JOURNALISM AND MR ANSTEY, M.P.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 3 September 1915, Page 2

JOURNALISM AND MR ANSTEY, M.P.

I Press telegrams iu these* days are toe discursive as a rule, and cheap as they are per hundred words,, form 111 tlie aggregate a lieavv expense to newsipaper proprietaries. let at least one member of Parliament (.Mr Anstey) is desirous of having the rate off charges increased, lie told the House of Representatives. this week, that he "saw no reason why the newspaper concerns, "which 'were known to ue (wealthy. should receive such very favourable treatment in the matter ol telegraph charges, at the expense of the general community. He would like to see the rates raised, and would not be at all sorry it the result was a curtailment of the reports oil divorce cases and Parliamentary quarrels. He had noticed, he said, that the newspapers gave a great deal more prominence to news of a frivolous, even harmful, character than they did to the serious utterances of thoughtful men." Mr Anstey as newspaper-critic has his uses. There is a basis in truth ror his statement about wealthy proprietaries; but there are more poor than rich, in newspaper communities as in general ones. 'Perhaps the newspapers as a whole fairly could carry a small amount of the extra taxation, but we doubt f the proiit statements ol the country press as a whole would justify any -ncreased levy. As to Mr Anstey's statement (that "the newspapers give a great deal more prominence to news ol a frivolous, even harmful character than they do to the serious utterances of thoughtful men") it must be remarked that the readers ol newspapers get in them the quality oi news they wish to (read, and that no one newspaper is a counterpart of the other. If a newspaper does not print news of the kind that its readers hvisli lor its readers promptly transfer their subscriptions to the War Cry or the Dominion or Truth, as their respective desires for "news" directs them. The trouble with critics oi the calibre ol 'Mr Anstey, M.P., is that they wisli to load the minds of flighty individuals with detail about i>referential taxation, accrued sinking funds, the necessity lor a siding at Waitaki river bed, and other matters of greater or lesser political importance, to .the exclusion of matters of wider general interest if Jess helpful. A newspaper to )be successful must ollow public taste as well as lead it, and if Mr Anstey could find time to spend a few thousands of pounds in founding a paper to deal chiefly with the "serious utterances ol thoughtful men" he speedily "would find out the truth of this summary of the needs and conditions of daily journalism.