Broadcasting (Jan - June 1943)

Don't Get Smug, Price Warns NAB Censor Chief Praises Industry for Code Cooperation By BYRON PRICE* Director of Censorship IN THE YEAR since we were last together at Cleveland you have been making history. At the time of that meeting, no one knew what would happen to broadcasting. Many of you were apprehensive about your properties and your future independence. Nor was the Government, on its side, free of worry. The potential dangers from radio impulses leaping out over our national boundaries in wartime were plain to see, and terrible to contemplate. We were undertaking an experiment which many felt sure would fail. Voluntary Censorship of broadcasting had never been tried before. In other countries, even other democratic countries, we had seen radio become the wartime chattel of Government. We were all aware, I believe, that some of your own listeners wanted to see the same thing happen here. It was a fateful moment for the future of American broadcasting. In the past year we have come to understand each other better. I think I speak our mutual thought when I say that we stand on solider ground with one another, and that much of the strangeness and tension has gone out of our relationships. Although it is far from being the whole battle, the clearer atmosphere in this field is an important contribution toward victory. Cooperation Acknowledged I am glad to make acknowledgment of the splendid cooperation of so many of you in the experiment of voluntary censorship. We have asked much, and we have received much. For reasons of security, we have not always been able to explain fully why we were asking. Still you have been willing to respond. Hundreds of stations are helping to write a bright page in the story of broadcasting — a page which in times to come will utterly confound those totalitarian philosophers who put so low an estimate on the strength of free institutions under the strain of total emergency. On its part, the Office of Censorship has sought to deal fairly and understandingly with your wartime problems. We have clung always to the concept that unity of effort can better be attained in this enlightened industry by plain and direct appeals to reason than by threats of fines and imprisonment. Often the application of that principle has required the ultimate in skill and patience; and I pay tribute gratefully, as all of you should do, to the tireless and intelligent service which is being rendered day and night by Harold Ryan and his associates on the staff of Censorship. Your industry owes them a debt far greater than any of you realize. Now I have spoken frankly about the past. I will be equally frank about the present and the unfinished task ahead. The truth is that you have found voluntary Censorship easier than you had feared it would be. You have been able to present the news from many fronts, in much detail. Entertainment programs continue without great change. You have seen no invasion by Censorship of your right to free expression and opinion. By and large, you have not suffered the financial losses you expected. You naturally and commendably resent Censorship, and always will, but you have learned to live with it, and have not found it unendurable. Voices Warning You are getting along all right. But my studied advice to you is not to be too smug about it. Radio — and the same is true of the press —could make no greater mistake than to suppose that voluntary Censorship has become a definite and final success, and that the worst is over. The worst will never be over until the war is over. Every danger to the industry which you sensed a year ago is still inherent in the delicate complexities of this uncompleted experiment. It is no time for over-confidence. It would be quite possible under present conditions to become blase about the Censorship Code — to say "Oh well, it didn't amount to so much after all, we really don't have to think much about it." I remind you that the Code does amount to a great deal. Its religious observance means much to the security of your country, and much to the future of broadcasting. There is nothing more dangerous than being lulled into a false sense of security. So I come to you today asking not only for a renewal of the faith, but for an even more virile determination on your part to make the Code a living, vibrant part of your daily life. The broadcasting industry itself, as an entity, must take full cognizance of its collective interest. If there are any moldy corners, or cobwebs on any stairway, it is time for you as an industry to clean them up. What a tragedy it would be if a few irresponsible broadcasters among many should accomplish the collapse of a patriotic endeavor which means so much to all of you! The moral effectiveness and the property investment of every one of you suffers whenever a single wisecracking announcer seeks to make a joke of the Code. You ought to expunge from the book forever such dialogue as "You know, we're not supposed to do this, but for this once here it is, and I hope no censor is listening," or on a rainy morning "Where is that record 'Get Out Your Old Umbrella'." Your interest and your country's interest are injured whenever a single commentator anywhere, toying with the Code as if it were all a part of a friendly game, tries to see how near he can come to a dangerous disclosure and still have a technical alibi if he's caught. That is not cleverness in the face of the enemy, no matter what the egotist may think of his brainchild. Heard Abroad Yesterday I had occasion to speak some plain words to a conference of foreign language broadcasters. I think you know it has never been the desire of the Office of Censorship to see foreign language broadcasting abolished. But you know also that many of these stations are near our borders. You know that their programs can be heard on foreign soil and on the sea, so that in a true sense the YOU MAY HAVE A Copy of Westinghouse's •'Truth' Drawing A 16x20" lithograph of an original wash drawing titled "The Truth Shall Make Them Free" is offered free on request to persons associated with broadcasting by Westing1 house Radio Stations Inc. The drawing was made on commission for a Westinghouse Radio Stations advertisement to appear in j trade magazines, and was exhibit1 ed at the NAB War Conference in Chicago. It depicts three peasants listening surreptitiously to shortwave radio and illustrates an important contribution of radio in the fight towards a free, tolerant, united world to come. broadcasts are international communications. And none of you can! be in any doubt that in wartime! we not only need, but we mustl have, censorship of international! communications. Can't Plead Ignorance Carelessness and irresponsibility! in foreign language broadcasting cannot be tolerated by a responsible government. I hope it will not be tolerated in the first instance by the industry itself. The Code provisions regarding this type of operation must be observed. I earnestly solicit your organized attention to this problem, for your own good and for the good of the country. I don't think any broadcaster can plead, after sixteen months, either ignorance or misunderstand! ing of the Code. In a letter he sent the other day to one of you, Harold Ryan said: "The Code was written by broadcasters for broadcasters, and its language is not complicated by legal terminology. We intended that it should be as understandable as possible. In making it so, we sacrificed many wordy furbelows which might have made the document more binding. We felt such tactics were unnecessary in a voluntary system." Nothing could be fairer thani that. The rest is still up to you. * Text of speech at NAB War Conference. INTER-AMERICAN AMITY in Chicago. Converging on the NAB War Conference in Chicago were (1 to r): George Burbach, KSD, St. Louis; C. Lloyd Egner, NBC-Radio Recording; Karl Koerper, KMBC; Kansas City; W. B. McGill, KDKA, Pittsburgh; Walter J. Damm, WTMJ, Milwaukee; C. T. Hagman, WTCN, Minneapolis-St. Paul; Lee Wailes, Westinghouse Radio Stations, Inc., Philadelphia; Roger W. Clipp, WFIL, Philadelphia; Emilio Azcarraga, XEW, Mexico City; Harry Sedgwick, CFRB, Toronto, and (for the duration) Canadian War Information Board, New York; Sydney M. Kaye, BMI, New York; Donald Manson, CBC, Ottawa; Ray Shannon, KQV, Pittsburgh, and I C. E. Arney, Jr., NAB secretary-treasurer. Page 22 • May 3, 1943 BROADCASTING • Broadcast Advertising