Public Opinion

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 13, Issue 27, 1 December 1948, Page 8

Public Opinion

Opinions expressed by correspondents are their own and, though published here because we believe in freedom of speech and of opinion, are not necessarily shared by this newspaper.

FOR OUR SINS

Sir,—ln your leader of November 22 (a plea for co-operation) you mention a psychic process of news gathering. Was it your psychic personality which was in' abeyance when an address was given to some of the ratepayers of Ohope, by Mr C. G. Lucas? I can assure, you it was worthy of being fully reported, so that the whole of the ratepayers of the beach could be informed, as part of the address affected'not only East end of, the beach, but the West end also. If the Press was not invited it was a grave oversight, as it concerned a big majority who were (from one cause,, or another) not at the meeting. However, the address is not of the sort of news that in your parlance addles with 'keeping, and is worthy of recording, and is probably procurable from its author. f Some of the facts in the address may be past history, but one cannot ignore past history in its effect on the present and future. You say you are here to further the interest of the whole district and all its citizens; but may I add to that, the Press is looked upon,in the same light by the reading public as a record of discussion as Hansard is by the members in Parliament. , So, Mr Editor, what about it? Tours etc., ; F. MAHY, Senr. ' No, it wasn’t the psychic personality out of gear. As we hadn’t a man available we couldn’t be directly represented. at a meeting on November 3 (which we presume is the one to which Mr Mahy refers), but did the next best thing and arranged for coverage. I n our next issue, Novomber 5, we hadn’t space to give speeches in detail, but we devoted 18J inches of a total local news space of 116 inches, to the meeting and comment on it—about one-sixth l of the available space. That same day we carried 29 other local and district news items, .all of which were of importance to sections of our readers. When Mr Mahy considers that Ohope provides just on 5 per cent of our subscribers, he will probably agree with us that the proportion of < our space his little corner of the district got on that occasion was fair enough. We are gratified that our standard of accuracy is such that we are regarded by our readers in the same light as Hansard is regarded by Members of Parliament. That's quite the nicest thing anyone has sa.d about us for a long time.—Editor.