The Press: Picture Battle

The blackened hulk of the T. E. L. Morro Castle was hardly cold last week before newsphoto agencies leaped headlong into the advertising pages of Editor & Publisher to tell the trade how they trounced their competitors in the race for pictures of this latest marine catastrophe. All the boasting was done by Acme Newspictures and International News Photos at the expense of their common enemy, the Associated Press.

Fundamentally the warfare between Associated Press, Hearst’s International News, and Scripps-Howard’s Acme should be three-cornered. But last spring AP drove the other two into a defensive alliance by announcing plans for a $1,000,000-a-year telephoto system which would flash all the day’s newspictures to all the AP’s clients within a few minutes of their taking (TIME, May 7). A few clients have already begun to install equipment, but no date has been set for starting the service. Meanwhile Acme and International have been working hand in glove.

When the Morro Castle’s SOS flashed into Manhattan, weather along the coast was vile. The average commercial airplane pilot would have hesitated long before flying a cameraman offshore in the dark, wind, and rain. But International and Acme had classified lists of pilots, including certain ones who had the equipment and the courage to fly through anything. At about 7 a. m. two such pilots took off from New York with International and Acme cameramen, returned three hours later within five minutes of each other, with magnificent pictures of the burning vessel. Somehow AP was left at the post.

Last week’s trade-paper advertisements rubbed it into AP unmercifully. International News’s spread bluntly stated: “The Cleveland News, first newspaper to be supplied with Associated Press Telephoto, RELIED exclusively on International News Photos for first pictures of the burning Morro Castle.” That jibe was mild compared to Acme’s. The latter in a two-page layout showed facsimiles of the New York World-Telegram and the New York Sun the day of the disaster. The former, labeled 12:15 p. m., bore a large picture by Acme of the liner ablaze. The Sun, labeled 4 p. m., carried a stodgy still of the Morro Castle in her prime. The credit line was Associated Press Photo. Across the top of the advertisement streamed this headline:

YOU MUST FIRST GET THE PICTURE BEFORE YOU NEED A MILLION DOLLAR TELEPHOTO

But last week’s set to over newsphoto supremacy in the pages of Editor & Publisher was generally considered only a mild prelude to the cut-throat battle ahead, if and when AP’s telephoto service opens fire.