Forum Urges Reliable Press

"Reporters cannot be neutral," said Louis M. Lyons, curator of the Nieman Foundation here and moderator at the Leverett House forum on the "Responsibility of the Press," last night. "They must make choice of the facts they will use and decide how to present them."

This statement set the problem, "to whom and what are newspapers responsible," before the group: Erwin D. Canham, editor of the Christian Science Monitor, Bob Eddy, telegraph press editor of the St. Paul Pioneer Press and Nieman Fellow, Hugh Morris, state capital reporter for the Louisville Courier-Journal and Nieman Fellow, and Douglas M. Fouquet '51, ex-president of the CRIMSON.

Canham cited papers of the 19th Century which were biased and diverse in their coverage, and suggested that this right to "sound off" be encouraged in editorials. "News," he added, "should be presented with as dispassionate a view as possible."

Morris noted that newspapermen were "only human" and tend to make human mistakes. "A responsible paper," he said, "must not play up or discredit stories or personalities. It should not try to sell through distorted headlines. It must present all points of view, and, above all, it must run straight news to inform the reader."

Eddy emphasized that publisher interference can cause a paper to color its news with an eye toward "pleasing its advertisers, rather than speaking the truth."

Papers cannot be perfect, concluded Fouquet, but reporters who are satisfied to merely take "handouts" will never serve the cause of journalism--to tell readers about everything that would concern them.

Fouquet called it the duty of newspapers to set each story in context, pointing out that any omission in reporting can distort the significance of the story. "Too often," he said, "newspapers are content to construct just half a story and then stop at the point where it makes a good headline."