Cinema: Hearst’s News of the Day

In an election year, even those paragons of neutrality, the newsreels, often have a hard time staying on the tightrope of impartiality. As successful as any this year was Hearst’s Metrotone News. Unfortunately, while Metrotone was scrupulously avoiding every trace of partisanship, its famed producer’s newssheets were doing nothing of the sort. By last summer, cinemaddicts who objected to Hearst newspaper policies had taken to booing Hearst Metrotone News whenever it appeared on the screen, picketing theaters that showed it. First move of theaters managers was to cut the titles with the Hearst name on them and insert substitute titles and subtitles. Last week, after his return from Europe, William Randolph Hearst made the change official. Hereafter, Hearst newsreels will be released under a new title: News of the Day, distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Last week’s name trouble was by no means the first for a Hearst newsreel. In 1918, when his reel was called Hearst-Pathé, publisher Hearst was accused of being pro-German. Producer Hearst quit Pathé, changed the name of his reel to International Newsreel. It became Hearst Metrotone News whe MGM began to distribute it in 1930. Making it doubly hard for cinemaddicts to recognize Hearst Metrotone News in News of the Day currently is the fact that the reel, in addition to a new name, has also, for independent reasons, acquired a new announcer. When announcer Edwin C. Hill’s contract expired last month, he was replaced by Announcer Jean Paul King of Columbia and NBC.