Broadcasting (Jan - June 1940)

Capital Radio Reporters First Year WHEN the Radio Correspondents Assn. held its first annual banquet in Washington May 23, Albert L. Warner (center), assumed the presidency. Here Fulton Lewis jr., (second from left), MBS commentator, founder and first president, congratulates Warner, CBS capital commentator. At left is William R. McAndrews, NBC, new vice-president. At right are Fred Morrison, Transradio Press, secretary, and Stephen McCormack, MBS, treasurer. Officers were installed at a dinner May 23. Washington News Corps Enjoying a Rapid Growth The author of this article %vas for 10 years a prominent Washington newspaper correspondent and is a member of the fumed Gridiron Club. His last neivspaper assignment, before becoming Washington correspondent for CBS, ivas the chieftaincy of the 'New York Herald Tribune' Washington bureau. On May 20 he was elected 19U0 president of the Radio Correspondents Assn., succeeding Fulton Lewis Jr., MBS commentator, founder and first president of the association. By ALBERT WARNER IN MID-MAY the radio correspondents of Washington finished their first year of complete recognition on an equal footing with the representatives of the press in the nation's capital. Given our own seats in the Congressional Galleries, our own correspondents' rooms in the Capitol, and admitted to all the Presidential and Cabinet press conferences, we were acknowledged, last June, for the first time, an important part of the Washington newsgathering corps. And this summer for the first time there will be reportorial seats assigned to radio newsmen at the national conventions. This acceptance of the Washington radio correspondent may be explained perhaps in the fact that the May 20 meeting, this year, of the Radio Correspondents Assn. in Washington was attended by 40 members. At the Source Forty radio correspondents in Washington! Two years ago you didn't even hear of radio news staffs. The growth is, I think, due not only to the network correspondents whose work has been in the forefront of public attention because of the fact that they actually go on the air. It is due also to newsgathering and editing staffs and to the emergence of a new type of radio correspondent who covers Washington news for a single station or regional network, and whose news is brought to the radio audience indirectly, by filing wire reports to the station he represents. I think this is an extremely interesting development in radio's coverage of news, acknowledging something I have always felt : That radio has depended a little too much on the services of press tickers. To interpret news without having a first-hand contact with the source of that news and those who make it is a difficult job indeed. It is particularly difficult for the newsman whose report is given directly by radio. Coming so new to radio, it's natural that I should be aware of the similarities and differences between press and radio coverage of Washington's news. I suppose what struck me in making the change from newspaper to radio was radio's personal touch — that direct communication between the reporter and the listener, the tone of voice, the inflection, the personality which a radio correspondent inevitably inflicts upon the listener. A talk is apparently a much more personal thing to the listener than a newspaper article is to the man who reads it. Now a Personality My name was on the front page of a New York newspaper with bylines over Washington articles for a good many years during a period in which there was absorbing interest in Washington activities. Except for a very occasional letter from an acquaintance, and once in a long while from an outsider, I never heard from anyone except other newspapermen. I suspect that newspapermen are the only people who bother to look at bylines over news articles in the papers. On the other hand, I was immediately struck by the number of people who are interested in the radio speaker as a personality. My fan mail is not so voluminous that I have difficulty in answering it, but the fact that any complete strangers should take the trouble to write notes indicates what a difference there is between the way people listen to radio news and the way they read a newspaper. , One of my first postals was received from a gentleman in New Jersey who said something to this effect: "You are just a loudmouthed anti-New Dealer spouting chamber of commerce stuff. I and all my friends are going to turn off the radio when you come on." Three weeks later I was amazed to receive another postal from the same gentleman saying: "I was mistaken. I think you are being fair. Good luck!" Then there are people who are touched off into flowery letters or into criticism by a word picture or a phrase. Not so long ago I went to a press conference conducted by the economic negotiators for Brit ain and France — economists who were trying to straighten out irritations in the diplomatic relations between the Allies and the United States. One of the Britishers seemed to me a typical Englishman, and I happened to mention on the air that he wore baggy trousers. A postcard the next day informed me that I had insulted the English, and that my adjective had proved me a German propagandist of the worst stripe. I replied that my own trousers were frequently baggy. Radio reporting is thus to a considerable extent subjective because of the effect of the broadcaster's personality on the listener. But the necessity for objective reporting is equally obvious. If you write for a particular newspaper, you are often writing for a particular class of readers. Some of the material emphasized in the Ne%v York Evening Post, a liberal paper, is often quite different from material emphasized in the conservative New York Sun. On the radio, you have no particular group of listeners; in fact, you have the most cosmopolitan audience that you could probably find anywhere. You could not satisfy those listeners for very long if you were not reasonable, fair, and objective. You could not serve the public interest if you did not have these qualities. A Growing Corps Combining the color of events, the interpretation of them, and the personal touch with objectivity and impartiality is the task of the radio correspondent. It is not an easy one. In Washington is growing a corps of experienced reporters, now devoting themselves to radio, who know their job and keep at it. This is the basis for any good reporting — radio or newspaper. In Fulton Lewis, in Earl Godwin, in H. R. Baukhage, and I hope in myself, we have old-fashioned reporters who ought to know what is going on and why. In the days just before the war broke out, and onward as foreign affairs topped everything in the news, I have practiced calling on at least four or five First Annual Banquet Held by Radio Reporters FIRST ANNUAL dinner of the Radio Correspondents Assn., held May 23 in the Mayflower Hotel, Washington, was such a great success that the party is destined to take its place in importance with the annual dinner of the White House Correspondents Assn. Postmaster General James A. Farley led the list of guests from official life, which included Senator Warren Barbour, of New Jersey; Senator John Danaher, of Connecticut; William D. Hassett, White House secretary; Gen. George C. Marshall, chief of staff, U. S. Army; Rep. John J. Dempsey, of New Mexico; Rep. Sol Bloom, of New York; Rep. J. William Ditter, of Pennsylvania. Senator Barbour and Rep. Dempsey were largely instrumental in helping Fulton Lewis Jr. secure changes in rules last year setting up Congressional radio galleries on a par with the press. Besides members of the association, the guests included Niles Trammell, executive vice-president, NBC; Frank Mullen and Edward McGrady, RCA vice-presidents; Frank M. Russell, Washington vicepresident, NBC; A. J. McCosker, president of WOR and chairman of the board of MBS; Theodore Streibert, vice-president, MBS; Harry C. Butcher, Washington vice-president, CBS; William B. Dolph, manager, WOL; Herbert L. Pettey, manager, WHN ; Earl Godwin and George Durno, former presidents, White House Correspondents Assn.; Ruby Black, president. Women's National Press Club; Kenneth H. Berkeley, Fred Shawn and Carleton Smith, WRC-WMAL; Wells Church, radio director, Republican National Committee; G. W. Johnstone, radio director. Democratic National Committee; Louis Ruppell, publicity director, CBS ; A. D. Willard Jr., manager, WJSV; Ray Tucker, newspaper columnist; Victor Sholtis, special assistant to the Secretary of Commerce; Michael J. McDei-mott, chief of the Division of Current Information, Dept. of State; D. Harold McGrath, superintendent. Senate Radio Gallery; Robert M. Menaugh, superintendent. House Radio Gallery. THE corps of Washington radio correspondents and commentators, members of the Radio Correspondents Assn., was included with members of the press corps on the guest list for the White House "press" reception the evening of May 21. different officials in the State Department every day, including an assistant secretary of state or two. This is in addition to the press conference with Secretary Hull. Add to that a visit to Congress and to the War Department and contact with the White House. If then I could not give an ample, accurate, and fair presentation of the attitude, opinions, and predictions of official Washington, it would be my fault. Washington's radio correspondents celebrate, in the first anniversary of their recognition as an integral part of the Capitol's newsgathering machine, the recognition of the care and thoroughness and difficulty which are part of the radio correspondejit's job. June J, 1940 • Page 47 BROADCASTING • Broadcast Advertising