Members of Parliament always like to get in a hit
at the Press or the B.B.C. when they can, but I cannot think the charge of the premature announcement of Brigadier Mallaby's death has much substance. The news was cabled home by Reuter's, and obviously it was very important news. A paper has a duty to its readers, and it is not justified in withholding important news without strong
justification. The only justification in this case would be the fact that Brigadier Mallaby's wife had not been informed, but that could only be ascertained by ringing her up—the very step to which, with much more reason, emphatic exception was taken in the House. 11 anyone is to blame it is the authorities. They might reasonably have been expected to get news of this kind to London before a newspaper correspondent could, and it appears that instructions exist that no public announcement of an unhappy event of this kind should be made till the relatives had been informed. If that is so the papers— and the B.B.C.—had every ground for assuming that Brigadier Mallaby's widow had had the news before they published it. The broadcasting of conjectures, in cables from the spot, regarding the manner of Brigadier Mallaby's death is a different matter ; but here again a decision is not as simple as it sounds.
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