Bickel v. Stimson

Will radio eventually supplant newspapers as the prime means of disseminating news? Journalists, disquieted over the question since the perfection of broadcasting, not only had a Cause last week; they had an Issue. President Karl August Bickel of the United Press was distressed that Secretary of State Henry Lewis Stimson and other U. S. delegates at the London Naval Conference had consistently refused to give personal interviews but had frequently spoken their personal views over the radio. After Secretary Stimson himself spoke over the radio last fortnight, Mr. Bickel cabled him:

'. . . It is true that these statements were given to the Press simultaneously with their radio delivery but this was a valueless concession as in no case could material be published by papers until from

12 to 36 hours after radio delivery. . . ." Secretary Stimson replied that the method of dealing with newsmen at the Conference was to give them the facts as they developed, assuming that the Press would "do its own interpreting.'1

Such speeches as were made by the delegates, he explained, were "their own interpretations" of the news facts. Mr. Stimson did not explain why U. S. delegates could not give "their own interpretations" to the newspapers.

Justly or unjustly, U. S. journalists suspect that the situation might have been different had the U. S. delegation's publicity been put in other hands than those of Arthur Wilson Page. Mr. Page is vice president of American Telephone & Telegraph Co. (cofounder of, though no longer officially connected with Radio Corp.), son of late great Ambassador to Great Britain, Walter Hines Page.

Commenting further, said President Bickel: "'Naturally if the Press abdicates, radio will move in, and in this case apparently Stimson and Page as chief liaison men were importuned by the radio people to give them talks and the newspaper industry apparently simply sat idly by and let them get away with it. ... That was certainly a humiliating position for American newspapers regardless of how excellently it demonstrated the initiative and ability of the radio people."

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