(1) This memorandum deals with the arrangements made to ensure that B.B.C. News Bulletins, Home, Empire and Foreign, shall -
(a) conform, through the Ministry of Information, with Government policy;
(b) be made full and interesting, so as to command the confidence of listeners, who can and do compare what they hear from the B.B.C. with what they read in the newspapers and hear from other broadcasting stations.
(2) The system now in force to deal with (i) (a) above is, from the B.B.C. point of view, thorough and practical. Every item is checked with the appropriate official section - foreign affairs, the three fighting services, home security, etc. No item should be broadcast until it has been submitted for this official check, and no complaints on this count have, at any rate recently, been made.
(3) The system is less happy in its effect on (1) (b) above. After very careful consideration of the problem from its side of the fence, the B.B.C. cannot suggest how, under war conditions, any major changes could reasonably be asked for. There are, however, several relatively minor points, which are felt to be worth drawing to the attention of the Ministry. These are put down in a sincere wish to make the service as efficient a contribution as possible to the morale front. Before setting them down, the B.B.C. would like to make it quite plain that they are not complaints against sections or individuals. News broadcasters are getting a continual stream of help from their official advisers.
(4) The points for consideration are:-
(a) News has to go on the air at all hours of the day and night. Important bulletins go out in the late evening and in the early morning. News which cannot be ignored is naturally liable to come over the tapes just in time for these bulletins. This obvious fact sometimes puts both the B.B.C. and the duty officers whom they consult in a difficulty. A duty officer may, for example, have had guidance from his seniors some hours before, which does not help him with the particular item in hand. It does not always seen possible in practice for him to be able immediately to consult anyone very senior. It has sometimes even happened in such circumstances that successive junior duty
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-2-officers will reverse decisions of their predecessors on the rota. Or they may have to say, “We cannot give a decision on this point”. When in doubt, leave out” is clearly not a sound maxim, When newspapers and foreign broadcasters work under no such self- denying ordinance.
Could each section always have an officer of real seniority available, not necessarily in the Ministry, but for immediate consultation?
(b) It is clearly difficult for news broadcasters to rewrite communiqués or official handouts without danger to the balance and proportion of what is wanted. In practice, to avoid this danger, very little such rewriting is done, and, of course, what is done is always covered with the issuing authority. On the other hand, the style suited to the written word hardly ever reads well. There is no doubt that listeners would find bulletins more convincing, and easier to follow, if most of the official material were rewritten in a style easier to read aloud and to hear. This is not merely a matter of what would be ideally perfect, but a very practical day to day point. It applies equally to formal communiqués on the one side and, on the other, to official comments which amount to leading articles on the situation and, not infrequently, sound quite out of keeping with the general tone of the news.
Could the news editor in charge of each bulletin be instructed to recast official material into competent broadcast form whenever, as a man experienced in handling news broadcasting, he thinks it desirable?
(There would, of course, be no question of such revision going on the air until it had been checked, but, if it were to work, duty officers at the Ministry end would have to know that the system had been approved.)
(c) Talks in the news by named observers should, it is submitted, be treated with more freedom than are the anonymous parts of the bulletin. If too much is taken out of a news talk it loses individuality, and. has no good effect on listeners. The B.B.C. feels that these talks are being handled too severely, e.g. matter is taken out although it has been widely published already in the press.
Could news talks be treated, within the prudent limits of censorship, as being the remarks of an individual, and not cut because they do not read like an official statement?
(d) The general position over talks, whether in the body of the news, or as postscripts to the news, or in times specifically allotted to talk, is rather confused. The B.B.C. in peacetime tries to ensure a proper balance of programmes by planning talks ahead. Planning is at the moment impossible. Speakers, official and otherwise, are introduced into the programmes, often at the last moment, and not always because the subject could not have been more effectively treated as an announcement, or by some other speaker with a more
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- 3 -effective broadcasting voice. There is, further, the danger of the same theme being repeated independently. Much of this is, of course, inevitable. But if broadcasting is to be made full use of as an instrument of national propaganda, then all in authority should only put up speakers, from Cabinet rank downwards, remembering that anyone can be forced to the microphone, but no-one can be forced to listen.
Could the Broadcasting Division at the Ministry and, through that Division, those concerned at the B.B.C., always be given an opportunity to comment before a speaker (obviously with a few exceptions) is promised time?
(e) A “deadline” has, with the sanction of the Ministry, been put before each bulletin. The object of this deadline is to give us a few moments for the proper checking and assembling of items in a bulletin. It would help the News Department if all official bodies kept this always in mind, and avoided issuing bulletins in the last half hour.
Could every effort be made to work, in the compilation of official communiqués, to the same time discipline that necessity imposes on news editors?
(f) This is a final and general point. Broadcasting is listened to by millions of simple people. They are easily confused, easily bored, and quick to grow suspicious that facts are being withheld from them. Equally, they can be moved and led when spoken to vigorously in an idiom they understand. Determination never to make a mistake on the air is tending rather dangerously to take the life out of the service. The News Editor is inevitably, but none the less unfortunately, unable to exercise his own judgment. He cannot control each item so as to keep it in proportion, and he cannot use his own discretion in shaping the bulletin as a whole.
Could the importance of the positive side of the bulletins be brought to the notice of all official advisers? The negative side has, it is submitted, been too well catered for.
