Recorders Off The Record

Freedom of the press notwithstanding, almost everything said and done at the annual Washington convention of the American Society of Newspaper Editors is off the record. Farthest off the record is the informal "interview" with the President. But last week, when the nation's editors left the White House, their uncommon exhilaration revealed something of what had been said inside. The President had doffed the good humor which he invariably shows to the editors' reporters. What was to have been an interview became a lecture with the editors on the receiving end. The President told his callers that they did not reflect the opinion of their communities, that they were lacking in influence but nevertheless responsible for the fear psychology which brought on Recession. Best indication of how the President stands with the press today is the fact that the assembled editors failed to take this lecture to heart. Some had talked back, most of them had found it funny.

In spite of their amusement, the editors admitted that the press was the object of increasing denunciation. Recognizing these tendencies, the editors pontifically restated their "aims and ideals":

"We call upon all editors ... to recognize a growing criticism, to face it fairly, to set their houses in order, to be governed by good taste, by a sense of justice, by complete devotion to the public interest, and to toil unceasingly to educate our readers to such a sense of the value of a free press in America that the citizens of this republic shall become the willing cooperators, the fellow warriors with us, in a never-ceasing fight for the maintenance of democratic institutions."

As a guarantee of good humored independence for the next year, the Society's directors elected pink-cheeked William Allen White, good-humored, independent editor of the Emporia Gazette, as their president.

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