One quarter—it would gratify M. Mossadaq to know—where the Persian
affair is causing some concern is Fleet Street. It might be supposed that the papers welcomed news that the public wants to read. So in a measure they do, though at a time when space is so extraordinarily tight a little less is often as welcome as a little more. The trouble today is finance. Take Persia alone.
Most London papers have one or more special correspondents at Tehran or Abadan or both. That is in itself no inexpensive luxury ; but much more serious is the cost of cabling from Persia, even at Press rates. Hardly any message worth printing costs less than about £30 in cable charges, and most of the articles in the larger papers run to far more than that. This, going on day after day for weeks, while still more expensive messages from Korea go on month after month, is a serious item in the daily papers' budgets. Trouble nearer home is not on general grounds to be desired, but journalistically it would have its compensations.
Previous page
