MARGINAL COMMENT By HAROLD NICOISON I T would be useful if
some student of "mass-psychology during the epoch of the common man" were to analyse the attitudes adopted by ordinary citizens to the wireless services in different countries. In totalitarian or semi-totalitarian areas, I should imagine, the non-believers regard their wireless with silent contempt, whereas the great mass of believers listen to it reverently, deriving pleasure from the repetition of the familiar doxologies or invectives, and instruction regarding what is correct or incorrect to think. The French, being an impatient and sceptical nation, attend only casually to their wireless, assuming that it must be as incompetent and corrupt as the municipal administration of some southern port. The Germans, being satiated by propaganda, have for the moment ceased to be gullible and passed to the opposite extreme of disbelieving every- thing they are told ; were I responsible for the German wireless I should 14 shattered by the task of creating confidence in such distrustful minds, and at the same time appalled by the respon- sibility imposed upon me. Yet what an opportunity by patient persuasion to habituate those disillusioned and shell-shocked men and women to feel more quietly ; to adopt habits of mental balance ; and in the end to think quite calmly for themselves! I have had little recent experience of the wireless in the United States, but such records as have been played over to me inspire terror. The Americans do not object to noises, even as they have no sense of privacy ; but it seems astonishing to me that any nerves can stand being surrounded day and night by a dis- ordered parrot-house, distracted by the screams of macaws and cockatoos striving to shout each other down. I am aware that for some reason the Americans are irritated by our own habit of under-statement: I have been told that the secret of good broadcasting is "the wish to communicate " ; but how the Americans can tolerate the giant emphasis of their own wireless passes my comprehension. To change from the American ser- vice to our own Home Programme is like, passing into a nunnery cloister from the Cairo bazaar.
* * * * The attitude of the British public towards the British Broad- casting Corporation is illuminating and instructive. The Press are hostile to the B.B.C., and on the whole I think it right that they should be so. A monopoly is a highly dangerous institution and one that is essentially obnoxious to our habits of thought ; when, for good reasons, we decide that a monopoly in an excep- tional case is preferable to its alternatives, it is salutary that the exercise of this monopoly should be exposed to constant public criticism and vigilance. I do not say that this criticism is always fair. The more popular newspapers probably resent the fact that the B.B.C. inculcates- a certain sense of proportion, avoids all stunts, and seeks to put the news of the day in a correct order of importance. Insensibly the authority and influence of the popular newspapers must be weakened by the fact that their readers notice that the B.B.C. does not even mention news items which are spread in large letters across the front page. In the subconscious wish to discredit the B.B.C. the newspapers' will report with prominence any mistake that may be committed or any error into which an official of Broadcasting House may have fallen. - If some very junior engineer at Daventry is had up for exceeding the speed limit, the newspapers will-report the circum- stance under the heading, "B.B.C. Official Charged." I have not observed that the B.B.C.'s news service gives prominence to such delinquencies as journalists may, since to err is human, commit.
* * Such occasional acts of unfairness are infrequent and due, not to considered malevolence, but to absent-minded movements of irritation. I repeat that it is a healthy thing that a monopoly should be surrounded by a thousand watchful and even angry eyes ; the only thing that I fear is that this somewhat irrespon- sible sniping may minister to what is the besetting sin of the B.B.C.—the sin of caution. Broadcasting House and its satellite offices, hotels, theatres, basements and garden cities are inhabited by ten thousand cautious men and women ; it is bad for the imagination never to take risks. A newspaper can publish a flagrant mis-statement or indulge in opinions which on the following day are proved to be wholly foolish ; but no fellow- newspaper will draw attention to such lapses, since dog only eats dog in the privacy of the basement ; but should the B.B.C. commit even the tiniest inaccuracy, then all the dogs of the country raise their voices to heaven in a chorus of derision. And yet, when the principle of the Corporation's charter, the essence of its terms of reference, are threatened by Governmental policy or intervention, suddenly all the Press (and it is really very much to their credit) rally in defence. All Governments do silly things, but the Government White Paper on the Beveridge Report appears to me to contain passages of idiocy that merit preserva- tion in some museum. It is a truly remarkable tribute to the position that the B.B.C., under the guidance of a wise Director- General, has established in the country that the Press of all shades have at this juncture been almost unanimous in insisting that no thoughtless changes shall be made. It is a clear indication that the British public, while taking pleasure in abusing the B.B.C. for everything that happens, including the weather, are not prepared to agree, when it comes to the point, that its funda- mental structure or policy' should be altered. That demonstrates the degree of confidence that has been created in all these years.
In all these years? I walked in yesterday to the exhibition that the B.B,C. have opened in Piccadilly. In so short a span of time the whole mechanism of broadcasting has been entirely altered. There are pictures of the old two-valve receiving sets with head- phones, pictures of the old " meat-safe " microphone, so cumbrous in comparison to the deft little honeycomb that now dangles above the desk. There was a device that enabled people to pass across a beam of light and to have their portraits flashed upon a little screen below where their friends could deride their self-conscious smirks. There was a device that enabled one to record one's voice and have it played back to one there and then. How curious it is to hear one's own voice speaking back to one from a machine! I had always supposed that my voice was shrill and impetuous, rather girlish in its way, eager, juvenile and quick.- Not at all. It is Mr. Gladstone who answers me ; bronchial, sonorous, deliberate, slow. I fail entirely to detect in my voice as recorded (and I have frequently listened to recorded versions of myself speaking) any intonations that I can associate with myself, or even any intonations that recall to me the inflexions of my family or friends. It is Mr. Gladstone, I fear, who speaks back to me from the machine ; aged and pompous is the voice I hear. It is a glum experience.
It is strange, when one visits the exhibition, to realise how the B.B.C. has expanded since those care-free Savoy Hill days. Those were the days of experiment, before the Corporation had become frightened of its own power, when the whole idea was an adventure, a gay escapade, a theme for variations. Those were the days before the expert laryngologists of Broadcasting House had perfected their formulas for correct enunciation or sought to condition their speakers to a uniform pattern of stereo- typed broadcasting. Those were the days when everybody knew each other and when the starlings chattered madly together around the Savoy Chapel. Those were the days before broad- casting became self-conscious or self-important ; the days when. it was sowing wild oats here and there ; the days before there were no wild oats left to sow. The days of youth.
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