The Press: Shifting the Burden

For weeks, Moscow’s 50-man corps of Western correspondents has buzzed with an exciting rumor. Last week rumor became official fact. Abruptly summoned to the Foreign Ministry building by Ministry Press Chief Mikhail Kharlamov, the newsmen were told that 43 years of direct Russian censorship were at an end.

But most veteran news hands were less than dazzled by the announcement. As if to confirm their suspicions, Spokesman Kharlamov went on. It was true, said he, that the official censorship agency, Glavlit, would stop blue-penciling outgoing copy, but the correspondents would be expected to go on policing their own dispatches—and save a copy of every transmission for authorities. Said Kharlamov blandly: “The new procedure will complicate matters for some correspondents and make their work harder. Now it is all your own responsibility.”