Press study of foreign news
refutes ‘iron curtain’ myth

By PETER SMOLLETT
Some cold war myths die hard.

A particularly persistent one is
that We in “the West’’ have unli-
Mhited access to information about
the affairs of the world, while the
Poor unfortunates who live in the

_ Socialist world ‘behind the iron
Curtain’’ are kept in ignorance of
€vents outside their boundaries.

A recent study: shows that on
the contrary, the press of the
Socialist world devotes a larger
Proportion of its news space to
foreign news than does the
Capitalist press, with the press in
the United States being the worst
of all.

This is the conclusion reached

Y an international team of re-

Searchers supervised by George
Gerbner, a well known figure in
the field of communications re-
_ Search, who is Dean of the An-
nenberg School of Communica-
tions, University of Pennsylvania
and George Marvanyi of the Mass
~onnunications Research Centre
In Budapest, who is also a prog-
fam director for public affairs for
Hungarian Television.
<4 Short summary of their
findings has been published by
€rbner and Marvanyi in the
Ournal of Communications,
Winter 1977, Vol 27 #1.

This is certainly not an easy
Subject to research, and the sub-
tleties of the problem are tre-
Mendous; but one thing that can

done to get some of the ans-
Wer, is to simply sit down with a
Pile of newspapers from different
Countries and compare them.
ne is what the research team

id.

They studied the press of nine
Countries: The Federal Republic
Of Germany and Great Britain
(representing ‘*Western

urope’’); Czechoslovakia and
Hungary (representing ‘‘Eastern
Europe’); Chana, India and the
Philippines (representing ‘‘Non-

aligned Third World’); the Un-
ted States; and the Soviet Union.

Approximately six to 10 papers

differing circulation sizes were

Selected for study from each

Country, and all were from the

Same week in May, 1970. (Only

glish language papers were
Selected for Ghana, India and The

llippines.) Unfortunately, no
4nadian papers were included in
the study, so we can only guess
how they would stack up.
€ researchers were not at-
tempting to examine the content
Of the articles in the papers. Their
Purpose was restricted to identify-
Ng which ones were “‘foreign
N€ws’’, counting them, and
_ Measuring space. The resulting
Teport is a mass of interesting
Statistics on ‘number of pages per
'Ssue”’, ‘‘number of foreign news
tems per newspaper per day”’,

Square inches of foreign news
Per day’’, etc.

: However, the most revealing
Measurement is the one which in-

dicates what proportion of the
total non-advertising space is de-
Voted to foreign news. The re-

_ Searchers themselves state that
this is “perhaps the most sensi-

tive measure of editorial policy”’.

the table which I have com-

Piled from the figures accompany-

'Ng their full report gives this mea-

Surement in percentage terms for
_ Some of the papers in the study. I

@Ve included in the list all of the

fe

PAPER

*New York Times

New York Daily News
*Christian Science Monitor
*Pravda
*Daily Telegraph

Daily Mirror
*Times

Bild-Zeitung
*Frankfurter Allgemaine
*Die Welt
*Nepszabadsag
*Magyar Nemzet
*Rude Pravo
*Daily Graphic

Indian Express
*Times of India
*Manila Times

* These are papers designated in the report as *

NS

PERCENTAGE OF NON-ADVERTISING SPACE
DEVOTED TO FOREIGN NEWS

report by George Gerbner and George Marvanyi,)

aN
COUNTRY CIRCU- FOREIGN
LATION NEWS
USA 899,000 16.4
USA 2,110,000 7.5
USA 214,000 28.7
USSR_ 9,000,000 38.0
Britain 1,380,000 23.9
Britain 5,034,000 24.9
Britain 437,000 22.4
FRG 4,508,000 =. 27.7
FRG 306,000 22.7
FRG 273,000 43.7
Hungary 756,000 36.0
Hungary 111,000 37.6
Czech. 864,000 28.8
Ghana 105,000 = 28.2
India 391500022235:
India 188,000 25.4
Phil. 230,000 22.6
‘elite’’ papers. (Figures are taken from a research

ws

papers which Gerbner and Mar-
vanyi refer to as ‘‘elite’’ or pre-
stige papers. There is a least one
for each country in the study, and
they tend to be the ones with the
high scores for foreign news. I
have also included any papers
which have a higher circulation
than their country’s “‘elite’’ pap-
ers.

It is an interesting sidelight, not
mentioned in the report, that the
largest circulation papers in the
U.S., Britain and West Germany
are not the ‘‘elite’’ papers, while
the largest circulation papers in
the USSR, Hungary and
Czechoslovakia are the ‘“‘elite”’
papers.

One of the conclusions of the
study, as stated by Gerbner and
Marvanyi, is: “‘The U.S. press,
then, ranked low in comparison
with the other areas on relative
measures of attention to the out-
side world, reflecting low priority
of editorial attention ... and the
daily papers of the socialist coun-
tries led in the proportion of avail-
able space devoted to foreign
news.” Fe

They sum up their observations
with: ‘‘In general, there is an in-
verse relationship between com-
mercial sponsorship (and the con-
sequent demand for sales and
localized news service) and
foreign news coverage. On the
whole, the publicly-owned or in-
stitutionally managed press as-
signs higher priority to the outside
world than does the strictly com-
mercial press.”

So much for that aspect of the
‘ron curtain’ myth.

Gerbner and Marvanyi’s study
is interesting and useful. How-

- ever, it has a few flaws in it, and

these flaws in fact raise some im-
portant issues. For example, the
conclusions they reach are true
enough, but actually, the figures
they supply to support these con-
clusions considerably understate
the real situation.

Some of the understatement re-
sults from errors in selection of
papers for the study. They have,
presumably inadvertantly, in-
cluded among the Soviet papers
two specialized papers which no
one should expect to carry much
foreign news. Moskovsky Kom-
somoles is a youth paper whose

specialty is reporting on events in
education, youth organization ac-
tivities, and the like. Also in-
cluded is Vechernaya Moskva, or
‘‘Moscow at Night’’, a paper
which specializes in theatre, con-
cert, sports and cinema news.

A more basic problem with the
report is that in trying to get a
‘‘national”’ picture for the press of
each country, they have lumped
together all of their statistics for
each country, and have blended
the figures for large national pap-
ers with those of small regional
ones. Since they do the same for
each country, and they have
selected both large and small pap-
ers for each country, this method

_ may make statistical sense; but it
obscures certain facts.

The Soviet press, which is un-
hampered by the deadening
weight of commercial competi-
tion, is able to provide a wide var-
iety of national, regional, and
municipal general interest news-
papers, and also many specialized
newspapers, with a planned divi-
sion of labor among all of them.

. This fits in with the Soviet read-
er’s habit of reading more than
one paper daily.. 3

The reader of Leninskoye
Znamie (one of the papers in-
cluded in the study), in an agricul-
tural district outside of Moscow,
will also read Pravda, and the
reader has no wish for
Leninskoye Znamie to compete
with Pravda in coverage of
foreign news. He expects the
former to do a good job of detailed
reporting of local agricultural
news.

Pravda, by the way, with a cir-
culation of nine million is a truly

national paper in the Soviet Un-

ion. Modern technology permits
it to be printed each day in more
than 20 cities throughout the
country. On the other hand, The
united States and Canada have no
truly national newspapers, for all
that the New. York Times and the
Toronto Globe and Mail would
like to be thought of as such. Each
has limited circulation outside its
home city. The newspaper reader
in Regina reads the Regina
Leader-Post, not the Globe and
Mail; and the reader in San Fran-
cisco reads the San Francisco
Chronicle, and not the New York
Times.

MEANY WILL SPONSOR RENEGADE SPEAKING TOUR

WASHINGTON — George Meany, president of the AFL-CIO is

sponsoring an II-city-U.S. speaking tour in November for Vladimir
Bukovsky, a Soviet renegade. Six other renegades have been invited to
attend the AFL-CIO’s 12th Constitutional Convention as guest obser-

| vers. Meany has been a chief figure behind the U.S.State Department’s

barring of visits by the genuine representatives of trade-unions and
other peoples organizations abroad.

: RIGHTIST DANGER GROWING IN PORTUGAL

LISBON — The rightist danger is growing in Portugal, said Alvaro
Cunhal, leader of the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP). Cunhal said
the Socialist Party (PSP) government headed by Mario’Soares has
shown. itself incapable of governing the country alone. A new left
coalition government needs to be formed, he said, to include the PSP,
the PCP and other left groups. The alternative, Cunhal said, would be a
PSP-rightist alliance which ‘‘would be a catastrophe for the country,
the Portuguese revolution, democracy, and for the PSP itself as a
democratic party’’.

INFLATION AND STRIKES GROW IN ISRAEL

TEL AVIV — Israel has been witness to-a spate’of strikes by
workers protesting price increases and lower standards of living. The
latest price increases are the result of the removal of subsidies on
foodstuffs, gasoline and public transportation by the Israeli govern-
ment. Postal employees, communications technicians and longshore-
men have so far been involved in thé strikes. The inflation rate in Israel
this year is expected to average 38%.

PARAGUAYAN COMMUNISTS CALL FOR UNITY

ASUNCION — A call for the creation of a national front has been
issued by the Paraguayan Communist Party (PCP). The call appears in
the latest issue of the illegal PCP newspaper, ‘*Adelante’’ (Forward).
The PCP said.the dictatorship of Alfredo Storessner had been able to
stay in power so-long because of disunity, lack of coordination and
anti-communism in the ranks of the democratic forces opposed to the
dictatorship. Creation of a national front, based on an agreed program,
would provide the unity necessary to overthrow the oppressors of the
Paraguayan people, the PCP said.

SOVIET SUPERSONIC JET BEGINS REGULAR SERVICE
MOSCOW — The Soviet Tupolev-144 supersonic airliner went into

Tegular passenger service last week. The 1,430 mph plane will fly once

a week between Moscow and Alma-Ata, capital of Soviet Kazakhstan.
Up to 140 passengers will fly the 2,500 mile route in half the time needed
by subsonic jets. The aircraft has been in transport service for several
years.

U.S. HAWKS OPPOSE PANAMA TREATIES
WASHINGTON — More than 320 admirals and generals, who have
a vested interest in war spending, oppose the Panama Canal treaties.
The group includes Brig. Gen. John S. Eisenhower, son of the former
‘U.S. president and other major military people.

oe 2 & ae,
MONTEGO BAY, Jamaica — Elderly man waves a flag as crowds greet

Cuban premier Fidel Castro on his visit here last week.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—NOVEMBER 11, 1977—Page 3

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