THE GLOBE. THURSDAY, JULY 20, 1888. THE "STAR" AS TRUTHFUL JAMES.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2585, 20 July 1882, Page 2

THE GLOBE. THURSDAY, JULY 20, 1888. THE "STAR" AS TRUTHFUL JAMES.

Some keen observer of human nature has divided deviations from the truth into three different categories. Thus, he says, there is a lie with a purpose, a lie with malice prepense, and the purposeless or boastful lie. The latter class is usually iuduled in by persons who wish by a little braggadocio to impose upon the persons they are addressing, and to impress on them by means of the facility of their invention what highly clever persons they are. Now, the " Star " in a recent issue has elevated to the dignity of what may pass for a leader of one of the class of fabrications to which we have alluded. With an amount of cool audacity and assurance which is positively astounding, the journal alluded to has deliberately—to put it in the mildest possible form—perverted the truth in order to exalt itself at the expense of its contemporaries. The " Star" during the past few months has entered upon a career of petty mendacity, to which we have more than once called attention, but this later performance quite eclipses any of its previous efforts. Like the advice of Lady Angela to " Patience" on the subject of love, our contemporary doubtless has discovered that it really is not hard to deviate from the strict truth, once ihe mind is given to it. As our readers are doubtless aware the majority of the journals in New Zealand are served by one Association alike for colonial and cable messages, that in fact the same telegrams appear in all the newspapers belonging to the Association. No one paper has a scintilla of advantage over the other It is therefore somewhat surprising to find the " Star " meanly endeavoring to exalt its particular journal, and depreciate all others by circulating to the public what is absolutely untrue, viz., that the additional telegrams regarding the Egyptian war had been obtained solely " through the enterprise of the proprietors of this journal.' Had our contemporary sent forth the übiquitous Brown special to Alexandria, and obtained from that world-renowned correspondent a series of telegrams conveying to the New Zealand public, with that strict adherence to truth which characterised this North Island campaign, we should have been the first to have lauded the " enterprise" displayed. But when a journal knowing full well that not only the other evening journals in the same city, but all over the colony received, and published the telegrams, makes a statement that they have been sent special to the " Star" at its sole request, then"we Bay that the height of meanness and evasion of the truth has

been reached—a state of things we trns* never to see again in connection with journalism. The readers of the GiOBE on the same evening that the crow from the Gloucester street dunghill sang oat, had precisely the same information furnished them as to the progress of events at the sesi of war. Unlike onr contemporary, however, there was no flourish of trumpets and vain glorious boasting as to " enterprise,'* &a. The last few sentences of this remarkable production are richer than those* upon which we have commented. lis these our truthful friend, likeMacbotb," so far stepped in evasion of the truth that return were impossible," goes on to impress upon the minds of the public that these telegrams have been secured for the "Star" solely at great trouble and expense. As we have already pointed out, the Association supplies the majority of the journals in New Zealand, and the cost therefore is exactly the same to all. It seems to ns exceedingly pitiable that a journal possessing even a rag of self-respect should so far descend into the mire for the paltry object of taking to itself credit not justly duo. We trust that after this expose the " Star" will once mora return to the paths I of true journalism, and if possible combine with statements made, at least a trifle of fact.