The military officer in the Pacific also came on the heels of an editor who was reportedly removed because the Commander was unhappy with what was going on, some of the articles that were being printed in Stars and Stripes.

I think the second reason would be the cultural difference between Europe and the Pacific. Europe is closer to us in terms of accepting a free press. The Far East generally has a more controlled media.

Mr. HUTTO. Several of the DOD officials have been critical of the GAO content analysis, saying that it's flawed. Would you respond to that?

Mr. FERBER. Yes, sir. We believe the content analysis is really the only independent way to do a check on the news content of the newspapers. In our report, we describe in detail the procedure we went through and the quality checks we put in. The main criticism that has come is that they said that the wire services that we did our content analysis on were different for the Pacific and Europe. In other words, they made the allegation that the Pacific and Europe received different information and that we used the wire services as a basis for our analysis.

We used only American dateline articles off the wire services that were received by both Europe and the Pacific. When that criticism was raised, we verified that fact with the Associated Press' Vice President for World Services, and UPI's Manager of Corporate and Government Sales. So at the highest level, we verified that that was true.

Also, in some cases where we noticed that both papers picked up the same wire service articles, we found inconsistencies. They tended to be that the Pacific, using the same wire service article, portrayed a more upbeat or more mixed version of some articles while Europe portrayed a more negative version.

What our contents analysis showed was that while 47 percent of the wire service articles conveyed a negative image of DOD in the article, both newspapers had a lesser percent in the articles they ran. Thirty-five percent of the articles run in Europe and 27 percent of the articles in the Pacific conveyed a negative impression.

Mr. HUTTO. I guess some would wonder why the military couldn't have an in-house newspaper, so to speak, like, for example, the school newspaper which often promotes its activities and presents a positive image, especially since our military forces have access to USA Today and the international newspapers and so on.

Is that any kind of valid argument?

Mr. FERBER. Well, the military also has what are called command newspapers, that serve that exact function. It's provided free at base level and it conveys command news.

We think that's different than Stars and Stripes. Stars and Stripes does serve a much broader mission; at the price of 25 cents, it's much more affordable than USA Today or International Herald Tribune which sell for probably close to a buck overseas. So we think there's definitely a role for Stars and Stripes as there is a role for the command newspapers.

Mr. HUTTO. Generally I guess you'd say the command newspapers cover local events and the Stars and Stripes have a broader

readership and their purpose is to cover all world news, then, like a regular newspaper?

Mr. FERBER. Yes, sir, that's correct. The command newspapers also are one of the mechanisms where you can provide information that the troops have to have because it's given to them free, it's much more widely used, just because it's free rather than sold. We don't believe that Stars and Stripes should be a primary vehicle for providing command information that a soldier must have. It is an excellent paper that provides a much broader objective, as you stated.

Mr. HUTTO. Thank you.

Mr. Leath.

Mr. LEATH. Mr. Ferber, is the General Accounting Office aware of the Rosen Commission Study, and if so, what are your impressions of the study?

Mr. FERBER. Yes, sir. The Rosen Commission was a study that was done in response to our 1986 report. At that time, we had made recommendations that the papers be consolidated. We also had a recommendation that the price of the European paper be raised from 15 cents at that time to 25 cents, which was being charged in the Pacific. The price of the paper was immediately raised.

The Rosen Commission was formed to respond to our recommendation of consolidation and look at the whole management and operation of the newspapers. They made many recommendations dealing with the management and operations mainly aimed at increasing revenues and making more efficient operations. Unfortunately, we don't think they seriously considered our recommendation for consolidation.

The Defense Audit Service had made a similar recommendation in 1977 and at that time, also, the response was to do other things rather than consolidate. That's when they first started paying the Japanese local nationals in the Far East out of appropriated funds, and also provided free postage outside of Germany for the newspaper, two benefits that no other MWR activity receives.

Mr. LEATH. In your judgment, do we have any definitive understanding of why they are so opposed to consolidation?

Mr. FERBER. It would be our impression that they're opposed because they believe firmly in the military mission of Stars and Stripes. I'm sure they believe firmly in the First Amendment mission, also. But in their comments on our 1986 report, they stressed the mission function of Stars and Stripes and it is a theater newspaper and therefore it was entitled to appropriated fund support. Mr. LEATH. Well, consolidation, though, wouldn't necessarily change that, would it? You could obviously have the paper printed in two different places, have different content, which I assume is what happened with the Asian Wall Street Journal and the Wall Street Journal that we read here even regionalized to some degree in the United States?

Mr. FERBER. It's a policy issue, but the main thing would be that it would no longer be a paper of the commander in chief in each theater. The commander in chief right now is the publisher of the paper. You have one publisher in the Pacific, one publisher in

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Europe. Under consolidation, the publisher would no longer be the theater; the publisher would be the Armed Forces.

Mr. LEATH. I think maybe you inadvertently lead us to what I was going to ask you next. Is this one of those little turf battles that we see sometimes where the commander doesn't want to give up his recreation centers or newspapers, whatever, even though he may be losing his rear and doesn't know how to operate them? Is this one of those scenarios in your judgment?

Mr. FERBER. I don't know if I would characterize it as a turf battle as much as that it's just for years been viewed as a theater operation and a theater newspaper. Some of the allegations go back to some theater influence but it's really viewed as a

Mr. LEATH. Why is it viewed that way? I've read it all over the world, and I don't see anything strikingly different about the one in Tokyo that I read last July as opposed to the one I read in Germany in August.

What's the big deal about the theater that is so strikingly different or that could not be done even if you had a consolidated operation?

Mr. FERBER. We don't think there is a difference. I would suggest you ask DOD why it believes firmly that they should be theater newspapers.

Mr. LEATH. You say that you think consolidation would save about $3 million?

Mr. FERBER. In our 1986 report $2.5 million.

Mr. LEATH. Do you think that maybe has gone up at this point, or?

Mr. FERBER. Yes. The $2.5 million figure was based on an update of the 1977 Defense Audit Service report. I think it would have to have gone up, mainly because of the weakness of the dollar overseas. If we would move the paper to the U.S., we wouldn't be paying the housing allowances and the other benefits that are very expensive, especially in Tokyo. Also, we think the consolidation would allow you to reduce the number of editors you have. We would estimate that the benefits would be higher than what we said in 1986.

Mr. LEATH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. HUTTO. Thank you, Mr. Leath.

Mr. Hefley.

Mr. HEFLEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm confused, I guess, on this. It seems to me either it is a command bulletin and therefore First Amendment doesn't play a role in it, and it ought to receive subsidy, or it is a newspaper that shouldn't receive subsidy and First Amendment rights ought to take place.

You said that there is a role, that it should play both roles?

Mr. FERBER. By DOD instruction, it has both functions. As we pointed out, the instruction prior to the current one emphasized more the First Amendment aspects of it where the new instruction emphasizes more the mission role. The Society of Professional Journalists were very confused and concerned about this dual role, and would like to see it move much toward the First Amendment newspaper.

Again, I would have to defer to DOD to better explain why it has the dual role.

Mr. HEFLEY. If we moved it more and more to a First Amendment newspaper, then would we also reduce or eliminate the subsidy?

Mr. FERBER. One of the things DOD would like to do is have more advertising revenue out of the newspaper, but the Joint Committee on Printing has gone very cautiously in allowing DOD to do any advertising. It was initially prohibited from advertising, was given a little leeway and maybe has done a little more than it should, but JCP right now has given it very limited advertising.

If it was a purely First Amendment newspaper, more commercial, then they would be really unlimited in the amount of advertising they could do. The concern with doing more advertising was that there was a whole host of commercial newspapers that compete and were concerned that the Government would be subsidizing a competitor.

Mr. HEFLEY. It seems like we have a hybrid then that is difficult to justify on either basis, and as the Chairman had indicated earlier, with the modern technology we have they can receive USA Today, and the only reason why we would have this paper providing regular news would be that it's cheaper. Is that correct?

Mr. FERBER. It is cheaper. It's subsidized not only by appropriated funds, but the bookstores that the Stars and Stripes run make money, and it's used to subsidize a loss of the newspaper. It's considered a morale and welfare activity for the troops, but it's exactly that dual mission that we thought provides the problems and it's always going to be a concern one way or the other, as long as you have that dual mission. We really felt that that was the cause of the concerns we saw in both our reviews. DOD would disagree with that. They would say, no, that is not the case.

Mr. HEFLEY. In reply to your report of 1988, DOD stated that copies of documents provided to the Journalism panel by GAO were not clear, and material was not sufficient to make a judgment.

Do you agree with that statement?

Mr. FERBER. We gave the panel exactly what we had. In some cases, the information we had gotten from the allegators was not clear. We gave the commission what we had. When we were able to get some better information, we also provided that to the panel. We provided the panel the allegation, the information we developed, and the responses by Europe and the Pacific to what the allegations were.

In discussing that with the Chairman of the panel, he said the few cases where the information was unclear had no bearing on their final report and conclusions.

Mr. HEFLEY. One more question. DOD is considering the establishment of ombudsman. What do you think about that?

Mr. FERBER. We have no problem with that position. We think that you also need a civilian editor and the ombudsman cannot replace the need for a civilian editor. We would like to see an ombudsman implemented and tried. We also, DOD just gave us their final response to our report, and in there, they said that the ombudsman should consider content analysis as one of the tools he or she uses in their role, so we have no problem with that at all. Mr. HEFLEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MACHTLEY. Mr. Ferber, prior to coming here, I was a lawyer and had the opportunity to study many cases on the issue of censorship, and I understand it is a complex term. Also, I was a military officer and had military training.

I think it's important as we discuss this issue to talk about censorship not in the technical terms but as you might define it. What would be your definition of censorship?

Mr. FERBER. Actually, in our report, we let the Society of Professional Journalists come up with the definitions of both censorship and news management, and that's the criteria we used. Not being experts, we relied on them to provide us the criteria.

They define censorship as not selecting a story, killing a story, or removing parts of the story to not provide information under a guise, if you will, of national security.

They define news management as obscuring the news or delaying a breaking story or, in other words, just not providing the truth with the information they should have.

DOD's prior studies of censorship have basically defined censorship as external influence on the newspaper. When they've done a couple studies in the past and they found there was no external influence, they said censorship didn't exist. That definition is different than the Society of Professional Journalists, who I'm sure you're aware we were mandated by Congress to work with.

Mr. MACHTLEY. So are you suggesting that the censorship is when it is external and management is when it is internal?

Mr. FERBER. No. Going by the criteria that we were given by the Society, censorship as we viewed it was primarily internal. We did look at external too, and that is also censorship. But we went beyond what the other studies have done and looked at the internal management of the editorial function. By the Society's criteria, we viewed that as censorship or news management.

Mr. MACHTLEY. By the Society's criteria, would you suggest that there was more external or more internal censorship in this situation?

Mr. FERBER. Historically, I should say prior to more recent events, it appeared to be more external. Concerning the censorship that we've discussed over the last couple of years in the Pacific, we only could find maybe one isolated case where it looked like there was an external influence; rather the concept of censorship that we were discussing there deals with the management of the newspaper by the editor-in-chief.

Mr. MACHTLEY. Are there any measures which you might suggest that could insulate or protect the civilian editors from the influence of the commanders or the external censorship?

Mr. FERBER. The very nature of being a civilian doesn't necessarily provide protection, but we believe that it provides some, more so than having a military officer in that position.

We also made several recommendations at the policy level in our report which we think would help. One was to reemphasize the First Amendment mission. One was to clear up what appears to be, or at least is interpreted as, a prohibition on investigative reporting which greatly bothered the Society of Professional Journalists.