Page:Columbia Journalism Review volume 2 issue 1.djvu/5

and a majority interest in a radio-television combina- tion), the Ridder group (two newspapers and a minority interest in the same combination), Time Inc. (a television station), and a flour-milling com- pany (a television station). Such cases may simply indicate that local, undiver- sified companies no longer can maintain themselves in big-city journalism. If so, the trend should be of some concern. Newspapers, and to a lesser degree radio and television, are local institutions. There is a sad contradiction in the potential exclusion of local ownership and responsibility from local metropolitan journalism. Darts and laurels I Well done: NBC and CBS showed the worth of the "flash documentary" technique in their reports (an hour and a half-hour respectively) on the Thresher tragedy. | Further indications that many publications might investigate possible "payola" in their own ranks: The recent special report of the Securities and Exchange Commission cites a string of cases where financial journalists received allotments of "hot" new stocks. Subversion: purifying the press | No credit to the newspapers (the Chicago Tribune and the San Diego Union, to nam Representative Bruce of Indiana suck them into giv- ing prominence to his unsupported charge of February 4 that there were forty offensive missiles in Cuba. The Senate's Internal Security Subcommittee, no- table for its examination of the New York press in 1955 and 1956, continues its studies in journalism. The year so far has produced these results: Senator Dodd of Connecticut, acting chairman, held hearings on the management of the Pacifica Foundation, which operates non-profit radio stations in California and New York. He said he was looking for "Communist control over our mass media." two) that let There may or may not have been forty; but there is no evidence that Representative Bruce knew any more about it than the managing editors of the papers. | Observed with confusion: the continued use by news magazines of spurious dates of issue. Newsweek's issue of April 29, for example, covers news only to April 21. Time is considerably closer; its issue dated April 26 is only five days off. U.S. News and World Report's issue dated April 29 contains nothing newer than April 20. (There is a tiny note on the cover: Senator Dodd made an incidental suggestion- that members of subversive organizations be identi- fied as such when they appear on the air or when their bylines appear over printed articles. The subcommittee issued a study, "Attempts of Pro-Castro Forces to Pervert the American Press." In it, Carlos Todd (head of the Cuban Information Service of Coral Gables) found pro-Castroism in "Distributed During Week of April 22...On News- stands Until Cover Date.") The practice may prolong reports from correspondents to the St. Louis Post- Dis patch, NBC-TV, CBS-TV, and Time. Clearly, the Internal Security Subcommittee has a continuing interest in keeping pure the channels of American journalism. It deserves the support of every journalist who believes that Thomas Jefferson was part of the Communist conspiracy. sales, but how is the newsstand buyer to know which week's news he is purchasing? 1 Condolences to AP and UPI, who can handle nationwide elections without faltering, but were com- pletely overturned by the Michigan constitutional vote in March. One had the constitution defeated; the other had it winning overwhelmingly. (It won in a close vote.) Salute The Review normally refrains from writing about its parent, the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia. However, as publications and broadcasters across the country salute the institution on its fiftieth anniversary, it seems appropriate to join in. The Review reserves its particular bow for the school's hundreds of hard-working alumni, many of whom have been among this magazine's most effective eyes I The San Francisco Chronicle has forbidden its sports writers to serve as official scorers at baseball games. There is no telling where this example may lead. More papers might end up paying their own way, instead of letting bascball clubs pick up the tab. Or it could mean the most drastic step of all-letting man- aging editors purchase their own box seats. I Nomination for the most common error among and ears. men who should know better: "The media is..." Spring, 1963 3