British Newsmagazines

U. S. tailors sedulously cut their patterns after the models of Bond Street. Even more slavishly does Fleet Street ape the pattern of U. S. journalism.. Last week on British news stalls were displayed not one but two new magazines, frankly plagiarizing TIME.

Vol. I, No. I of News Review, "Britain's First Weekly News-Magazine," carried a paragraph in its Press section "acknowledging TIME, America, the world's first newsmagazine, as its inspiration." News Review, however, was making "no attempt at mere imitation." First came a red-bordered, photographic cover. Then News Review began its digest of the week's events with a section called Behind The Headlines--Home. ''Mere imitation," combined with the British journalistic habit of neglecting first names, produced such a lead as: "Kite-flying Goebbels, Hitler's arch-propagandist, donned war feathers before a 20,000 audience of Berlin Nazis at Deutschland Hall. . . ." The Behind-The-Headlines department progressed into subsections called Empire and Abroad. Followed a page of Headliners, which revealed that William Randolph Hearst "draws -L-100,000 a year," that "fat, round-faced New Jersey Governor Hoffman may run for U. S. Presidency, 1940--if all goes well." Midway through its issue, News Review branched off in new directions. The Science section was a collection of short items lifted with credit from other publications. There was a gossip column called Private Lives, a special article entitled "Britain has 400,000 Freemasons." And, to satisfy the lusty native appetite for grue, there was a whole section called Crime and Justice. Anyone sufficiently interested in discovering the genesis and generalissimo of News Review had to travel London's Fetter Lane to a grubby little building called Cosmopolitan House, pass through a lobby piled with grimy stacks of old magazines, ascend a dark flight of stairs, cross the "main reporters' room" where eight or nine men were pounding typewriters, enter a small sanctum and there behold Mr. Tibor Korda. A 30-year-old Hungarian who elaborately disclaims relationship with that other Hungarian, London Films' famed Cinema Producer Alexander Korda, Tibor Korda alighted in London eleven years ago from Budapest, where he had been on the staff of the Esti-Kurir (Evening Courier). He soon allied himself with the Cosmopolitan Press, now guides its half-dozen small trade publications relating to journalism, advertising, printing and photography which he simultaneously edits amid Dickensian confusion, while smoking a cigar and drinking black tea out of a glass. "Since TIME . . . first made its appearance," announced Mr. Korda, "the question has been asked frequently--who will produce a similar publication in England?" According to Mr. Korda, he had been thinking of doing it for a long time. Then in January Alan R. Cameron, one of his Cosmopolitan editors, left him. Next thing he knew, said Mr. Korda, Cameron was about to put out a TIME imitation himself. By rushing News Review into print in 24 hours, Mr. Korda and his hard-working Cosmopolitan staff established its right to the title of "Britain's First Weekly News-Magazine." Cavalcade, "The British News-Magazine," or Britain's Second Weekly Newsmagazine in two weeks, was less generous than News Review in acknowledging its "inspiration." Cavalcade appropriated the TIME method not only as to organization but as to format. Its cover was bordered with an impressive orange, its headbands were in TIME type, its cut captions aped TIME'S and its sections began with National Affairs and ended with Books. But Cavalcade's editors chose a casual way of commenting on the parallel. From a letter from young Randolph Churchill advising them not to "be afraid of being accused of copying the big things in TIME," a footnote was laconically dropped: "This is a newsmagazine published in the United States. . . ." "Accurate, Brisk, Complete," Cavalcade regretted that its first issue was caught between two reigns, thus requiring an eight page take-out on the death of George V, the ascension of Edward VIII. Alan Cameron is not only Cavalcade's editor but half its staff. The other half is Publisher William James Brittain, a rising Fleet Streeter who was once assistant editor of Lord Beaverbrook's blatant Sunday Express. Impartial observers thought that on merit Brittain's Cavalcade would outlast Korda's News Review. But Publisher Korda was confident that he would be publishing both sheets within three months.

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