Press Association Reports.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 3, Issue 82, 4 October 1912, Page 4

Press Association Reports.

The other week the Wellington "Dominion's" football scribe spread himself over half a column in destructive and denunciatory criticism of what he stigmatised as the "weird" Press Association message concerning the first Rugby League match between Auckland and New South "Wales. "A more highly-colored report surely never was placed on tho wires," commented the scribe. A further paragraph read: "The pronounced bias o£ the Press Association report becomes undoubted, and it is very regrettable that the bright new League game must suffer all over New Zealand on account of the fact that someone who is apparently prejudiced against the League has been allowed an ungoverned hand at the Auckland end of the wire." Mark this extract, too : "It is not the first time that Press Association reports have been impugned. lv has been tho case ore this iv politics, for instance, and, in fact, in many situations where rival feeling ranges itself under distinct banners." Quite so, 0 Wise One. But the highcoloring of that i'oot'rall report is voc arid pale compared to the vivid hues of Press Association messages concerning the Federation of Labor. The '" pronounced bias" of that football report, likewise, is r>, more bagatelle in comparison to the bitter bias of Press Association messages regarding the Federation. It is true, as tho "Dominion" football authority lias .stated, that highcoloring and pronounced bias have

marked Press Association reports ere this, but never have they been so much in evidence as in connection with messages bearing upon the Federation and the strike, especially as regards recent developments. Just because the Waihi mine-owners have secured a few men for surface work, it has beeti wired throughout the length and hreadth of the land that it is all U P with the strikers. Just because the Government have concentrated an unnecessarily largo police force iri the district, the strike is fizzling out. We were told several weeks ago that it was the "beginning of the end." Wo were also told that the strike was a "fizzle" ; informed, too, that the Federation was "on its last legs." All these things have been repeated ad nauseam' during the last fortnight, and they are not true. They , are the result, of the highly-colored reports and pronounced bias of the Press Association and are sent broadcast to delude the wofkefs, to work on the fears' of the more timid among the strikers (aiid so induce them to rush to get a job), and to stop the sinews of war by cajoling the contributors to the strikt fluid into tb.6 belief that "the game is up." But the strike is not all over. The miners are still solid, tlio funds are coming in, and the owners will find it impossible to "nobble" sufficient vttk* ers to go below and dig for dividends for absentee parasites. Even though the "Dominion" retain its shady reputation as out-Herodiiv Herod in extravagantly doctofifig "news."