Abstract
THE lively debate on the control and ownership of the Press in the House of Commons on October 29, which issued in a resolution urging the appointment of a Royal Commission to inquire into its finance, control, management and ownership, touched on matters that lie very near the heart of democracy, and which may have a closer bearing on the advancement of science than a superficial examination would suggest. It is not that there is any great enthusiasm for a Royal Commission. On the contrary, few suggested that a Royal Commission could add significantly from the fact-finding point of view to the information already collected in the report issued in 1938 by Political and Economic Planning, and Mr. Douglas Jay was not alone in failing to see that such an inquiry would produce any very substantially useful results. Even if other facts were discovered, he questioned whether they would throw more light on the really essential question whether the present financial control of the Press is interfering with freedom of expression.
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FREEDOM OF THE PRESS. Nature 159, 1–3 (1947). https://doi.org/10.1038/159001a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/159001a0