2 AUGUST 1946, Page 12

" CERTAIN SECTIONS OF THE PRESS "

Sta,—In his gentle rebuke to the Methodist Conference, Janus has missed the main points of the Conference protest against the action of the B.B.C. and " certain sections of the Prgss." First, we do not object

to the prominence given to the fact that "in ten years there has been a decrease of 83,000 members in Great Britain," though the last three words were not added. We are almost unique among the various com- munions in the prominence we give year by year to such figures. But the inference drawn that " the Methodist Church is slowly dying out " was a travesty of the facts. We protested against the selection of that unfortunate phrase (which Janus himself calls exaggerated) to be broad- cast throughout the country, when the amazing increase of members in our Church-work overseas which was announced in the Conference three days previously received no notice whatever. Second, in voicing the general indignation I was careful to make exception of the religious papers, and The Times, which have treated the proceedings of the Methodist Conference generously and with the respect due to a body which forms part of a world-wide communion. I spoke only of " certain sections of the Press," and of the news-bulletin of the B.B.C. as descend- ing to that unfortunately low level of journalism. Janus speaks as if the protest was indiscriminating.

Third, a much larger question was raised—namely the standard of that type of journalism for which a decrease of church membership is "news," and a report of increase is not "news," and is therefore ignored by "certain sections of the Press." We of the Churches are accustomed, of course, to such distortions of the truth, and on that very day the Archbishop of Canterbury, in his speech to the Methodist Conference, had made an allusion to this unpleasant habit of distortion. The increase of the world-wide Church in its various traditions, despite alarming retrogression in Europe and in England, is " the great new fact of our time." The phrase is that of William Temple, and the proof of that fact in the monumental work of Latourette had been noted in an official utterance of the Methodist Conference which had been duly sent to the Press Association. Not a whisper of this in "certain sections of the Press"! The Spectator, I know, has another standard of truth. "Certain sections of the Press" are busy in alienating public opinion at the moment. It is surely wisdom to erect and defend another standard of journalism than theirs.—I am, Sir, Yours faithfully,