Item 'had big errors’

Press, 13 February 1986, Page 8

Item 'had big errors’

Mr Douglas is also considering lodging a complaint with the Broadcasting Corporation about an “Eye-witness News” item on the reconstruction plan for New Zealand Steel. He said the Tuesday item contained big inaccuracies.

“To say it was incompetent journalism is to put an extremely favourable construction on it,” said Mr Douglas. Mr Douglas outlined some of the items he

claimed were inaccurate.

The report said that the National Government had told the company the price of coal would not be increased and Labour had upped the price threefold. Mr Douglas said there was no written agreement and he was unaware of any verbal one, and as yet no price for the coal had been determined.

The report claimed New Zealand Steel in 1981 was “a small private com-

pany” when in fact it was among the largest publicly listed companies. It also implied that' at the change of Government only legally watertight legal agreements would be honoured when this was not the case.

Mr Douglas said there were other inaccuracies in the report and because there was a great deal at stake for both the Government and the company it was important there be

accurate reporting. “Eye-witness” also broke a midnight embargo on the document. A reporter, Larni Hunter, had asked New Zealand Steel if it could report the item earlier than the embargo but the request was declined. The item was reported in the “informed sources” style when in fact Mr Hunter had attended the embargoed press briefing and received the reconstruction plan document.