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Now, there's an interesting question here, because in subsequent years this kind of coverage, which was really as objective as it could possibly be, has come in for a great deal of question on the part of very serious-minded newspaper people who feel that if you gave deadpan coverage to some outrageous situation, you actually were misleading the public by not really giving the whole picture, that is, by not really showing, through choice of words and through what in a sense was a kind of interpretation of the news in your stories, that you were not really giving them the true picture of what happening. And this line of argument bothered me a lot and has bothered me a lot because I do see that there is some sense to this, and yet it is so dangerous to follow that line because you so easily get into simply expressing your own opinion, i.e. editorializing in the news columns. I recognize that a strictly deadpan account of some of these farcical things that went on in the Dies Committee, for example--I cite that simply as a striking example--really also did not give a truly accurate picture because you failed then to get across some of the absurdities and some of the meanness and some of the demagoguery, especially that, which was going on. So my faith in severe objectivity was somewhat shaken on what I think are quite serious grounds. And this involves the whole question of to what degree should the reporter interpret the news.

However, during this whole period, I didn't let this argument affect my own writing. I was extremely objective. And yet it is interesting to note that the people up there on the Dies Committee, particularly because I covered it for a long time, felt that nevertheless I was exceedingly biased against them, that is the people who were running the Committee: Chairman Dies and particularly the counsel, a man named Stripling. I think they felt I was