The First Amendment; Nora Beloff

The First Amendment and a free people a weekly examination of civil liberties and the media in the United States and around the world. The program has produced cooperatively by WGBH Boston at the Institute for democratic communication at Boston University the host of the program is the institute's director Dr. Bernard with. This edition of The First Amendment and free people is being recorded at the London studios of the British Broadcasting Corporation. And I'm delighted to have as my guest Norville off the noted British author and journalist who has written among other books freedom underfoot the general says no and her new book is called No travel like Russian travel which will appear in the fall in both Britain and the United States. Nora Bell author has worked in Washington for a number of years as a Washington correspondent for the Sunday Observer and was for example on that post from the late 1940s until 1977 she knows

Washington politics inside and out. She's also operators foreign correspondent from umask our Paris Brussels and other places. In fact her newest book is about her experiences in the Soviet Union. More about that in a few moments. Nora Bella can you give me your impressions as one of the key British journalists as to the state of journalistic freedom in Britain today or perhaps in terms of what are some of the problems that you see affecting. The art and practice of journalism. Well I'm very worried indeed. I think that there is in a rare conspiracy between on the one side the tycoons and the enormously wealthy. Press proprietors and on the other the printing unions. And the craft unions. To make it so costly. If you produce newspapers that are we in danger of losing plural

press altogether and. I'm particularly and happy because it seems to me to be outrageous for the British public should have been deprived during the general election for a very long period indeed. Other newspaper which a group of newspapers. Which perhaps internationally are the most Amos of all our press. The Times The Sunday Times The Times Literary Supplement the group of papers that go with that and I think they have been the victim of squeezing out on the one side between the devoted rich proprietors who want their papers to continue production of Little costs and on the other side the unions who say well if they can get more money why should they settle for a mole approach to an economical production which could I think. Allow newspapers to be produced in large numbers to cater for serious and less serious public and I think we should be able to have a plural press in this country.

But I think a plural press is very much in danger and it seems to me we're moving to a monopoly situation monopoly situation in which the few powerful serious papers and the powerful pop papers may have to kowtow perhaps to various economic forces or various groups. What you're suggesting to me is that the nature of British journalism is changing and that while we cannot see the end of this road we can see the road that we're on. Is that a fair statement. Yes it worries me a bit. We are moving towards this monopoly situation that turns. Rightly or wrongly and many people criticize the times for having operated on its own and independently tried to face up and make the trade unions and the printing and other special crafts accept the fact that under the new technology it's not that expensive to

produce a newspaper it can be done economically. If you make the appropriate adjustments. And the Times decided they would face up to it and face a long strike but they would not give in and. I think that if they had succeeded. Then. It would have been possible for other newspapers and other potential groups that wanted to produce newspapers to find it was NOT say due to the cost of it you needed an angel a multi-billionaire great tell all producing enterprise to put money into the press you would have needed that you could have done it on a smaller scale but I think the time. And wasn't able to get those jams so that the result is if things go as they are then the opportunities for minorities however you want to define minorities ranging from from a few people who like to read to literary things to an ethnic group who wants to have their views put across to a political group or a

certain means of expressing themselves is lost in terms of reaching the public through a mass press because of of the frustrations over getting the technology part of the industrial base. Yes it is huge the costs are not huge the cost to produce a newspaper that is in the States as it is in Britain in the States you have that I don't know how much ethanol you resigned yourself in most of this to have just one newspaper had one newspaper in the morning right in the evening and that's threatened. Half a writers if they did into that is to fit into the appropriate pattern for that particular paper they have an outlet at all. The British have thought a long time been very proud of the sex that we do have what we call a plural press wing and a left wing different opinions different levels of education some addressed to people who've had higher education others address to people who like cat who are special interest sport especially

sex especially interested in sensation different kinds of people requiring different kinds of newspapers. Got a big variety let me ask you about the I think from earlier sessions on this series about the British press the listeners are informed that there is a popular press and the national newspapers and so-called serious press the popular press has been described by some as a rubbish press Summers as the dustbin press some of the sensational press. But there are at least six newspapers at the at on the popular side who titillate sensationalize and who which carry very little news and increasingly the mark of this press is that is a feature of prose and not necessarily a newsy PRES It doesn't even pretend to carry the news of the world or even of the community. Letting the television the regional newspapers and the serious newspapers out of London the National Newspaper do that. Is there a price to pay nor a bill for news people accepting the premise that our

job is to come. Sensational without much effort to get the news. Is there a price to pay in terms of future elections in terms of social relationships in terms of politics in general. Well not necessarily you see. I do believe there is an either or either what we call the his is the serious papers or the pulps. At dressing. And an educated readership I believe there are many degrees and I believe that if we could use the modern technologies and have a variety of papers there would be a healthy average man you want to set an amount of news that also wants entertainment and a set amount of sensation in this Surat it would be a variety of demands of the agenda this would be able to fit into how different a number of different categories of news that. But what about it what about newspapers like The Express or the Daily Mail which have changed rather radically. It's not just that the tabloids now it's just that the

the the strength that they have amongst the British electorate is now gone it's a much clearer cleavage chroot cleavage between the so-called serious press and the pop press there. Yes well I'm for the middle ground really but I think this is absolutely right and I think it is because we have not been able to make use of when you don't it isn't only the technology. Well let me give you an example there was once upon a time a paper called the News Chronicle and the. It was all good liberal news which was a yes and it had over a million readers. That's who said Mole. Then they. Added all the headed papers today put together. It was it was reasonably successful what we would call middlebrow Pat I did had a great deal of news and it had a liberal attitude towards politics and it was because it was so costly to produce newspapers but unless it could either go up market. That is to say address what we in Britain call I don't know if the Americans have this.

Category the A B readership you know about the a b b Tell me about it. Well the AP readership is terribly important to the advertisers because they're the people who spend the big money on luxuries and therefore they get the advertisements of a less costly kind and they consist of the top executive jobs and they all have a special category and they can produce who only just a few thousand or you know and then they can get what they need in the way of revenues because they know that they will be read by the right people. The other ones who didn't get that kind of readership. Have to get on to the readership of millions in order to appeal to advertisers of mass production things and so that you are forced on to this either or choice that. I would have thought it was cried to her. Just to stop because it's not that expensive and it shouldn't be were it not for this conspiracy between the big tycoons and the unions. It should be possible for papers. Addressing for example the professional classes or

teaching classes teachers. Add to true to get the kind of paper that the. News Chronicle was. Able to make a reasonable profit if it hadn't been so the cost of production hadn't been so excessive and upset. Then they would have been able to lead. Reasonable I think we would have had foreign correspondents who hardly got any foreign correspondents left and we would have had political writers who could write seriously about serious subjects. Now the one saving grace of all of this is that while this is all true as you describe it there are regional newspapers and many Britons to perm. As much on the regional newspaper the community newspaper which are rather straightforward they may get the the national newspaper but the community regional newspapers are rather strong and traditional Are they not. They are but I'm afraid that terribly ensure that they never have foreign correspondents they take a certain amount of that material from the agencies you know and if there's a major war

or red blood the state had a revolution or that's great then they will use the agency stuff but they don't really try to address themselves to the world problems that I think. In the world in which we live and this is true in the United States as a lead of the UK. You can't really look at half the world in which we live. Just from a national poll you know the people then who are faced with the prospect of with we're faced with the prospect that the majority of the British reading public either has scant news who read about the world through regional newspapers or is becoming more and more addicted to a sensational press the pop newspapers that they must be relying upon radio and television for the news and yet we know that radio and television is largely a bulletins of us exaggerated to the nth degree sometimes but largely a bulletin service. Well is this a problem. Well I must say that if you think you've got everybody John tell you that the

problem is the unions by moving us from the press to radio and television I can assure you they are wrong. I can't describe the details of an occasion an incident which showed me that there are grave limits imposed on our television in informing the British view of what's going on in the world but I can tell you of by personal experience. Last summer I did a tour of the southern regions of the Soviet Union and I went around and I not only source a very magnificent sites but I met a great many people a great many a very talkative people very grumbly people and it was a very instructive iot experience. And on the way out here they said it was the artist that objected with that I met too many people. They stopped me and they said you are guilty. We believe we have reason to believe you walking up to it and you said it. Education and propaganda.

Now that's a very serious offense that reminded me it was a seven Yes penal servitude and I thought a very good company because it was the sense that many of them missed. Lustrous dissidents have been accused of that. I was only trying to and I have to tell you safe because I had my British passport and I knew that I would be alright but nonetheless they made this accusation and the only charge against me atoll was that I had talked to the Soviet citizens from Ukraine from Georgia from the Crimea wherever I go and I talk to the city people and had what they said and this. The Russians strongly objected. And. So when I came out and off writing a few articles I decided that really that the whole subject of the situation in that part of the world. Deserves closer study and I have written this book I think you mentioned it. Its being published here in the autumn by a non-winner and the New York Times Books are publishing

it later in the States. And I described what I was able to find out about society there and about why they were so anxious to conceal what was going on so eager that I shouldnt be allowed to meet people. This seemed to me to be a subject of great interest. But also I saw so many beautiful things I wanted not just to write you off of course and perhaps a book not written it but also I would like to have done a television program on this. And I went to see one of the independent television companies and I went to you which because this is private. I went to see them and I said. I thought this would make a most interesting series on television because people really didn't know about it I didn't know until I went to see what I would have liked to see them descended a born gifted photographer who would have gotten around to view your interest isn't it taking some pictures so that I could then have described what was happening there some emphasize for our American listeners you went to an independent television organisation in Britain so they don't get

lost here. Yes commercial television we don't believe is right here a moment ago yet here we are in Britain which makes this story more startling Yes there was no police it was a car not one of the commercial companies and one of the ones I thought was big did particularly distinguished itself because it had some excellent documentary films on foreign countries and here was I having done a very unusual experience having written about it which are so they could read and see what I had said and the producer said he found what I'd done most interesting. But out of the book. The struggle for British television and the reason was that documentaries require. The participation of at least 10 or 11 members of the appropriate television trade union. At least that team photographers and assistants and developers and producers all kind of people who had to go around together so sending one. Enterprising and imaginative photographer was out of the question. So they said they would send it had to send an entire team. And when I said to them Well

look you know if your interested enough why not pay the team it was day 10 and we would then send somebody we thought was sufficiently gifted to get an idea earthy kind of thing I was was not an attack on say that it was just a revelation of what it looked like. So the producer said. I'm afraid that's quite impossible because the trade union in question is led by communists who were I would say well. There's no difficulty about getting the whole team in you don't need to send one man because I've got very good relations. I can arrange results for all of us and of course you can imagine the kind of. Photography we would have got with a great big organized team who would be received by the Soviet officials and it would have been allowed near Dad to take care. You had to have a track No not at all after this incident which is which is as I said startling is it indicative is it illustrative or is it exceptional in terms of British mass media today.

To me it is absolutely typical of the way in which the leaders of the unions and I would not say the trade unions because then you might suggest all the trade union members are engaged in some great conspiracy to deprive the public not to toll a small number of trade union leaders who manage to. To lead the organized labor. And keep a control over the press and via the television that's why I put you on television because you sounded as if his will is just the newspapers it's television too. We are very much limited in what we can tell the public public about what's going on in the world and I take this very seriously indeed well. If this is shown of course there must be various shades of opinion on this. This is so then this raises really a constitutional question not just a practitioner question from the point of view of journalists we are we're talking about things that affect the entire British constituency and it is a constitutional question. What can be done about it. Well assuming assuming that what you're

saying is is a clear description of what is actually going on of course there might be great differences of opinion on this but let's just assume that just a story I can't accept there are differences of opinion on what I've been telling with what actually happened to me on my. I'm not I think I'm not a I'm not question your job but I'm saying that if we had the union leader here he might have said something that might have been more of a featherbedding story than a political story. That's what I'm suggesting. But let let that lie. What can be done about it. Well it's a very controversial question in the legal profession is divided on the big issue of whether we need a bill of rights whether the British citizen is not being deprived of their rights or whether their Freedom of Information Act should not make it possible for me to insist that if I have something to say WHICH THE TELEVISION PRODUCER wishes and thinks is important enough to say we ought not to be able to have a common this resistance. Do you need a First Amendment of the United States the would say

no authority parliament may make no law interfering with freedom of speech press or assembly the right to worship or whatnot. Well the difficulty about this is how do you get it because there is at the moment very difficult about imposing the rule of law on certain very well organized corporations. And I think there's going to be a very hard struggle. That one of the reasons why I wrote the book that you were kind enough to mention freedom under foot well is that I wanted to make journalists aware of this threat to our freedom because I don't think it's just a matter of the law it is a question of getting together and being aware of the threat and responding. Just passing legislation which then called be implemented. I don't know who've heard the story of the head with UST effort made by Harold Wilson and Barbara cull So when they tried to reform the trade union law in place of strife was a great occasion. They had to withdraw because there was too much resistance among the unions. The

conservative game and the opposition the Conservatives came in they tried to pass an industrial relations law which would have limited the patter of the unions and the unions demonstrated against it and force them to laugh with to force the next government to promise to withdraw that legislation and we are still arguing about the current Margaret Thatcher administration has also taken was issue curbing what they consider to be certain excesses of even your very limited amount I mean the difficulty I'm telling about of getting my this program into the ass wouldn't have not helped by that. There is very limited measures that it is that his government is trying to take and even that may be too much so I think it really is a question of getting British the British public away. All this risk and I think it's beginning to happen I think the public is more aware than they were before that it's going to take it's going to be a long hard contest.

What is the attitude of journalists it has been explained to me on this trip which has been a professional trip and I've interviewed many many journalists and journalists and they say that part of our problem is that the press itself while not anti information for the general public has a certain Ethel's which is part of the earth those of the general society they go along with the fact that it's hard to get information from government agencies that civil service don't like to give out information and they're then not used to delving beyond them origin parliamentary debate than they are in getting beyond the press officer to the person who has the story because it just isn't done in British journalism as much as it is in American journalism. Oh I think is needed there is a considerable change and I think the pressures are building up. And there are the limitations there is a speaking as a journalist still very objectionable. The

law was in fact more on that in the breach so the observance. You see what I mean. We've got a terribly strict law all Official Secrets Act and if you haven't read it yes which makes it so big spiritually forbids US officials to inform the press on this they are specifically instructed to do so by their ministers. That in fact that doesn't happen. And once or twice it's become so ridiculous that when cases have been taken to court they've really been lost out of court. So I think in fact we are in a new situation now and I think the biggest threat comes from they have as I say the conspiracy between on the one side. The. The. Publishers and on the other side the. Craft unions who are spending big money to keep out. A mass of. Writers and and

publishers of what would be publishers who would like to enlarge the choice of the British not know it has been suggested to me that this is rather traditional too that the British Union's going back in history have always tried to protect its most union do old jobs and they have never been too much interested in new or novel jobs when you say more jobs will be created they tend to yawn much preferring to protect the jobs that are established. Is it a conspiracy or is it just a lack of vision as to what could be done if many more newspapers appeared. Many more writers were always different people who would benefit and there's no doubt in my mind that writers would benefit pictorial writers a cartoonist people have got ideas a little bit original it's a bit eccentric would have a chance to express themselves. Those people would benefit but I have to admit that it would be hard luck. City. Craft unions for the printers for example. Just as it was terribly hard luck after the catch drivers when we had many

cars and we didn't need catch drives it in or what about the charge made by another person on the series who and another eminent journalist who said the proprietor deserves some of the blame themselves because they didn't raise wages of journalists when they should have the printers got what they demanded and got got very well paid off but had the proprietors treated journalists better that they would have had a different situation to contend with. I don't think it well I think that was that that's historic that's in the past the present situation is that that is a lot of money around in Fleet Street at the moment. And as you know there is a vaccine against American American corporation Atlantic Richfield all for example which has put big money into the observer. And these people can pay off. Any debt mounds from the craft unions. And this makes it all the more difficult for the new publishers or even for the ones like The Times who are trying to preserve themselves to keep guessing.

I see if we look ahead just a little bit in the last few minutes of our program where is Britain heading now. What is going to be happening. You know answer to some of these questions is the Times case again Representative their sample was likely to have been over and over again all the publishers going to get more and more afraid and and correspond regularly with the unions perhaps over stories or anything else. Well I'm a little bit worried that because as I say there's that much money being at ad made available to the trade union to the craft Union cities got what we call love died and to modernization unions to prevent. That the ability of the new technology because there's all that money to pay for them to be able to preserve their jobs. We won't be able to take advantage of what I think now is possible which is a healthy plural press in which a false variety

of opinions and. Have different tastes and interests could be provided for. Giving up head I think this is worth fighting for and getting all and the struggle is still going on. But I think there is a great danger that it may get by default. But we made it moving gradually but inexorably towards a monopoly press and we're talking about is not diversity of opinion but uniformity of opinion expressed through certain established sources which seems a rather tragic one of the things I've learned on this trip is that to press freedom in every country and certainly we look to Britain as being one of our great leaders in the fight for press freedom that what Roosevelt said was absolutely right unto each generation. Much is given from each generation. Much is expected so in Britain in the United States the fight to carry on press freedoms is something that must be biological must be chemical must be something that we're engaging all the time. Nora BELOFF it has been a pleasure to have you on the First Amendment and free people for this

edition. Bernard Reuben the First Amendment and a free people a weekly examination of civil liberties and the media in the United States and around the world. The engineer for this broadcast was Margo Garrison. The program is produced by Greg Hicks Gerald This broadcast has produced cooperatively applied WGBH Boston and the Institute for democratic communication. F. Austin University I trust solely responsible for its content. This is a station program exchange.