Members of the 1945 post-war European radio facilities tour by American broadcasters including WNYC's Morris Novik.

(Photo courtesy of The La Guardia and Wagner Archives, La Guardia Community College/The City University of New York)

At the invitation of General Eisenhower, and with approval of The White House, WNYC Director Morris Novik was the sole representative for non-commercial American radio during a month-long tour of radio facilities in the European Theater of Operations. The tour included a packed itinerary of visits to England, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Belgium. Forty American broadcasters and trade paper reps, accredited as 'war correspondents,' left in uniform on August 10, 1945. They were thoroughly briefed on the broadcast services needed by American GIs and by Europeans emerging from six years of war. 

WNYC's Morris Novik receives some 'novikaine' from Clair R. McCollough of the Mason-Dixon Radio Group with J. Leonard Reinsch, radio advisor to President Truman, checking his pulse. 

(Photo courtesy of The La Guardia and Wagner Archives, La Guardia Community College/The City University of New York)

The mission also interviewed Generals Eisenhower and Patton and had an audience with the Pope. They conferred with their counterparts at the BBC, toured the various Armed Forces network sites, and got their first glance at a tape recorder, the German-invented  magnetophone. When meeting with Eisenhower, Novik, on behalf of Mayor La Guardia, presented the General with a complete set of transcription discs of WNYC's coverage of his triumphant homecoming to New York City two months earlier.  

Novik first reported on his trip to the annual National Association of Educational Broadcasters (NAEB) convention held in late September of the same year in Urbana, Illinois.

The program schedules of a great many European broadcasting systems are at their weakest, and in the poorest condition as regards imagination, interest, and audience appeal due to the very small budgets allotted for programming. However, educational, university and state-owned radio stations have a great deal to learn from the European stations.[1]

Broadcasting, October 29, 1945, pg.10. 

 

Novik then detailed those thoughts to the nation via Broadcasting magazine the following month. The WNYC head said that comparing American and European broadcasters would be 'unfair,' if not 'illogical,' if one took into account the effects of six years of war in Europe. He did, however, echo General Eisenhower in saying that Americans needed to be educators rather than occupiers and that radio could play an important role in this regard. Novik’s recommendations included keeping Europe well-informed about the change over to a peacetime economy and way of life, as well as promoting production and engineering scholarships. Informational exchanges, he said, should focus on American broadcast methods while sending US technicians to learn about new tape recording technology. Novik also called on the networks to maintain their high staffing levels in a postwar Europe in order to inform the American public of both US forces’ efforts in Europe and European attempts at “solving their own problems.” He added that Americans could "probably learn a great deal from the British method of handling news."[2] 

Morris Novik's position as the sole non-commercial broadcaster on this trip no doubt provided an essential interpretive link between the largely state-sponsored European broadcasters and their commercial counterparts in the United States. WNYC had already established a strong relationship with the BBC, carrying its Radio Newsreel daily throughout the war. We were also soon to use the BBC's coverage of the Nuremberg war crimes trials and down the road, we would expand this international input with content from Radio France, Radio Netherlands, and Radio Luxembourg.

WNYC still carries the BBC World Service programming on a daily basis. 

A 1946 Chicago reunion of American broadcasters who toured post-war radio facilities in London, Paris, Rome and Berlin. Morris Novik is standing at right with a hand on his shoulder. 

(The La Guardia and Wagner Archives, La Guardia Community College/The City University of New York)

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[1] NAEB Newsletter, October 1, 1945, courtesy of Unlocking the Airwaves.

[2] Novik, Morris, "My Impression of Europe," Broadcasting, October 29, 1945, pgs.10 and 89.