The Press: Short Takes

>Wire watchers in newsrooms from coast to coast got a jolt one night last week when Associated Press printers broke into a bulletin on Apollo 16's blast-off from the moon with: "Listen, my children, and you shall hear/ Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere . . ."The Longfellow classic then lapsed into some blue doggerel dealing with Revere's sexual prowess. It turned out that an A.P. technician in New York, using the hoary rhyme to test what he thought was an in-house circuit, had inadvertently cut into the agency's "A" wire, the conduit for top stories. A.P. fired the culprit and sent out an urgent "disregard" order—in prose.

> When Britain's leftist New Stalesman sacked Editor Richard Grossman last March for forcing his doctrinaire views on a declining, disinterested readership, the weekly sought a successor who would not be so preoccupied with Labor Party parliamentary infighting. A selection committee of the magazine's board members and editorial staffers interviewed six candidates and sought ratification from both the full board and the Statesman chapter of the National Union of Journalists. The overwhelming choice, announced last week: Anthony Howard, 38, the weekly's assistant editor. Howard promised that the Statesman "will remain a paper of the left," but he is expected to reverse the Statesman's position opposing Britain's Common Market entry. He regards himself as a "resigned European."

>The feats of airline skyjackers inevitably inspire imitation, but Chicago's rock radio station WLS plans to take the romance out of the idea for its listeners. News Director Phil Hayes promises that WLS reporting of air piracy will stress the severity of penalties involved, rewards offered by airlines and convictions obtained in other cases: "We will give as much coverage to the arrest, conviction and imprisonment of a hijacker as we give to the actual hijack."

> Newspapers in growing numbers are banning display advertising for X-rated films because papers do not want to publicize pornography. Such forerunners as the San Diego Union and Tribune, Houston Post and Boston Herald Traveler have recently been joined by two more major papers: Cleveland's morning Plain Dealer (circ. 409,935) and the Detroit News (650,180), the nation's largest afternoon daily. That made the X blackout effective for 7% of the total U.S. daily circulation and brought forth a protest from Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association of America. No newspaper, said Valenti, should be able to dictate what people can or cannot see.