STRAIGHT NEWS
SIR,—Mr. Wilson Harris raised a vital issue in his plea fa straight news. Unfortunately his suggestion that the newspaper reader has only to change to another daily to get straight news is nullified by the simple fact that no newspaper today, or for that matter before the or' published such news. Space compels condensation, and the moothi an editor is free to depart from the text, especially 3n tx case of a speech such as Mussolini's, he is free to omit those pa5sagel which are unwelcome for one reason or another. Nowadays 00. newspapers print their version from the translation issued hurriewl be a new, agency. This is, in many cases, merely a summary, or a version ad usum delphint. n seems to me that this state of affairs is of minor importance miring war when there is no reason to put the enemy's case too Inourably before the public, but in peace time, surely the public are entitied to the true version. And what about the elected representa- tives of the people? They are equally debarred from the true version, end I have marvelled at the slipshod material on which members of tab Houses base important speeches on Foreign Affairs. So far as I am aware, there is only one accurate source open to the public and the members of the Houses of Parliament, namely the radio. But only a very few listeners are linguists, and the number of persons qualified to follow a speech in German, Russian or Italian are few.
Before and immediately after the outbreak of war some very important speeches were delivered abroad which were only reported in summary form in our Press. I recall a speech by the German Foreign Minister which was in reality an exposé of Polish-German negotiations by the German Ministry for Foreign Affairs. A leading London daily, which aims at accuracy in such matters, published a truncated news-agency version which missed the point again and again. *Yet the leader-page contained a notice in -heavy type to the effect that a full report appeared on page so and so. I wrote to a prominent M.P. on that occasion asking if he had any means of obtaining an accurate version of a speech such as this, and enquiring how his colleagues obtained their information. He replied that the House took what the Press provided,—and that it was on this inadequate basis that debates were conducted. A member could, he thought, apply to the B.B.C. for a verbatim report, but he had never
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