BROADCASTING FRONT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 29 November 1939, Page 2

BROADCASTING FRONT

UNCEASING WARFARE. METHODS OF THE 8.8. C. One of the most interesting “fronts” of the war is the broadcasting services of the various belligerents. It is in action for 24 hours of the clay, and there is a continuous stream, of attacks and counter-attacks. The 8.8. C. listens carefully to the various German stations, and is prompt in replying to deliberate fabrications. Neutrals’ talks are also noted. A "listening post” to pick up news and propaganda broadcast from stations all over the. world was set up by the 8.8. C. at. the request of the Ministry of Information on the outbreak of war to keep the British Government posted day and night with broadcast material. Twice a day a convoy of messengers leaves with 25 bulky packages for delivery to 25 Government agencies. Each package contains a swiftly compiled and carefully documented summary running to 15,000 words of the mass of material contained in foreign broadcasts. A stall! of 40 expert linguists—they , call them "monitors" —distributed in centres whose location is equally secret, is engaged ceaselessly, 24 hours a day and seven days a week, in picking up - programmes broadcast from every transmitting station of importance. No word in a foreign broadcast of war news is missed. Every hint, in word or intonation, which suggests how public opinion in a faraway neutral country may be changing is noted. Messages are noted, translated, and dictated to shorthand typists. These extracts are then passed on to a staff of specially selected men, chosen for ] their knowledge of foreign affairs and for their political judgment, who sift ; them and make up the summaries I which are forwarded to the 25 Government agencies, which include every , department directly concerned in the | prosecution of the war. Some 250,000 words are sifted every 24 hours, the "monitors'’ and foreign experts working in four shifts. From time to time an important foreign speech is taken down verbatim. When Ribbentrop made his declaration at Danzig his.words were mechanically recorded. If he catches unexpectedly a passage of unusual importance, the man with the earphones can switch on a dictaphone to pick it up. Any scrap of information which is deemed to be of special urgency is telephoned immediately to the Government departments known to be interested. The volume of the German wireless propaganda to all parts of the world has frequently received a great deal of publicity; the reception given it has not been so conspicuous. Judging by reactions in England since the war, the Germans have completely failed. Their news bulletins broadcast nightly from Zeesen, Hamburg and Cologne have become a source of entertainment and amusement. The Nazi insistence on the sinking of the Ark Royal, Repulse, and other naval ships has merely had the effect of the talks being ridiculed. Two of these German announcers are apparently of British nationality. The others seem to have polished up their • English by studying the 8.8. C. Tire latest idea in German propaganda directed to Britain is a dialogue between a supposedly typical Englishman and a German, designated "Fritz." Specious Nazi arguments are expounded by Fritz in guttural, barely intelligible English. His “English” friend puts the “hypocritical” British viewpoint in speech freely interlarded with such expressions as "By Jove," ”1 say. old chap," "Really, you know.” Hitherto the 8.8. C. has shunned the technique of constant repetition so , much favoured by Russia and Gert many, but long excerpts from the t White Paper disclosing the horrors of Nazi concentration camps were broad- _ cast for several days. . The German announcers have been ■ nicknamed bi’ . listeners. One is known as “Lord Haw Haw" and ant other as “Petulent Percy."