house or cottage being hit by a bomb be stressed in every broadcast. Let us have daily, instead of the dull discourses by some Ministers (other than the Prime Minister, the War Minister and the Minister of Information, whose speeches are always stirring), lectures on our historical and-. gallant fights for freedom and also a few calming Nature talks.—Your obedient servant, Clevency Cottage, Gt. Snoring, Fakenham. W. WANSEY Ban-.
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