Sta,—I fully agree with Mr. John Hillaby that if the
British Association for the Advancement of Science is to merit the continued support of the Press, it must do something to liven up its meetings.
To those of us who are willing to submit to our editors only news reports which are genuinely new, the B.A. had little to offer this year.
There are one or two newspapers whose traditional loyalty to the B.A. is so strong that they will print columns of items, which under normal circumstances would automatically be consigned to the discard- spike. Yet even the efforts of these newspapers to make the B.A. seem alive'were strained to the limit this year.
When a sub-editor of a national newspaper is driven to make a page of stale news inviting by heading it with such grossly exaggerated words as " The British Association provides the year's most exciting stories," something is seriously wrong.
The great effort of organisation made by the B.A.'s capable Secretary to provide facilities for Press coverage suggests that the Association is keen to get the fullest newspaper support.
It will succeed only if the Council makes some effort to attract to its meetings more of the younger scientists who are still active in the laboratory, and encourages them to give more up-to-the-minute accounts of their researches.—Yours faithfully, CHAPMAN PINCHER.
Daily Express, Fleet Street. (Science Correspondent.)
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