LORD KEMSLEY'S PAPERS
SIR,—Since, of course, j'assume Janus did not intend to mislead in his note on Lord Kemsley's evidence to the Press Commission in The Spectator of September 3rd I can only conclude that he did not read beyond the written evidence: Giving what he describes as the facts estab- lished Janus states: "There were no syndicated articles, other than foreign news service messages." But when Lord Kemsley was asked how it happened that an appeal for a new coalition Government appeared not long ago more or less simultaneously in most of his newspapers he replied : "I was entirely responsible for it." Was that a foreign news message ? Was it not syndicated ? So much for the alleged independence of the local editors. There are other such instances of Lord Kemsley con- tradicting in his oral evidence the claims made in his written memorandum.
For professional reasons I must sign myself merely A JOURNALIST.
[Janus writes : What I summarised was the gist of part of Lord Kemsley's oral evidence, which I had naturally read in full. The full text of question 12,369 is : "There are no syndicated articles of any sort ? "Syndicated article" is a well-understood term in journalism. For a. leading article in the Sunday Times to be "more or less repro- duced" (not "more or less simultaneously ") in provincial papers the next day is something quite different.]
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