War has put a premium on the working reporter who really works, in the neutral zones of Europe, writes John Evans in "Editor and Publisher." In the battle areas there are military communiques, action and colour and there regular channels where much of that news flows. In the neutral countries. however, often there is extreme censorship. The chief interest of government and people is to keep out of the news so the belligerents won't take reprisals for what they consider hostile action or comment In this war the diminishing list of neutral nations is trying desperately to keep out of trouble. In countries like Switzerland, unoccupied-France, Spain and Portugal there is lacking the quickening impulse of active danger. Instead, one works at times under a sort of silence. There is litle spot news that can hit Page 1 in the United States. There are many continuing background stories of high news value but hard to get. Most of these stories can be handled without reflecting on the neutrality of a country, but it is difficult to convince officials in that country that it is healthy to talk, The general opinion is that if they say nothing their position won't be misconstrued.
To any U. S. newspaperman working at home who can lean up against a telephone and patrol his beat by calling the mayor and City Hall officials or the police from the chief down, or the clerks of courts. it is a long jump to the work in a capital such as Berne, Switzerland, where it is very rare to get any news from a public source without going in person or perhaps even making an appointment by letter. In the quiet part of Europe one man or a small group of men has a country as a beat. There is no news organization that feeds out to papers thousands of words round the clock. There are news services that do extremely well under present difficult circumstances but obviously their news sources and resources are as limited as their finances at a time when anything may happen to change the map.
An office such og the Associated Press bureau at Berne finally gets news-gathering organized but only in a sketchy way. A press agency report comes to the office by messenger, important bulletins come by telephone, newspapers are delivered specially and many news sources have been cultivated until they telephone voluntarily anything important. In spite of all that. the reporter has fo get out and report. Little of the information he gets from newspapers or news friends is complete. In all cases it needs fo be checked and frequently it is found that the original story would have been erroneous had it not been corrected or amplified.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.