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Your Ref: R.C. /170

CONFIDENTIAL

The Director General,

Ministry of Information,

Malet Street, W.C.1.

REUTERS,

85, Fleet Street,

E.C.4.

27th December. 1940.

Sir,

We have received your letter of December 24 about the inclusion of enemy communiqués in our overseas news services. This is a difficult question and one which we have discussed on more than one occasion with your Ministry since the beginning of the war. It is not easy to find a correct solution, and we would welcome an opportunity, as proposed in your letter, to discuss the problem with you. We hope you will let us know when this will be convenient.

In the meantime, before a decision is reached, we should like you to consider the following points:-

1) There is no embargo in this country upon the publication of official enemy communiqués. Many of the newspapers publish them. If we eliminate them from our overseas news services we might convey the implication that recipients of our news outside Great Britain are inferior in perspicacity to people in this country: we would certainly convey the implication that REUTERS, as a British news agency is less independent than the press of the United Kingdom.

2) The main reason for REUTERS’ ability to hold its own in competition with other news agencies is that it has a reputation for impartiality. If we suddenly start omitting enemy official communiqués from a service which is supposed to be a full service of world news the impression will be created either that we fear the contents of these communiqués, or that we have submitted our service to Government control.

3) Newspaper editors abroad desire to know, for the purposes of comment, what the Germans officially state. If we withhold this intelligence from newspapers, they may not necessarily go so far as to give up our service, but they will turn their eyes towards other services which supply them with fuller and more impartial news. The American agencies, whose increasing competition REUTERS is having to face throughout the world, give very full publicity in their services, not only to the German official communiqués, but to general comment and news from enemy territory.

In the Far East REUTERS is feeling increasingly the pressure of these services. In the British colony of Hongkong the UNITED PRESS, with extensive news from enemy territory, is permitted by the authorities to supply newspapers which in the old days depended only upon REUTERS. If we fail to give newspapers what at least appears to be an impartial and full service, they will merely be encouraged to turn to other sources which contain not only the communiqués, but in addition much material which is more damaging.

4) From the beginning of the war HAVAS adopted the practice of carrying the German communiqués in full in its overseas service. It will arouse comment if REUTERS, as a free agency of the British Empire, is restrained from doing what HAVAS, the official French agency, is permitted to do.

5) For technical reasons it is not possible to include enemy communiqués in our World Wireless Service (GLOBEREUTER) for some recipients and to exclude them for others: if we include the communiqués, as desired, for South Africa, they will be available for all the other receivers of the GLOBEREUTER service.

In referring to the above points we are thinking principally in terms of our service as received in North and South America, South Africa, the Far East, Egypt and the Middle East, India and British colonial possessions.

In British territory a feasible procedure is for the local authorities, if they wish, to prohibit publication of enemy communiqués. But even this has objections on account of the fact that the communiqués are widely heard by listeners to foreign broadcasting stations. Publication may often be the best antidote to rumour and exaggeration spread as a result of listening to broadcasts.

From REUTERS’ point of view the dangers involved in omitting enemy communiqués from our overseas news services do not equally apply to the service which we send out for European recipients. For reasons which need not be described here we could, if desired, exclude enemy communiqués entirely from our Continental service.

With regard to other overseas territories we trust that you will suspend judgement pending the discussion which you have been good enough to propose, and for which Mr. C.J. Chancellor, the Joint General Manager in charge of this matter, will hold himself at your disposal.

Yours faithfully,

(Sgd.) RODERICK JONES

CHAIRMAN AND MANAGING DIRECTOR.