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IS DOCUMENTPage 34 OFROHERTY OF HIS BRITANNIC MAJESTYPag&OVARNÍ√20t
SECRET
C. P. (49) 147
9TH JULY, 1949
CABINET
Coreulabe 9/7
(3.0pm)
✓
195
COPY NO.3
31
REPORT OF THE ROYAL COMMISSION ON THE PRESS
Memorandum by the Lord President of the Council
Mr. Eden has announced the intention of the Opposition to provide time for a debate on the Report of the Royal Commission on the Press and the House will expect the Government to give it a lead.
2.
It seems to me that the Royal Commission has fully justified its appointment by the first-rate survey of the British Press which it has produced; this has the additional merit of being extremely readable, and it is to be hoped that it will be as widely studied as possible. There is much indeed to be said for the view that it would be in the public interest that there should be periodical inquiries into the Press say at ten yearly intervals; we have come to take it for granted that the B.B.C. should be the subject of such inquiries, and, if the B.B.C. is a mcnopoly, the Press is unique among our great institutions in enjoying a virtual monopoly of freedom from outside public criticism.
•
Much of the publicity in the popular newspapers has centred on the statement in paragraph 348 of the. Report: "It is generally agreed that, the British Press is inferior to none in the world". In fact, the Royal Commission has given the Press notably the popular newspapers - much less than a clean bill; and if additional evidence is needed of the validity of some of its criticisms, this is provided by the way in which most newspapers have handled the serious complaints made by the Royal Commission on such matters as political bias in presenting. news, lapses of taste, sensationalism and inexcusable inaccuracies and errors of emphasis. As was stated by the Observer" (3rd July): "Almost every popular newspaper summarised the findings of the No one Royal Commission in a manner favourable to themselves. who relied on these papers for his information could have guessed that much of the Commission's report was unfavourable to our industry or profession". The Observer" was also unusual, though not unique, in publishing in full the severe criticism which the Commission made of a story by its Political Correspondent and in admitting the validity of the criticism.
3.
No impartial reader could deny that, on balance, the report is distinctly critical of large sections of the Press on important aspects of their activities. I think personally that the Commission has let the Press down lightly, that some of its criticisms might have been sharper, and that its approach to some of the major problems of newspaper ownership and control is unduly timid. I think it would have been justified by the evidence in making more positive recommendations, but its analysis of the present state of affairs seems to me on the whole balanced and sound, and we can hardly come forward with alternative. proposals. In all the circumstances, therefore, I think that the repopė3⁄44f yÈË©
is one which the Government should in general accept.