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Show No Right-Minded Candidate Will Antagonize Newsmen By BAUKIIACE iVpwt Analyst and Commentator CONVENTION HALL, PHILADELPHIA. The notes for this column are inspired by a view from the extreme left wing of the Democratic platform. I do not mean that figuratively, but literally. I am sitting in the left-hand corner of the wooden platform filled with the brass hats of the party and their friends who are gathered together to nominate a Democratic candidate for President of the United States. Tlie scene Isn't so very different from other political conventions I have attended back to well, never mind how far back. I have In my mlnl'ai VM A H I fm ferent picture. It is a platform, viewed from Just about this angle, but instead of this high rostrum ros-trum protruding into the hall from the middle of the wide platform plat-form there is just a wooden box with boards atop it rough- way when Senator Magnuson revealed re-vealed thtt the reporter asking the question represented the Spokesman-Review. The President knows that part of the country and the sontiments expressed ex-pressed by its publications. It was then that he said the Spokesman-Review Spokesman-Review and the Chicago Tribune were "the worst newspapers in the country, the Tribune having the edge." That was about as sharp a thrust as a President ever has launched at the press in modern times. It was in that connection that he also cailed the present congress the worst in our history, later amending it to "second worst" It would have been kinder to the rest of us If Mr. Truman had stuck to the specific Instead of adopting the sweeping generalization generaliza-tion quoted earlier "some people In the newspaper and radio business, busi-ness, etc. " Presidents since the time of John Quincy Adams have not been shy about airing their views concerning the Fourth Estate. But Adams, while not specific at least narrowed the field of his complaint to "eight or 10 newspapers of extensive circulation circula-tion published in various parts of the Union acting in close concert with each other and pouring forth fail Hi - 1 hewn rails to fence off the speakers from the shouting delegates. The name of Abraham Lincoln is being put in nomination. This vision, let me hasten to add. is purely visionary. vision-ary. I did NOT cover that convention. conven-tion. I saw a picture of it in a book. The scene I have been watching is no more placid. That Democrats Demo-crats love a Donnybrook Is an old aying. No smoke-filled rooms, no private flghU for them rather a free-for-all In wide field, even If they know what the final outcome Is to be in advance. But frankly I have been thinking about something else as I sit here In his tropical heat that is, in the momenta when I have been able to think between the flashing of the light which is the silent bell on the telephone beside the mike I am iharing with Earl Godwin. The flash of the light on the phone means lomeone in the ABC booth, high above us, wants one or the other of ua to Jump in and give a brief word-picture of what is transpiring in our immediate neighborhood, for we are in the thick of things here and, believe me, sometimes things are pretty thick. What I have been thinking about Is the lot of the newsman and the imall thanks he gets for his pain ind suffering in a political year. Be-lidei Be-lidei being hauled and mauled by the public his public, as the listen-era listen-era of a commentator are referred to besides that he is under slantwise slant-wise attack by the candidates when they forget themselves. Nobody, either the partisan listeners lis-teners or tbe polltlcos, ever thinks the columnist commentator or reporter Is being fair unless he is boosting bis aide. Candidates, when they are in pos-icssion pos-icssion of their full senses, don't go around arousing the WTath of the newsmen. Even Franklin Roosevelt Roose-velt who was forever needling the newspapers, always carefully explained ex-plained that it was the publishers and editors and headline writers who twisted the news, not the men who wrote or broadcast it But sometimes candidates slip. And as we sit perspiring under the ilieg lights and trying our best to ;ell the truth without malice and with as much charity as possible about what is going on before us, we recall without too much rancor, the statement of the candidate who Is not being unanimously nominated. On his recent trip he made one off-the-cuff remark, which prompted him to send that offending piece of haberdashery to the laundry immediately imme-diately after he had thought it over. President Truman opined to one rear-platform audience that It was almost impossible to get the facts definitely before the public "because "be-cause there are certain people in the newspaper business and certain cer-tain people in the radio business who have a distorted view of what the people ought to know and what the people ought to think." It might have been better if he had worded his plaint in the language lan-guage of an earlier candidate much earlier John Quincy Adams, who at least narrowed his charges against the press to a few papers, even though he didn't name them specifically. specif-ically. This offered a sop to the rest However, President Truman, in a previous outburst on that same western trip was specific too. He attacked the Chicago Tribune and the Spokane Spokesman-Review. In lambasting the Tribune, he was following fol-lowing in Franklin Roosevelt's footsteps. foot-steps. You may recall that on one occasion when FDR was asked a particularly sharp question by a Tribune reporter, he replied: "Oh, tell Bertie (Robert McCormick, publisher), pub-lisher), he's seeing things under the bed." Mr. Truman's attack on the Tribune Trib-une came about this way: While (ravelling through Washington state, a reporter put to him a question which, although it seemed guileless, oaight have concealed a barb. Any-sow Any-sow the President interpreted it that PRESIDENT TRUMAN . . . rear platform opinion . . . continual streams of slander upon my character and reputation, public and private. No falsehood is too broad, and no insinuation too base, for them . . ." President Cleveland also had his press troubles, and history admits he got a rough deal. One summer when he was governor of New York and was sweating it out at Albany, New York newspapers reported him as taking his ease at Newport Sometimes the newsmen do let their spleen get Into their reporting, report-ing, but for the most part, they follow Kipling's advice and go on the basis that you can't do a good Job unless ". . . you keep your head when all about you, are losing los-ing theirs and blaming it on you." Television may achieve what the less vivid reports conveyed by. print or the spoken word cannot Republican Repub-lican leaders, realizing this, sent out some pretty strict orders on that subject before their recent convention conven-tion in this city. The orders were revealed by that all-seeing, all-hearing monitor of stage, screen and radio, "Variety." Republican delegates were told not to be seen (by the eye of the television camera and thereby millions mil-lions of other eyes) talking to members mem-bers of delegations from other states lest the suspicious public smell a deal in the making. If they must huddle they were, told to huddle unseen. Delegates also were warned not to assume awkward positions on the floor lest televiewers deduce that handsome isn't as handsome doesn't And most of all, they were warned not to be seen leaving leav-ing early and coming late. Not overly hopeful that orders would me followed, monitors were appointed. ap-pointed. Since I couldn't see much of the video product, because, as a reporter re-porter I had to keep my eyes on the televiewers themselves, I can't say how well the Republicans comported themselves when televised, nor can I assay how well the Democrats, currently cur-rently in the spotlight profited by what they saw of Republican video performances last month. And if either didn't perform with all the grace and decorum nobody can be blamed but themselves. The cameraman gets off easy. The writer writ-er and the broadcaster still will have to duck the slings and arrows of the outraged unfortunate. . A recent survey showed that radio listeners like hymns most. Probably a television survey would show that televlsioners prefer hers. |