Vienna Papers Assail Executive for Setting Up ‘news’ Agency

Criticism against the Executive of the Jewish, Agency for establishing a partisan news service from Palestine was voiced today by Die Stimme, official organ of the Zionist Federation of Austria, and Die Neue Welt, which speaks for the Judenstaat party.

Die Stimme said it hoped that the matter would be taken up at the next session of the Actions Committee. Die Neue Welt stressed the importance of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and pointed out that it is detrimental to Zionist interests to undermine the Jewish Telegraphic Agency by establishing a partisan Laborite service supported by Executive funds.

WEEKLY TELLS OF FIGHT, GIVES SUPPORT TO J. T. A.

Die Neue Welt, Viennese German Jewish weekly published and edited by the well known Dr. Robert Strieker, carried the following article in its issue of January 25, which reached New York yesterday:

“Behind the scenes, heretofore unnoticed by the Jewish public, a bitter struggle has recently been going on between two Jewish news bureaus — the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (T.J.A.) and the Palestine Correspondence (Palcor). Now the moment has come when this play is beginning to degenerate into a fight.

“In itself, this would be no reason for a consideration or even for taking a stand on the matter. But the circumstance that it is a matter here of informations of a general Jewish nature lifts this conflict of the two news agencies out of the sphere of anonymity.

“For the past seventeen years now the J.T.A. has been supplying the Jewish and non-Jewish world with reports which are of unquestionable value to Jewish and Zionist politics.

“Even if one is sometimes not in agreement with the manner of the J.T.A. reporting, one must nevertheless recognize its significance to the press and public opinion, particularly since, by and large, it shows impartiality.

“Suddenly Palcor appears, planned as a correspondence (bureau) established by the Zionist Executive, supplied with money and news by the Zionist Executive, yes, even seeking subscribers—in other words, a competition to the private, impartial J.T.A.

“The J.T.A. must now defend itself against the Palcor, which makes its appearance in the cloak of the Executive’s authority, and of course creates one-sided public opinion in the spirit of the left-oriented Zionist Executive.

“We have the experience of seeing the Zionist Executive, an instrument of the class combatant Histadruth, now also bringing the news service into the realm of its power and attempting to monopolize it and exploit it for party purposes.

“The J.T.A. then turns to the public. In a communique it reveals piquant things, about really not quite unobjectionable maneuvers of the Histadruth-Palcor: that the Executive circulated defamatory statements about the J.T.A., that it withholds important news from the J.T.A. and attempts to intimidate it by threats. In short, it shows activity which cannot be reconciled with the dignity of the highest leadership.

“The fairness of which the Zionist Executive enunciations usually speak will be difficult to find here….

“The result of this exchange between the two news agencies is not very gratifying. It is to the advantage of the J.T.A. that it bear no stamp of officialdom. But the Executive should be more eclectic in the choice of its propaganda measures. Bartering news, soliciting subscriptions and discrediting the J.T.A. to the Jewish world are not exactly indications of a sense of fairness.”