Abstract
Controversy with governmental agencies, both at home and abroad, continued to occupy individuals and institutions in the field of journalism throughout the last quarter of 1951. Tentative efforts to bridge the gap between editors and the Truman administration over the classification of governmental news broke down when newspaper groups refused to be drawn into consultation to set up categories of information. To this controversy was added a flare-up over the declaration of a truce line in Korea and a subsequent “cease-fire” order which the Associated Press tentatively attributed directly to the White House. The exchanges between President Truman and the AP for a time dwarfed the Korean war on the news wires and at the end of the period there were no reports of cease-fire orders in either the Korean or the Truman-AP ”wars.”
Press services and correspondents came under attack also from private individuals. These sorties included General Charles Willoughby's assertion that certain reporters and newspapers had been “defeatist” and misleading in their dispatches from Korea during the retreat from the Yalu River in late 1950 while he was intelligence chief for General MacArthur's Far Eastern command. Press services were criticized for alleged inadequate coverage of vast sections of the world by several former foreign correspondents. The accused denied everything.
As the new year came in, further developments were awaited in the Oatis case in Czechoslovakia and the trial of five newsmen charged with defamation of county officials and gamblers in Lake Charles, La. In the latter case testimony had been completed and the decision was under deliberation by the single judge.
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