The Press: Getting the Andree Story

In northernmost Norway, in Barents Sea between Scandinavia and Spitsbergen, in Stockholm and in Oslo last week there was confusion—the confusion that results when the Press sets its pack upon the trail of a remote and elusive news story. The discovery on White Island. Spitsbergen, of the bodies of the Swedish explorer Salomon August Andree and his companions, lost on their poleward balloon flight of 1897, was the Story (TIME, Sept. 1). Its remoteness was heightened to a degree maddening to the Press by the fact that the bodies, relics and Andree’s diary were aboard the little sealer Brattvaag which, equipped with only a flimsy receiving radio, might be plodding diligently about its business in the Arctic sealing grounds, oblivious or indifferent to the furore ashore.

Newspapers, syndicates and picture services sent their men dashing to Tromso, the little port on Norway’s northwest tip, where Capt. Gustav Jensen of the Terningen had brought in the news of the find last fortnight, and whither the Brattvaag was supposed to be heading. From there at least four sealers, chartered by newsmen, bucked an angry Arctic sea in the hope of intercepting the Brattvaag and capturing the Story.

On each boat a radioman worked hour after hour, sent into the ether offers to Dr. Gunnar Horn, scientist aboard the Bratt-vaag, for “exclusives” on the story, pictures, diary. Each pleaded with him for a midocean rendezvous at a designated point in the Arctic. Each could only hope and pray that the message would be received, that the Brattvaag would be there, or that they would happen upon her.

The newsmen might well have preferred to trust to luck and hope that the Brattvaag’s radio was deaf to all. For at the request of the Swedish Government, Norwegian officials were flashing frantic orders to Dr. Horn and the Brattvaag’s crew to permit no “unauthorized person” aboard the sealer, to maintain strict secrecy regarding the story, especially the diary, and to proceed immediately to a point between Tromso and Vardo.

The Brattvaag, already on its way home because sealing had been slack, finally picked up one of the signals, put in unexpectedly at Hasvik, 125 mi. north of Tromso, for Dr. Horn to communicate with his superiors.

Taken completely unawares, the Press unleashed a flock of accounts varying even more wildly than their earlier speculations. The Brattvaag had bodies of all three explorers—Andree, Nils Strindberg & Knut Fraenkel—well preserved (Associated Press). The Brattvaag had the body of Andree, of another not identified, and the scattered bones of a third (New York Herald Tribune}. There were two skeletons, the bones of a third; Andree’s head, in many fragments, had been found later (Universal Service). There were two bodies, Andree’s and Fraenkel’s. Andree “had been found in a sitting posture, reclining a little to the right and facing as if staring from sightless eyes. . . . [one] side of his face was recognizable and life-like.” (New York Times). Universal Service was accurate.

Scant reference was made to the diary, most coveted relic of the party’s possessions, and the quarry of every newshawk then in Scandinavia. Optimism on that score was dampened by one report quoting Dr. Horn: “It is hoped that the first part of Andree’s diary will be found among a parcel of books, not yet examined. The book found on Andree contained only a few pages.”

Three agencies loudly claimed the honor of Dr. Horn’s “first statement to the press.” The Herald Tribune told how its seaplane, with Reporter Daniel Berg of the Tidningen, a pilot, and the Norwegian aviatrix Givsken Jacobsen, had sighted the Brattvaag off Hasvik, landed alongside. The trio were welcomed aboard by Dr. Horn, shown the tarpaulin covering “the two bodies” and allowed to make photographs on deck. Then there was a first-person account “by Dr. Gunnar Horn, as told exclusively to the Universal Service correspondent at Hasvik . . . [his] first statement to the world.” And the Associated Press gave the gist of a telephone conversation between its correspondent at Hammerfest and Dr. Horn at Hasvik. Had he met any of the newspaper expeditions out looking for him? “No, you are the first journalist to take a message from us.”

In Tromso, a bewildered little group of Norwegian and Swedish scientists with a few relatives of the dead men, awaited with some dread the arrival of the Brattvaag. Theirs would be the task of taking custody of the relics, embalming the bodies (if possible), restoring the diary in the face of the mad skirmishes of reporters, photographers, sound-men.

“Amazing!”

Readers of Publisher Fred G. Bonfils’ pink-sheeted Denver Post found on its back page last fortnight the big, bold headline: AMAZING! Below was an editorial well calculated to reassert the Post’s undisputed claim to the title of loudest newspaper in the land. First three paragraphs:

“In spite of what is called dull times, a slacking up of business, THE DENVER POST’S circulation moves on like some great majestic ship. Neither storms nor tides nor depressions lessen in any way the circulation of THE DENVER POST.

“The paper is now universally conceded to be one of the very great newspapers of the world, and at least equals in every respect any paper published in the United States.

“It now has a larger paid circulation than any other paper printed in the United States west of Chicago. It is the speaking spirit of the entire Rocky Mountain regions—and THE POST thinks this is the very best section of the entire world; best introspects, best in health, best in sunshine, clear air, pure water and in fact best in all desirable qualities, with a population that is more mentally and physically alert than any other known population and where everything that comes out of the ground is just a little bit sweeter and a little bit better than that produced in any other portion of our country, and you can lay to that. . . .”

Another Block

For every newspaper purchase he has made since 1908 when he acquired the Newark Star-Eagle, Chain-Publisher Paul Block has doubtless had a different reason. Last week he bought another paper, the Toledo Times.— His reason this time was economy.

Publisher Block already owned the Toledo Evening Blade (circ. 134,018). The Blade plant is large enough to produce also a morning and Sunday paper. Such a paper is the Times (circ. morning, 35,471; Sunday, 59,274). Only remaining competition is the evening News-Bee (89,518).

Newsmen applauded the announcement that Publisher Block would retain the Times personnel intact.

Prize

Even as fine fishing rods, sporting rifles and other accessories for man’s enjoyment of the Great Open Spaces are sold in a stuffy subcellar beneath 42nd St. in the heart of Manhattan (Davega & Co. at Lexington Ave.), so are fine open-space stories and pictures published in the midst of great cities under the supervision of men who seldom see anything wilder than a suburban hoptoad. Last week the urbane editors of the New York Herald Tribune were mortified to observe in their Sunday rotogravure section, this caption: “CARIBOU PRIZE. Bathgate Becker, New York Sportsman, with the trophy of a hunt near Jasper Park in the Canadian Rockies.” In the accompanying picture, the animal whose head rested in Sportsman Becker’s lap was not a brownish-grey, branch-horned caribou but a white, spike-horned Rocky Mountain goat.

*Blockpapers: Brooklyn Standard-Union, Newark Star-Eagle. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Duluth Herald, Milwaukee Sentinel, Toledo Blade.