TOO MANY "COINCIDENCES"

Marlborough Express, Volume LXXVI, Issue 251, 24 October 1942, Page 5

TOO MANY "COINCIDENCES"

PREFERENCE SHOWN THE B.B.C.

P.A. Gable..

LONDON, Oct. 22.

The B.B.C.'s "live" broadcast oi Field Marshal Smuts' speech before the official release time caused widespread dissatisfaction among overseas news agencies and British afternoon papers. The Press Association, representing the home news serviee of the entire British press, says: "British evening papers on 'grounds of security' were denied permission to refer to the event before the end of the speech, which was 59 minutes after the meeting started. It was officially urged that the need for security was so important that the world must not.be aware of the proceedings before Field Marshal Smuts sat down. South African journalists were among those waiting to flash the release overseas. The text had been in every newspaper office for hours, and if it had been released directly Marshal Smuts began it would have been displayed prominently in the five o'clock editions throughout Britain. Once again by one of those 'mischances," accidents or coincidences, of which there have been so many since the outbreak of war, the B.B.C. was put in a preferential position, and while the evening papers were loyally abstaining for security reasons from publication their self-denial was negatived by a prominent shortwave Lroadcast. The decision- that a 'live' broadcast was important was apparently taken during the day and there v/as plenty of time to inform the Censorship and News Divisions of the Ministry of Information, who were vitally coneerned, but somehow someone forgot. This is typioal of the co-ordination between Departments and to-day the resentment and annoyance of the press as a whole is sv/elled by the consternation and indignation of ofiicials of the Censorship and News Divisions, who feel that their honour is involved and they have been badly let down. Tney would, if they had been aware of the decision, have taken steps to place the evening papers in Britain and the overseas press on equal terms with. the B.B.C."