Trust-busting Thurman Arnold, who for months has sought to crack down on the Associated Press, last week got the go-ahead signal. Attorney General Francis Biddle agreed to let him prosecute A.P., the world’s biggest cooperative news-gathering agency, as an alleged combination in restraint of free commerce in the news.
Actual filing of a suit, expected within ten days, awaited only a decision on whether the prosecution would be civil or criminal. Arnold wants to make it a criminal case. Under his threats to sue, A.P. last spring liberalized its membership rules, permitting the granting of an A.P. franchise to a new member by a simple majority, instead of four-fifths, of its 1,400 members (TIME, May 4). Arnold promptly informed A.P. that it had not gone far enough, was still violating antitrust laws.
His specific charges will be based on some 15 complaints already made to his office. Among them are A.P.’s denial of its service to Marshall Field’s Chicago Sun and its scrapping of the competitive Wide World picture service, which it bought out last year.
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