'News Media Bill Was Heated Political Issue’

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31001, 5 March 1966, Page 24

'News Media Bill Was Heated Political Issue’

(N.Z. Press Assn. —Copyright) QUEENSTOWN, March 4. During 1965 the News Media Bill proved a most controversial piece of legislation and had become a heated political issue. Once the Government and the Opposition had taken their respective positions the matter had become confused and the principle at stake largely lost sight of, the president of the Newspaper Proprietors’ Association (Mr H. N. Blundell) told the association’s annual meeting today. “It was unfortunate that the bill had to become the subject of party politics. One can imagine that had Labour been in office, Labour might have supported the bill and the National Party could have opposed it. The problem was complex and it is easy to understand how the issues became confused,” he said. “Newspaper executives received the legislation with mixed feelings. It was not possible for any individual leader in the industry to speak on behalf of the newspapers as a whole, nor, in most cases, was it possible for him to speak on behalf of his own company.

“The wishes of a company are in the ultimate the wishes of the company's shareholders. Only an executive holding a majority of the

shares could really speak for his company on a matter which placed any restriction or control on those shares.

Although legislation might have been greeted with mixed feelings by the industry, most newspapermen and at least a large section of the public were fully in accord with the principle of keeping the means of mass communication, whether Government or privately owned, in the hands of New Zealanders, he said.

Many people did not have a full appreciation of the economics of the newspaper industry, said Mr Blundell. “A commonly-held view is that overseas control of a single newspaper could do no harm and might improve the standard of the New Zealand press,” he said. “This argument may have some validity but nothing is more certain than that once a huge overseas publishing empire acquired control of a large New Zealand newspaper the economics of the industry would inevitably result in the expansion of that empire within New Zealand.

“It is now apparent that the legislation will have no practical effect on the transfer of newspaper shares as all but one of the newspaper companies belonging to our association have more than 80 per cent of their shareholding held by New Zealand domiciled shareholders.”