BATTLE OF THE AIR

New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 55, 12 July 1940, Page 12

BATTLE OF THE AIR

Who Is Winning The War In America ?

HE United States has become another of Europe’s. battlegrounds. Twenty-four hours a day, the air hums with the sounds of Europe’s long-distance aerial bombardment. From London, Paris, Rome and Berlin, words are exploding on American ears-soft words, sour words, invective; bluster, and vainglory;, untruths and half-truths, and that subtler distortion achieved by the omission of unpalatable facts. Enormous sums are being spent to reach Americans directly in their homes, and thus influence their opinions. How’ far are the European broadcasters succeeding? After seven months of warfare, it is already: possible to draw some interesting conclusions. . The receiving situation in.the United States is full of possibilities. There are in the United States some 30,000,000 radio sets; or one to every three: adults; On the basis of past surveys, it would appear that about 1,000;000: people are listening fairly regularly to European broadcasts. ‘These ‘listeners, © moreover, exercise an influence greater than their numbers might suggest. They are (since they take the trouble to tune in to Europe), more internationally minded than the average, more keenly interested in the course of the war. They will inevitably. talk. about what. they have heard. "from the other side"; they will in all probability take sides violently, and repeat facts and arguments used by the European broadcasters. The spoken word, so far from being lost, actually gathers an audience, and impsrceptibly influences its opinions or strengthens its prejudices,

European Offices in New York The interest in overseas programmes is further being stimulated (intentionally or otherwise) both from at home and from abroad. A number of newspapers feature a column on the "shortwave" war. What is more, the European stations are themselves prompt to answer all requests for information, The. BBC and Radio Roma have branch offices in New York. Berlin is no less solicitous about the American public, and has its own ways. and means of keeping in

contact with that public, as the following incident will show: .Early.in. November, a Listening Centre was set up in Princeton, N.J., to study and write about European broadcasts to the . United States. Before the creation of the Centre was’ announted in the press, its director had received an unsolicited

folder from Berlin containing a friendly letter and advance programme information. The BBC. The BBC-and this is an all-import-ant consideration-has far:and away the best transmitter of all the European capitals. On a good set, London can be heard more clearly than a number of .home stations. Broadcasting on a _ round-the-clock ‘schedule; the’ BBC has six news summaries and eight half-hour news-casts in English on the North, Central, and South American frequencies, and London offers a comprehensive selection of topical talks. For several reasons, however, the BBC is not at present producing as much impact on American public opinion as the scope and quality of its material would warrant. On the score of veracity, Americans have no fault to find with the British radio. Most people are agreed that, allowing for wartime conditions, the BBC is as truthful as could reasonably be expected. The universal complaint is that the method of presentation is dull, Americans are accustomed to fastmoving, highly condensed yet colourful news bulletins and commentaries. One

of the main jobs of a radio editor is to dramatise the news. The announcer's job is then to make it sound exciting. A foreigner’ hearing an American radio news-cast for the first time might well imagine that the day of judgment had arrived. The main reason for this failing is that the BBC’s overseas transmissions are designed for the Empire. An Englishman or a Colonial would find the American style of radio reporting noisy, vulgar, and incredibly confusing. A solution would be for the BBC to experiment with a number of special transmissions for the United States, preferably with an American announcer. Berlin's Paradoxical Advantage This is precisely what Berlin is trying to do, It is aiming the spoken word directly at Uncle Sam. London is talking to the Colonies and Dominions, knowing that Americans will be listening in, and trusting mainly to luck that they will be interested. Aside from this tactical advantage, Berlin is enjoying a strategical advantage which will strike many as highly paradexical. The Nazis have sunk so low in the minds of Americans that.they can ‘sink no lower. Thus when the BBC reports harrowing tales of atrocities in Poland or Czechoslovakia, of the indiscriminate sinking of neutral ship--

ping, and the bombing and machinegunning of defenceless crews, the average American listener is no longer violently aroused. Six years of Nazi barbarism have just about exhausted his capacity for surprise and indignation. What is more, compared to the explosive denunciations of the Nazis that appear daily in the columns of Dorothy Thompson and other. influential American writers, the gentlemanly reproofs of the BBC appear tame, and that-is not a quality that arouses in Americans much enthusiasm, Fortunately for the Allies, the Nazis have rendered their case ludicrous by overstatement. The columns of the American newspapers are a daily refutation of the broadcasts from Berlin, The propaganda technique of Dr. Goebbels is based on the assumption that the audience addressed is totally ignorant of the true facts. Its success in a country as admirably informed as the United States is correspondingly limited. Nazis to be Reckoned With The influence of the Nazi radio campaign on United States public opinion should not, however, be under-estimated, ludicrous though Berlin may sound to British ears. The explosive style and en-

venomed argumentation of the Nazis carries weight with the less educated and worse informed sections of the public. The nuisance value of the Deutschlandsender is all the greater in that the task before it is the relatively simple one of reinforcing America’s instinctive desire to keep her hands off Europe, whereas the BBC has to enlist some form of support more positive than that represented by the present Neutrality Law. If the war spreads further afield, the importance cf radio propaganda will increase enormously. In this connection, it is significant that the most popular slogan of radio advertisers in the United States has already become: "Hear the news direct from Europe — for doll. 29.50." With the advertiser at work, the number cf shortwave listeners will be doubled in no time. The victories in this field of action will of necessity not be spectacular. They should not for that reason be regarded lightly. Their importance in the final count may well prove greater than that of material successes on the battlefronts. The vital significance to Europe of America’s actions, and even of her sympathies, is appreciated by all. And America has not said her last word-~ not by any means!

The author of this article, which. was written in America by Charles J. Rolo, and reprinted in several English magazines, looks at the shortwave radio battle in America from the point of view of a worker for the Princeton Listening Centre, a project organised in the U.S.A. to study the technique of radio propaganda during the present war. His information is based on analysis of more than 1,000 transcriptions of radio broadcasts from London, Paris, Rome and Berlin