If the C.I.O. were to announce that it would admit no reporters to its conventions unless they belonged to its American Newspaper Guild, the U.S. press would unquestionably set up a yell that could be heard in the farthest recesses of the New York Times library. The British press was audible last week, for an equivalent reason. Beginning its 76th convention at Blackpool, Lancashire, the British Trades Union Congress announced that it would admit to its press tables only reporters holding membership in the National Union of Journalists. Object: to high-pressure more newsmen into militant N.U.J. (A smaller, rival union, the Institute of Journalists, has never struck.)
British editorial pages bristled. “Highly dictatorial,” muttered the Times. “Freedom of the press ceases to have any meaning,” barked the Daily Express.
“As a matter of principle,” boomed the Daily Mall, “no newspaper can allow any outside organization to make a choice [of reporters] for it. This dangerous practice involves not only freedom of the press but liberty of subjects. . . .”
Meanwhile, with the exception of the Daily Herald, the Daily Mirror and the Yorkshire Post, Britain’s newspapers had to rely on news-agency coverage or ignore the convention altogether. But T.U.C. held firm. Said its shrewd general secretary, Sir Walter Citrine: “It is quite clear that an attempted boycott is in operation. . . . Freedom of the press is interpreted by those newspapers as Freedom to Suppress.”
Soon, however, most newspapers were giving a good play to news-agency reports of the convention, and Sir Walter was purring. Snapped the London Economist at the newspapers: “Pusillanimous.”
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