Press-Radio War

Date: 1933-1935

Place: United States

Significance: When the newspaper industry attempted to stop radio news broadcasts during the 1930’s, its leaders claimed they were protecting their vested rights, while members of the broadcasting industry believed that the newspapers were censoring radio in order to maintain a monopoly on information

The development of the U.S. radio broadcasting industry in the 1920’s was aided by the older newspaper industry. Friendliness turned into animosity by the early 1930’s when the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) and the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) began comprehensive news reporting. Newspaper owners blamed declining circulations on radio news competition, although the decline was more likely due to the Depression. On April 24, 1933, the Associated Press (AP) decided to stop providing news releases to the radio networks.

Because the new radio networks were in a weaker financial position than the newspapers, they asked for a compromise solution. Paramount in their willingness to compromise was the fact that government licensing in effect granted radio stations limited monopolies within their broadcasting areas. Newspapers had for years resented these monopolies, so they announced their willingness to use their greater economic resources to begin antitrust suits against the two major radio networks, NBC and CBS.

In December of 1933 the networks agreed to the terms of the Press-Radio Agreement, a ten-point pact that in effect made the radio industry subservient to newspapers. One major point of the agreement was the formation of the Press-Radio Bureau, a joint committee made up of five representatives of the newspaper industry and two from radio. Another point of the agreement limited radio stations to two daily five-minute reports. Other major points assigned the first radio news report to 9:30 a.m. and the second to 9:00 p.m., prohibited the radio networks from using news for commercial purposes, and required that the radio networks not enter the news-gathering business.

NBC and CBS were prepared to honor the agreement, but independent stations generally refused, due to the profitability of radio news. Leading a revolt of independents, Trans-Radio Press Service by 1935 proved to the newspaper industry the impossibility of keeping news off the radio. The mid-1930’s was an exceptionally eventful period in history. German re-armament in Europe, Japanese expansion in Asia, and sensational events such as the Lindbergh kidnapping in the United States proved lucrative grist for the radio news mills. In April of 1935, in order to prevent further revenue losses in the news business, the major newspaper wire services finally decided to sell news stories to the radio industry. The press-radio war was over.

The Position of the Newspapers

The newspaper industry took the view that the news stories that they purchased from the wire services were their property. Therefore, when radio stations sold time to read that news on the air, they were, in effect, “stealing” the newspaper industry’s “property.” Silencing the radio news broadcasts was, therefore, not censorship because it was done to protect property.

American newspapers regarded themselves as the guardians of a free press, and it was up to them to ensure the continuation of that tradition. If the radio stations were allowed to broadcast news, freedom of the press would die because of the requirement that radio stations purchase licenses from the federal government. That licensing procedure, the newspapers argued, would allow the government to silence the news if it were allowed to pass primarily to radio—which is what appeared to be occurring at the time.

Prior restraint, the suppression of news before publication, has long been the primary tool employed by censoring agencies. Newspapers were not subject to prior restraint because the government could not prevent the publishing of a paper; they had no licenses that could be revoked. Invulnerability to prior restraint gave the newspaper industry its claim to being the protector of the First Amendment. Radio, on the other hand, could be prevented by the government from broadcasting news stories simply by having their licenses canceled.

The Perspective of Radio

Members of the radio industry took the view that they were not in competition with newspapers, but that they supplemented their news coverage. Radio news broadcasts triggered interest in the news, and that could only benefit the newspaper industry. Drawing on the newspapers for news was not “stealing property,” as the newspaper industry claimed, but simply a form of free advertising. Radio was thus the news industry’s partner, not its competitor. As partners, radio and newspapers had a common interest in protecting their First Amendment rights from outside censorship. When the Framers of the Bill of Rights saw fit to ensure the freedom of the press and speech in the First Amendment, they were concerned with the freedoms of all Americans, not just those who happened to own vested property rights. If the radio could be silenced, it would only be a matter of time before the newspapers could be silenced.

Complicating the issue was the fact that it was the newspaper industry that was attempting to censor the radio industry, not the government. That not only contradicted the newspaper industry’s claim to being the protector of First Amendment rights, it highlighted the possible abuse of the power of the American press. Under the guise of protecting property rights, claimed the radio industry, newspapers were attempting to silence radio news in order to maintain a monopoly in a protected market. The newspaper industry’s refusal to supply radio with AP news releases in 1933 constituted the worst kind of prior restraint in that it was done by the press itself.

Press-Radio Cooperation

The deeper issue exposed by the press-radio war was the First Amendment’s vulnerability to private, monied interests. The amendment had been written to prevent Congress from passing laws compromising free expression; however, it became apparent in the 1930’s that the real danger to free speech came from within the press itself.

As the newspaper industry underwent a process of conglomeration, newspapers became the property of fewer individuals. These individuals became more and more powerful, and were finally able to effect the censorship of the radio industry under the guise of the protection of property.

After the press-radio war, newspaper chains began to purchase radio stations. In light of the fact that increasing numbers of radio stations became the property of newspaper chains, the solution to the press-radio war was more a merger than a settlement. Since no constitutional issues were resolved, the question of the safety of the First Amendment remained.

Bibliography

Information on the press-radio war is difficult to locate. In Public Opinion Quarterly (Summer, 1949), Girard Chester offers a basic outline in “The Press-Radio War: 1933-1935.” T. R. Carskadon’s “The Press-Radio War,” The New Republic (March 11, 1936), fully explains the important events. David Holbrook Culbert describes the development of radio news in News for Everyman: Radio and Foreign Affairs in Thirties America (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1976). Although not directly related to the press-radio war, Carl Jensen offers the flavor of censorship in Censored: The News That Didn’t Make the News—and Why (Chapel Hill, N.C.: Shelburne Press, 1993). Censorship issues are also discussed in Michael Schudson’s Discovering the News: A Social History of American Newspapers (New York: Basic Books, 1978) and in A Free and Responsible Press (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1947), by the Commission on Freedom of the Press.