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September 6, 1944
SENATOR HEARS RADIO STATIONS POLITICAL OCNTROL THREAT
Expressing apprehension that one political party or another misuses the news dispatches, or as someone told him, even gets control of a number of broadcasting stations, Senator Wiley ( R) , of Wisconsin warned the Senate that the country should watch its step in the coming campaign,
”I do not think that there will be any danger in America of the Congress being abolished or freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of the radio done away with as they were in Germany and in Argentina”, Senator Wiley declared. "But no thinking person can be oblivious to the situation which now obtains in this country. No one can listen to the radio or read the reports of cer¬ tain columnists without sensing that the news and the facts are col¬ ored, partially stated, and that biased and prejudiced reports are given forth,
"I recall what was told me 2 weeks ago on the train. It Illustrates the danger of which I am thinking. I was speaking with a citizen from another State than mine, and he told me that a prom¬ inent citizen of his State hsd said that 'within 6 years we can elect any man we want for Governor, We are going to get control of the radio stations. We are working on that now, ' Then this citizen told me of another way the news is colored. He said that he hired a certain individual to get the news which went over a chain of radio stations four or five times a day. The individual got his news items from A,P., U,P,, and I,N, S. , over the news ticker, but as he was of a certain political persuasion the news he picked out and of course it becomes necessary to discriminate with respect to news casts be¬ cause there is so much news related simply to his 'side of the fence, * In other words, the whole chain of radio stations four or five times a day receives the news that this man simply picks out from the mass of news, and ?7hich reflects his political ideas.
"I give these facts because when the people are alert no Pearl Harbors can happen. The saying ofttimes heard that 'eternal vigilance is the price of liberty' has special application in the campaign ahead. While we do not have any 'kept' press, we do have bias and prejudice, and we do have some newspapermen and radio com¬ mentators who are paid to represent certain lines of thinking, and many such persons become mired in the pursuit of a ccomplishing the result and forget their responsibility to the public welfare,
"Each nation is v/eaving a tapestry of its own. Hitler made puppet thinkers of his own people, regimenting their thinking en masse. The tapestry woven by that people resulted in a pattern
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