The Press: The A.P. Suit

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The A. P. Suit In the eight months since the Government filed its anti-trust suit against Associated Press (TIME, Sept. 7), the clamor of A.P.'s defense has been incessant and loud. Fortnight ago came the first clear non-A.P. voice. Up rose 57-year-old Zechariah Chafee Jr., ruddy Harvard law professor and one of the nation's great authorities on free speech. His statement came near not being published at all. Behind this controversy was a history important to all newspaper-reading citizens. The A. P. suit was filed Aug. 28, 1942, shortly after pro-New Deal Publisher Marshall Field tried to get A. P. service for his new Chicago Sun and was blocked by anti-New Deal Publisher Robert R. McCormick of the Chicago Tribune. The suit was handicapped from the start. Publishers tended to side with A.P. automatically. Some felt the Government's case was politically tainted; most had a deep-seated distaste for Trust-Buster Thurman Arnold, instigator of the suit .

Actually, Arnold, now a Federal judge himself, had been looking down his nose at A.P. for several years. In 1940 he had tried to persuade Washington Times-Herald publisher Eleanor Patterson to file a complaint after her application for A.P. membership was blocked by the Washington Star and Post. She refused. Two years later Marshall Field was willing. Target of the suit is A.P.'s set of bylaws. Under them it is almost impossible for a newspaper owner to get A.P. service, even if he can pay, in a city where there is already an A.P. member paper. The bylaws provide that an applicant can get A.P. service only by being elected by a majority vote of A.P. members. And even if he is elected —which is unlikely in most cases —he must still pay the already-established A.P. paper in his city a whopping sum (over $300,000 in Chicago), and must further share with his rival any exclusive news or photo services he possesses.

Government's View. The Government contends that these barriers make A.P. monopolistic. Despite the fact that newspapers can get news from other services, like United Press or International News Service, the Government insists that A.P. is a prime source of news .

To illustrate its point, the Government cites A.P.'s acknowledged dominance over U.S. morning-paper news. Every exclusively morning paper with a daily circulation over 25,000 is a member of A.P. except the Chicago Sun. All A.P. members are bound to supply exclusively to A.P. news of everything newsworthy in their areas. Obviously a non-A.P. morning paper. (like the Chicago Sun) cannot adequately present U.S. news without having many hundreds of its own correspondents.

A.P.'s View. A.P. denies flatly that it is a monopoly, points to U.P. and I.N.S. Moreover, A.P. points out that many profitable papers, like the Pittsburgh Press and the Erie (Pa.) Daily Times (evening papers), have operated successfully for years without A.P.