Byron
Price was born in the United States in 1891.
He became a journalist and by the outbreak of the Second
World War Price was a leading figure at Associated Press.
A
couple of days after the bombing of Pearl Harbor,
President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked
Price if he would become head of a new organization that he intended
setting up to control civilian censorship. Price imposed two conditions
before agreeing to take the job as head of the Office of Censorship.
Price insisted that he should be given a free hand in devising the
agency's policies. He also insisted that it should be a voluntary
system and that his main task should be to persuade rather than force,
the country's newspapers, magazines, and radio stations into following
his office's guidelines for curbing news.
Roosevelt
agreed to these terms and in January 1942, Price became director of
the Office of Censorship in Washington.
Later that month Price published a pamphlet setting out the guidelines
by which he hoped the news media would abide in determining what war-related
news was fit to print and what was not. Price stressed that the main
question he wanted the press to ask itself about every story it considered
publishing was: "Is this information I would like to have if
I were the enemy?"
The
Office of Censorship was closed down on 14th August 1945. Byron Price
died in 1981 and his ashes were interred at Rock Creek Cemetery, Washington.
(1)
Office of Censorship, Censorship Bulletin No. 3 (27th January, 1942)
One editor has suggested that newspapers might well consider abandoning
articles which idealize the Japanese psychology about suicide. The
point is made that by idealizing this psychology we are selling our
own people, particularly our soldiers, the idea that the Japs are
a tougher customer than anyone else and would be harder to lick
because he does not mind getting killed.
Another
person has suggested that editors be careful about the use of pictures
from their morgues in connection with current news developments. It
happens that the person who brought up this point is in the picture
business himself and has an understanding of the impact of pictures.
He illustrated by saying that a picture of a battleship taken some
time back and used in connection with a current story, might reveal
some information as to structure, type, etc., which would be highly
valuable to the enemy.
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