The A.P. Suit

The A. P. Suit In the eight months since the Government filed its anti-trust suit against Associated Press (TIME, Sept. 7), the clamor of A.P.'s defense has been incessant and loud. Fortnight ago came the first clear non-A.P. voice. Up rose 57-year-old Zechariah Chafee Jr., ruddy Harvard law professor and one of the nation's great authorities on free speech. His statement came near not being published at all. Behind this controversy was a history important to all newspaper-reading citizens. The A. P. suit was filed Aug. 28, 1942, shortly after pro-New Deal Publisher Marshall Field tried to get A. P. service for his new Chicago Sun and was blocked by anti-New Deal Publisher Robert R. McCormick of the Chicago Tribune. The suit was handicapped from the start. Publishers tended to side with A.P. automatically. Some felt the Government's case was politically tainted; most had a deep-seated distaste for Trust-Buster Thurman Arnold, instigator of the suit .

Actually, Arnold, now a Federal judge himself, had been looking down his nose at A.P. for several years. In 1940 he had tried to persuade Washington Times-Herald publisher Eleanor Patterson to file a complaint after her application for A.P. membership was blocked by the Washington Star and Post. She refused. Two years later Marshall Field was willing. Target of the suit is A.P.'s set of bylaws. Under them it is almost impossible for a newspaper owner to get A.P. service, even if he can pay, in a city where there is already an A.P. member paper. The bylaws provide that an applicant can get A.P. service only by being elected by a majority vote of A.P. members. And even if he is elected --which is unlikely in most cases --he must still pay the already-established A.P. paper in his city a whopping sum (over $300,000 in Chicago), and must further share with his rival any exclusive news or photo services he possesses.

Government's View. The Government contends that these barriers make A.P. monopolistic. Despite the fact that newspapers can get news from other services, like United Press or International News Service, the Government insists that A.P. is a prime source of news .

To illustrate its point, the Government cites A.P.'s acknowledged dominance over U.S. morning-paper news. Every exclusively morning paper with a daily circulation over 25,000 is a member of A.P. except the Chicago Sun. All A.P. members are bound to supply exclusively to A.P. news of everything newsworthy in their areas. Obviously a non-A.P. morning paper. (like the Chicago Sun) cannot adequately present U.S. news without having many hundreds of its own correspondents.

A.P.'s View. A.P. denies flatly that it is a monopoly, points to U.P. and I.N.S. Moreover, A.P. points out that many profitable papers, like the Pittsburgh Press and the Erie (Pa.) Daily Times (evening papers), have operated successfully for years without A.P.

Far from admitting that it is a source of news, A.P. insists that "the source of news lies in the event itself. Access to the source of news is open to all who are willing to expend time, effort and money. News is, therefore, a product which . . "belongs to the producer." In short, A.P. sensibly claims that news events cannot be monopolized. This view does not grapple with the charge, which is that the means of spreading the news is monopolized. Another A.P. argument is that "if the news gathered [by] A.P. and its members were required to be made available to every one . . . the incentive of each member to contribute his time, effort and money to the upbuilding [of A.P.] . . . would disappear ." But A.P.'s main claim is that the suit threatens freedom of the press.

War of Nerves. Because it commands a widespread network of communications, A.P. has been able to trumpet its side of the anti-trust suit up & down the land. The war of nerves has been relentless. Hundreds of papers, either A.P. members or sympathetic, have plumped editorially for A.P. A.P.'s General Manager Kent Cooper last fall published a book (Barriers Down) in which he pictured A.P. as a ceaseless, unselfish fighter against monopoly. A.P. has itself published two large volumes containing hundreds of pro-A.P. editorials from A.P. papers.

Result of this barrage is that most U.S. readers think what A.P. wants them to think: that the Government is striving to control newspapers; that A.P. is a valiant knight tilting against the foe.

In the face of the A.P. thunder, until Professor Chafee spoke, neutral voices have been feeble and almost unheard. There have been a few articles, in small circulation publications like Harper's Magazine and The Nation. That is all.

Chafee's View. Professor Chafee's article was published --along with one by Illinois University Journalism Professor F. S. Siebert, giving A.P.'s side of the case --in the Providence, R.I. Journal- Bulletin (an A.P. paper). It was published there only after being thumbed down by such A.P. members as the New York Times, the New York Herald Tribune and the Washington Post. Wrote Chafee: "Liberty of the press . . . must mean something much bigger than the right of some newspapers to deprive other newspapers of access to a vital channel of information. . . . Liberty of the press is not the property of ... newspaper [but] belongs ... to the readers. . . . Suppose a city has only one newspaper, and the citizens who would like another editorial policy must go without. . . . Obviously this city lacks many advantages of a free press. . . . Liberty to hear just one side [of any issue] is a poor kind of liberty. The plain way out of this difficulty is that A.P. should regard itself as a public service open to all who will pay the price . . . . "Newspaper publishing ... is both a profession and a business. Its participation in the discovery and spread of truth entitles it to a large measure of immunity from Government interference, but its commercial activities must accord with the principles which govern other businesses. . . . The regulation of the business of a newspaper is quite distinct from the Constitutional [free press] protection. "Naturally men in a private club should be free to choose their associates as whimsically as they please. But the A.P. is not a private affair any more than the American Telephone & Telegraph Company.

"My conclusion is that liberty of the press . . . requires drastic changes in the bylaws of the A.P."

To which A.P. replies: "... a free press requires that newspapers shall be free to collect and distribute the news in accordance with [their own] principles and standards, and that they be free to choose their associates in so doing. ..." The case will be decided by a three-judge, Federal court, probably this summer. Whatever the verdict, 1) there will be an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court; 2) the outcome will be of lasting importance to U.S. newspaper readers.

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