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Getting Around Europe^s Blue Pencils
Ad-libbing a Lost Art Among Those Facing Mikes Abroad
Aynerican listeners, and radio men as well, have little idea how carefully each word broadcast from the European war centers must be weighed to avoid the censor's blue pencil. Baukhage, NBC commentator who appeared to be everywhere over there, knows about the restrictions and indulges in some interesting shop talk in these observations, now that he is back on American soil after two months in Europe.
By BAUKHAGE
NBC Commentator on International Affairs
THE FELLOW who invented the slogan "in Rome do as the Remans do" was no I'hapsodical poet; he was probably some relative of Marco Polo or one of his staff. After returning from a quick trip in the war zones and adjacent territory as NBC's roving international commentator, I'm sure the boy was right. I wasn't in Rome; but in Germany, Switzerland and France the sooner you learn to do it the way the natives do the better.
In the first place you learn to forget you ever heard of the phrase "ad lib". Ad-libbing is a lost art in Europe today and if the newsmen think they have cause to weep over the censorship, the broadcaster has a lot more ground for tears.
Somebody asked me what the chief difference in radio abroad and radio in this country was. The answer that came into my head first was this: Radio in America sells goods; in Europe it sells governments.
Efficient Germans
It would be hard to say which of the three governments under whose censorship I spoke censored the hardest. The Germans manage the job with such precision and dispatch that once one became accustomed to doing as the Romans do, their method proved the most painless. They have had a lot of experience. The French, when I left, had just passed the job over to the military, who were using a tank instead of a scalpel. Their leisurely methods, and the lack of a chance to talk it over, made the French method harder to get used to. Perhaps by now they have their system organized a little better with an eye to making it a less heartbreaking process for the broadcaster.
In both countries the objectives are largely the same: First, to withhold military or other information which might give aid and comfort to the enemy; second, to conserve sympathy abroad and morale at home.
In Switzerland any and all regulation of public expression has one concrete purpose; namely, to keep out of war. And that means the broadcaster has a triple censorship, the first to protect Switzerland's into nal interests ; the other two to keep from offending either belliger
TWO exciting months started Aug. 24 when Hilmar R. Baukhage, NBC commentator, packed his bag and was off for Port Washington, N. Y. to board a transatlantic plane one hour after receiving notice of the assignment. He returned from Europe Oct. 6 by plane.
ent. All radio censorship must be more rigid, Europeans argue, because of the immediacy and intimacy of the spoken word. A broadcast is tied more closely in the listener's mind to the nation from which he speaks than a dispatch in a newspaper printed in the reader's own home town.
Of course Europe is far more shortwave conscious than America. Therefore great effort, probably the major radio effort of each nation at war today is the broadcast aimed at foreign countries. The Germans have long worked on this phase, of course, but now they have redoubled these activities and German radio broadcasters and officials are working night and day with cots in many offices.
Telling the World
While I was in France I was present while 42 contestants were auditioned one afternoon (and none accepted) for jobs broadcasting shortwave to the United States. Only one spoke American, the rest either out-Englished Oxford or had a strong Gallic flavor.
Of course listening to foreign broadcasts in Germany is strictly forbidden (the penalty can be death). As one news-hungry listener put it to me, "It isn't worth the worry." Any disgruntled neighbor, discharged servant or other hyper-patriotic snooper can complain if he hears your radio going at a time when no authorized German broadcast is scheduled.
How widely German propaganda is listened to in France and elsewhere there is no way of knowing. Recently Berlin stations have been reported as telling the workers of the world that Germany is fighting shoulder to shoulder with Russia for the workers of the world against Capitalism. The French claim these appeals fall on deaf ears there.
As far as the American listener is concerned, censorship, bad as it is, doesn't stop a wide -awake American broadcaster abroad from
telling a pretty informative story. The usual amount of unbelief with which any good reporter must be endowed keeps him fairly immune to propaganda. I found that with a little tact and adroitness, in Germany at least, I could get through some ideas that might have been censorable had they been too baldly presented. The German censors made allowances for a certain amount of I'eportorial zeal on my part and censored without censure, frequently with apology. Sometimes with a generosity that surprised both me and my listeners.
I can't quarrel much with censorship in wartime. But gagging free speech in peacetime is another matter. It's well to remember that, while you can't have war without censorship, without some censorship in the first place you probably couldn't have a war.
W9XAA License Denied
DENIAL of a license renewal for W9XAA, international broadcast outlet operated bv the Chicago Federation of Labor in conjunction with WCFL, was ordered Oct. 23 by the FCC alonsr with dismissal of two other applications under which the station would have been voluntarily assifjned to the MoT-mon Church for oneration in Utah. On Sept. 13 [BROADCASTING, Sept. 1.5] the FCC issued proposed findings announcing its intention to deny all three applications. Because no exceptions were filed to the report, the proposed findings automatically were made the actual decision coincident with th" issuance of the order Oct. 23. The dismissal of the transfer application to Radio Service Corp., adjunct of the Mnrmon Church, was without prejudice and presumably leaves the way open for the Utah corporation to file a new application for the W9XAA facilities.
Newspapers Buy WTMA
WTMA. Charleston, S. C, which went on the air last June as a local outlet on 1210 kc, has been sold to the publishers of the Charleston News & Courier and Charleston Evening Post, subject to FCC approval. The purchase price was undisclosed. The newspaper interests have already assigned W. D. Workman Jr., of the newspapers' staff, to be manager of the station. Transfer will be from Y. W. Scarborough and J. W. Orvin, president and vice-president respectively of the Atlantic Coast Life Insurance Co., who secured the CP for the station in August 1938 and established it last summer.
KRBM, Bozeman, on Air
KRBM, Bozeman, Mont., new 100watt night and 250-watt daytime station on 1420 kc, went on the air Oct. 15 Under the management of Pat Goodover, with J. MacLeod as commercial manager and J. McGraw as chief engineer. The station is RCA equipped throughout, with a 164-foot Truscon tower. It is 50% owned by E. B. Craney, operator of KGIR, Butte, and 50% by Roberts B. MacNab Jr., Montar I and North Dakota hotel own
CBS War News
ALL CLIENTS and advertising agencies doing business with CBS have been advised of two new policies instituted at the network in regard to war broadcasts in a special communication signed by Paul Kesten, CBS vice-president. The letter states that, in regard to news broadcasts, the network has arranged a spaced schedule of news programs covering the European war, and that "advertisers are requested to make no plans for new or additional news broadcasts without prior consultation with CBS." Regarding war dramatizations, the letter said that "situations growing out of the present war are to be avoided either for drama on the air or as background for the presentation of other dramatic program material."
Elmer Davis Explains Reporting of War News
BREATH-TAKING pace and effect of radio news reporting, as reflected in radio's minute-to-minute coverage of the outbreak of war in Europe, is discussed by Elmer Davis, CBS news analyst, in his article, "Broadcasting the Outbreak of War" in the November Harpers. Mr. Rice, a veteran of both newspaper and radio journalism, decried newspapers' "hostility" toward broadcasters for being first with the news, and emphasized the need for cooperation between the two media in preserving their constitutional rights of freedom of speech and press.
Drawing from his experience with CBS before and during the outbreak of hostilities, Mr. Rice described the trials and tribulations of a radio news analyst in America, among them the incessant standing by for emergency commentaries, working in last-minute bulletins extemporaneously while a news broadcast is on the air, a working day of 18 hours although actual time on the air during that period might not total 60 minutes, and the continually ringing bells on the teletype which indicated bulletin after bulletin, all on the air within 30 seconds after receipt and 30 minutes before a newspaper extra could be on the street. He paid tribute to H. V. Kaltenborn for the "outstanding brilliance" of his day-by-day interpretations, and to Bob Trout, CBS special events announcer, for his handling of extemporaneous assignments and ability to get a "novice" out of a jam during a broadcast.
West Gets WTMV Control
THE FCC on Oct. 24 authorized transfer of control of WTMV. East St. Louis, 111., from Lester E. Cox to William H. West Jr., manager. Mr. Cox sells his 66% of the stock, totaling 370 shares, in equal parts to Mr. West and Carlin French, of East St. Louis. With the 130 shares already owned byMr. West, he becomes controlling stockholder. Purchase price for the Cox holdings was $50,00a.
WOLF are call letters assigned by the FCC for the new local station recently authorized in Syracuse, N. Y. [BeoadCASTING, Oct. 151.
Page 20 • November 1, 1939
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