The Press: Bombs v. Type

In spite of bombs, in spite of censorship, in spite of blasted communications, Great Britain’s press last week did a masterly job of carrying on. Recently three London newsplants (the matronly Times, Lord Beaverbrook’s conservative Evening Standard, Lord Kemsley’s gamin Daily Sketch) had been palpably hit by Nazi raiders. One newsman, Sketch Photographer Charles M. Maxwell, was dead. But despite the tremendous strain under which they worked not one of London’s eleven dailies had missed an edition. Things they have had to contend with:

>Into the ancient, Victorian, red brick building of the Times a bomb crashed early one morning, just as the presses began to turn. The editorial rooms were wrecked. Times editors (they were below ground when the bomb struck) took over an old composing room in the cellar, went on with their work. That day the Times was as staid, as impressive as ever, carried no news of the bombing. Not until five days later did the Times, with characteristic restraint, report its own narrow escape.

>The Evening Standard’s bomb dropped through a 15,000-gallon tank on the roof, sent water pouring into the rooms below. Because of the flood, the Standard was set up next day on the linotype machines of its burly brother, the Daily Express. Neither paper missed a deadline. Said the Daily Sketch, when its modern interior was reduced to rubble: “That notice clinging to the Editor’s battered door still holds good: ‘Do Not Disturb.’ Hitler, we are not disturbed.”

>More important than the damage done by bombs were delays in production and distribution, caused by incessant air-raid warnings. To get their editions on the street in time, London’s big dailies had to meet earlier deadlines, work out complicated railway schedules for country districts. The Daily Express transferred about 400,000 of its mammoth print order from London to its plant in Manchester.

>Hardest hit among Britain’s journals was not a newspaper but a Government publication: Hansard* (official title: Parliamentary Debates), British equivalent of the Congressional Record. Hansard now appears as much as a day late. Reason: His Majesty’s printers work in a building without an air-raid shelter, leave their presses when planes are overhead.

>British censorship, although largely confined to military matters, is another burden on editors. Legally they can print anything they like without showing it to the censors, even print things that the censors delete. But any editor who prints anything that gives useful information to the enemy can be jailed. So submitting to the censorship is wise insurance. Three weeks ago, in London, before white-haired, pink-cheeked Bow Street Magistrate Edward P. C. Boyd (who is usually busy fining drunks), hearings began on Britain’s first prosecution of a newspaper under defense regulations after 14 months of war. The Scottish edition of Reynolds News, mouthpiece of the British cooperative movement, was accused of publishing information prejudicial to the safety of the realm.

One of the statements complained of: in an air encounter near Malta, Italian planes saw a “Hurricane and hared for home.” The Crown’s objection: maybe the Italians didn’t know Hurricanes by sight and would find it useful to know that Hurricanes were at Malta. Last week the case stood adjourned until Nov. 27.

*So called because the old firm of Hansard printed Parliament’sreports for 88 years. His Majesty’s Stationery Office did not take themover until 1909.