PRESS FREEDOM

New Zealand Listener, Volume 10, Issue 256, 19 May 1944, Page 9

PRESS FREEDOM

Commission of Inquiry

U.S.A. will be the subject of a two-year study by a_ recentlyorganised Commission of Inquiry, made possible by a grant of funds from Time, Inc., publishers of Time, Life and Fortune, it has been announced by Dr. Robert M. Hutchins, President of the University. of Chicago. of the press in the Dr. Hutchins, who appointed the commission of educators, business leaders and lawyers, has accepted the chairmanship of the commission, which will contain no members of the Press. He emphasised that the commission will be entirely independent of Time, Inc., and the University of Chicago. The latter, however, will administer the funds. Headquarters will be established in New York City, where a permanent research staff will be engaged in assisting the commission in its two-year survey of radio, newsreels and documentary films. "The function of the commission is to begin an inclusive inquiry into the nature, functions, duties and responsibilities of the Press in America-using the word press in its broadest sense, to include not only everything that is printed, but also the radio, the newsreel and the documentary film," said Dr. Hutchins. "Moreover, the commission will consider the Press and readers in their wholeness-news, editorial expression, columnists, departments, features, advertising, etc.-and not news content only. The commission will not be a merely deliberative body. "We hope the importance of the task will be.so apparent that the newspaper publishers and editors will be glad to appear before it to give testimony on their experiences in operating a free Press, And we shall hope to hear not only from ivory tower editors, but also from reporters, desk men, research associates, advertising and circulation directors-and readers." Dr. Hutchins also explained that areas and circumstances under which the Press is succeeding or failing will be examined. The commission hopes, he said, to discover whether free expression is limited or not, and whether governmental censorship, reader pressure, the advertiser, or timid management, is responsible for limitations discovered. Members of the commission include: Zechariah Chafee, Jr., Professor of Law at gg vo University;* John M. Clark, Professor Economics at Columbia John + Generel counsel of the Pennsylvania Railioad; liam E. Hocking, Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University; Robert D. Leigh, director of the Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service; Archibald McLeigh, librarian of Congress; Charles E. Merriam, Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago; Reinhold Niebuhr Professor at Union Theological Seminary; Robert nee, Dean of the Social Sciences at University of Chicago; Beardsley Ruml, chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York; Arthur Schlesinger, Professor of History at Harvard University, and George Shuster, president of Hunter College.