Freedom in Our Time

> What 25 freedom of the press in our time?

> How does the press (and radio and cinema) "mould" public opinion, if at all?

> What are the responsibilities of the press as the major source of public information?

To seek the answers to such momentous and difficult questions as these, the formation of a commission was announced this week under the chairmanship of President Robert Maynard Hut chins of the University of Chicago. No one could doubt that answers were badly needed.

When the Columbia Broadcasting System recently tried to ban its newscasters from expressing their own opinions on the air it only emphasized the whole great problem of the interpenetration of "news" and "opinion" (TIME, Oct. 4).

The more recent special U.S. court ruling on the anti-trust suit against the Associated Press (TIME, Oct. 18) brought into public focus the question of monopoly, and the allied issue of the press's bigness in chain operations.

The Aim. The commission's aim was outlined by Chairman Hutchins: "The commission plans to discover where free expression is or is not limited, whether by governmental censorship, pressures of readers or advertisers, the unwisdom of its own proprietors or the timidity of its managers. . . .

"We hope the importance of its task will be so apparent that newspaper publishers and editors will be glad to appear before it to give testimony on their experience in operating a free press. And we shall hope to hear also not only from ivory tower editors, but also from reporters, desk men, research associates, advertising and circulation directors--and readers."

The Men. Chairman Hutchins estimated the task would take perhaps two years. The inquiry, he announced, "was made possible by a grant of funds by TIME Inc., publisher of TIME, LIFE, and FORTUNE." He emphasized that TIME Inc. would have no connection with the commission, on which the working press is not represented. The funds will be administered by the University of Chicago, which, however, has no jurisdiction over the commission. Its members:

Zechariah Chafee Jr., professor of law, Harvard University.

John M. Clark, professor of economics, Columbia University.

John Dickinson, general counsel, Pennsylvania R.R.

William E. Hocking, professor of philosophy, Harvard University.

Harold D. Lasswell, the Library of Congress.

Robert D. Leigh, director, the Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service, the Federal Communications Commission.

Archibald MacLeish, Librarian of Congress.

Charles E. Merriam, professor of political science, University of Chicago.

Reinhold Niebuhr, professor, Union Theological Seminary.

Robert Redneld, dean, the division of social sciences, University of Chicago.

Beardsley Ruml, chairman, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Arthur M. Schlesinger, professor of history, Harvard University.

George N. Shuster, president, Hunter College.

The commission has invited four eminent men to serve as foreign advisers: Hu Shih, former Chinese Ambassador to the U.S.; John Grierson, government film commissioner, Canada; Jacques Maritain, president, the Free French School for Advanced Studies; Kurt Riszler, professor of philosophy, The New School.

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