MR. ISAACS' JOKE Sia,—In A Spectator's Notebook in your issue
of August 2nd, 1946, part of a paragraph was devoted to what was described as a very disturbing sign. of " totalitarianism " on the part of the Government—a report that Mr. George Isaacs, Minister of Labour and National Service, had declined to open a Press Conference at Newcastle until all reporters present had produced their trade-union membership cards. The report to which your contributor refers was a perfect example of suppressio veri; suggestio falsi. It might well be kept on record as a classic illustration. An agency reporter deliberately treated, as though it were a serious ultimatum, a remark which he himself has since admitted was 'made, and understood, as nothing more than a facetious piece of banter. Unfortunately, two or three people who ought to have known better took that journalist's report at its face value, and at once let off all their guns in a noisy and ridiculous broadside.
I wonder whether some journalists of today have entirely lost their sense of humour. Or .have some of them become so intolerant that they will instantly exploit an obviously jocular remark for the purposes of an attack on "totalitarianism "? Surely there is enough solid news available for publication and comment nowadays without scraping around for any light-hearted observation that could possibly be turned to account by a biased commentator? Is there really any journalist who honestly believes that Mr. George Isaacs—a man who is known to the Press in all its com- partments—would be a party to so stupid a policy as that which it has been sought to fasten on him, solely on the strength of a chaffing remark from one pressman to a number of others?—Yours faithfully, Director of Public Relations.
[It is unfortunately obvious that Mr. Isaacs failed to make his jocularity clear to some at any rate of his audience.—ED., Spec.]
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