Radio in Wartime

ts majority, and, while it may regret that it was never spanked in its youth, it may not be amiss for it to sit down soberly in the confessional and look for absolution. It would be presumptuous to pretend that this book speaks for the conscience of radio. That might beg the question, for who is to say whether radio has a conscience. Certainly the literature of radio cannot be called on to prove it. Nowhere does radios Narcissus complex show to prettier advantage than in its own published works. Sometime that has to come to an end, and what better time than now, when radio faces a man-sized wartime responsibility Radio needs critical appraisals-not because radio is all wrong, but because no human invention can pretend to more than the counsels of perfection. Radio can afford to be criticized because it can no longer afford not to be. And it is an ironical fact that radio must look to its family for that criticism. Nobody else possesses the necessary technical insight. This fact, as much as any other, will serve to explain much in the present work. My hope is that this book will be regarded as a tentative approach to a critical evaluation of radios new role, that it will promote a better understanding of an instrument which possesses a tremendous potential for building in society an appreciation of the hazards and obligations of war and the ultimate peace. In writing of ones friends, it is easy to fall into extremes, to go from adulation to utter condemnation. It is quite another matter to squint hard from the inside and maintain a nice intellectual equilibrium. This was the problem, and it accounts in part at least for the presence in the book of views other than my own. In asking seven distinguished persons to review different chapters from their specialized points of view, the last thought in my mind was to stage a cut-and-dried debate which might in any sense pretend to say the last word on the subject. In fact, the reader who assumes from the contrary views expressed here that the critical evaluation of radio has been exhausted, would be missing the entire purpose of these chapters. If he cannot find stimulus for further discussion, he might better trust to casual bull sessions in the radio production laboratories for his radio education. Although the views in each chapter are my own, I must express my deep appreciation to several persons whose encouragement and practical assistance have been invaluable-to William Benton, Vice-President of the University of Chicago, for his friendly and energetic encouragement to John Howe, my associate in the Radio Office, and to William Costello, an old classmate now with The Air Edition, the Chicago Sun, for their critical readings and sharp questions about all of my ideas to Laura Johnson, for her assistance in the typing and preparation of the manuscript and to Brownlee Haydon, editor of the Uniuersity of Chicago Round Tables transcript, for his careful editorial reading. And I should like, also, to declare my thanks to the spirit and influence of the University, which has had a profound effect on my ideas, my attitudes and my perspective about radio and its fundamental responsibilities...