SO THE SCANDAL of the press intrusion after the Munich
air crash turns out to have been no scandal; simply a misunderstanding. I can sym- pathise with Mr. Milward of BEA; apparently he had been woken up by reporters the night before to comment on some silly hint of sabotage that had got into the Mail, though he had earlier made it perfectly clear that sabotage was not suspected. But natural irritation with the press should not have led him to try pompously to take charge of proceedings when he arrived at the hospital the next day to find the photographers (most of them of other nationalities) busy; nor, having failed to organise them in the way he wished, should he have written that letter to The Times. For on one point every British newspaperman who was present agrees : with a single minor exception, everything that was done by the representatives of the British press was with the consent, and indeed the active co-operation, of the hospital authorities. The exception was an Express photo- grapher who smuggled in a camera (in, it is thought, a cake tin) to get the photograph of a birthday party which later appeared in the Sunday Express. No very heinous offence! But it did break an agreed ruling on what pictures could be taken, and when. In other words, in this case the fuss was unnecessary. But with the Mail in its present schizophrenic condition—on the one hand soliciting advertisements for its respect- ability from cod establishment figures; on the other, trying to beat the Express at the stunt game—intrusions are likely to happen, particu- larly when the Express is driven to retaliation.
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