PZ 7705/39 'Egypt: British Embassy measures to influence Arabic press' [‎11r] (21/38)

tastes of each paper's oublic is essential* Before the War
the Embassy subsidised a news agency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, headed by an agent. specialising in the Near
East and supplied it with exclusive items. It was expected to
make its own arrangements to secure reasonable reproduction.
Now the Embassy issues its own daily bulletins and adequate
reproduction is part of the publicity contract mentioned above.
At present, owing to legal difficulties in publishing news
taken from the air (e.g. the British Broadcasting Corporation’s
Arabic Broadcast), to the inadequate presentation and
distribution of British Official Wireless, and to the relative
weakness of Reuter’s, the supply of authentic and favourable
news to the Press - the most important factor in the influencing
of public opinion - is the weakest element in our Press
organisation. There are other metnods of stimulating the
reproduction of favourable news which will readily occur to an
official handling the Press, e.g. the payment of telegraphic
expenses of a London correspondent or even the facilitating of
his contacts with government departments at home. In this, as
in all questions relating to news distribution, it is necessary
to have an adequate comprehension of the technical principles
involved and of the vast vested interests in which national and
commercial incentives are frequently, but not irremedially, at
conflict.
QgflSORSHI? .
In Jul>, 1938, the writer The lowest of the four classes into which East India Company civil servants were divided. A Writer’s duties originally consisted mostly of copying documents and book-keeping. hazarded the following
observations in a memorandum on "Propaganda in Wartime":-
"In an allied country and with the aid of severe
censorship restrictions we should normally be able to discount
the danger of a positively unfriendly attitude. But it must
not be deduced from this that the Press would necessarily be
uniformly and enthusiastically pro-British without special
inducuments. There would be on the part of certain
proprietors/