PRESS AND SPEECHES.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXX, Issue 5466, 26 August 1929, Page 1

PRESS AND SPEECHES.

A CHRONIC GRIEVANCE. WELLINGTON PAPER’S VIEW. A chronic grievance with a certain type of politician is the failure of the newspaper Press to do justice to their oratory. Either their pearls of wisdom are missed altogether or ii.stifficient space is given to do them justice, or some other and less deserving member has received better treatment (states the Wellington Dominion). These chronic growlers usually suffer from an exaggerated ego, ano no one pays them much attention. The other day one member of Parliament proposed that a State paper should be issued to do full justice to his own and his fellow-members’ speeches in Parliament. .Apparently this very simple gentleman labours under the impression that the general public are eagerly looking for pages daily of the dreary platitudes and party humbug which goes to constitute so large a part of our Parliamentary debates. An average member cf Parliament fills over six columns of newspaper space in an hour’s speech Picture the public rusting the newspapers to read half a dozen six-column political speeches per issue ! A daily newspaper which set out to report the proceedings of Parliament on the lines desired by some members of Parliament would have very little space left for the news in which the public is really interested, and its circulation would very soon fall away to the modest dimensions now reached by “Hansard,” Parliament’s own official publication. The fact is that the daily Press of New Zealand devotes just as much space to the speeches of members as their merits warrant and circumstances permit. Some members catch the eye of the Press more often than others because of the news interest of their matter ; some gain attention because of their official status ; but the first consideration almost invariably is the news interest of the speeches in relation to the space available. Mr Holland, leader of the Labour Party, who made complaint That one of his party had been inadequately reported on a recent occasion, was for some years editor of the official paper of the Labour Party. His idea of news interest to the readers of his paper was to fill it with views and opinions favourable to the Labour cause. The same paper to-day publishes columns of Mr Holland’s own speeches and excludes anything said in reply by his opponents. No more one-sided and one-eved publication exists in this Dominion ; yet Mr Holland and his friends speak of it with admiration and approval. But perhaps a clearer insight into the political mind on the subject of newspaper reports of members speeches may be gathered from the closing remarks of the Prime Minister during Wednesday’s discussion in Parliament. Sir Joseph Ward was complaining that certain speeches had not been adequately reported, when Mr Harris (Reform) pointed out that not a line of his (Mr Harris) speech had appeared in one of the United Party's puolications. “I don’t think anybody would have reported the speech of the hon. member,” retorted Sir Joseph Ward. “I would not read it if it had been reported.” There it is. He would not have read it, even if it had been reported. Mr Harris’s speech—an excellent one, by the way —did not appeal to the Prime Minis- ( ter, so he did not think it worth reporting. What was quite right, however, in the eyes of Sir Joseph Ward when it affected a speech of an opponent was quite wrong when it app.ied to one of his own party. As a matter of fact, members, generally speaking, get their desserts within the limits of space available in the daily Press. The disgruntled ones too frequently base their complaints on a mistaken appraisement of their own oratorical efforts. ''