A Slap Before Birth

Plans for a national press council, as announced recently by the Twentieth Century Fund, envisaged a body of journalists and laymen that would judge serious complaints against large news organizations (TIME, Dec. 1 1). Because the council would have no police powers or official standing, its success rests solely on the cooperation of the television networks, wire services, newsmagazines and major newspapers. They would have to accept the council as a legitimate judge of accuracy and fairness and submit to its fact-finding procedures. Last week, still lacking a staff and a committed budget, the embryo group received a severe jolt when the New York Times announced that it will boycott council activities.

In a sharply worded memorandum to his staff, Publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger said: "We will not furnish information or explanations to the council. In our coverage, we will treat the council as we treat any other organization: we will report their activities when they are newsworthy." The press, he continued, is not threatened by its own lapses but by "people who are attempting to intimidate or to use the press for their own ends." Council hearings would call into question the Times's credibility "under a procedure so lacking in due process that one organization would function as investigator, prosecutor and judge rolled into one."

No Answer. Sulzberger raised another point that had not been part of the council dispute: that investigators might require newsmen accused of inaccuracy to divulge confidential sources. "We feel it is wrong to suggest that reporters and editors who are willing to risk jail to protect their sources would -or should-be ready to disclose them to the council." M.J. Rossant, director of the Twentieth Century Fund (and a member of the Times's editorial board from 1962 to 1967), denied that disclosure would be necessary. Said Rossant: "Some publishers in Britain were opposed to a press council on the same grounds as Sulzberger, but the vast majority now support it."

Although the Times's rejection is the most specific to date, other major news organizations, such as NBC, ABC and the Los Angeles Times, have announced strong opposition to the idea. Though the Washington Post plans to cooperate to a limited degree, Executive Editor Ben Bradlee said last week: "We think it's not the answer to a serious problem." More typical was the comment of Warren Phillips, president of Dow Jones & Co., which publishes the Wall Street Journal: "We think that our record over many years demonstrates that we do not require help from a self-appointed, quasi-public committee." Should other publishers and network officials follow the Times's lead, as seems likely, the press council may come into existence without any way to operate.

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