"FAIR REPORTING."

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VI, Issue 27, 1 February 1871, Page 2

"FAIR REPORTING."

Let opinion be what it may, fair reporting is at all times, especially during elections, an absolute essential to honest journalism, else injustice is done to the public, and the character of journalism seriously injured. — Colonist' January 24. No one who read the above paragraph in that immaculate journal the Colonist, would have supposed that, one Bhort week after it was written, our contemporary would have laid himself open to the charge which we now bring against him of having deliberately and knowingly garbled the report of Mr. Lightband's speech, delivered to the electors on Monday night. We say advisedly that it was done deliberately and knowingly because we have evidence to prove that the reporter of the Colonist expressed his surprise at the time, that such an egregious error as that to which we are now about to refer should have been made by Mr. Lightbaod. In the course of his remarks upon Provincialism and Centralism, Mr. Lightband stated that Mr. J. Q. Richmond was known to be an out-and-out Provincialist, and great was the surprise expressed in various parts of ihe Hall at such a hold and unwarranted assertion being made. Greatly to our surprise we find in yesterday's Colonist that Mr. Lightbaud delivered himself as follows : — " A candidate who had been proposed for the City, Mr. J. C. Richmond, professed himself to he an out-and-out Centralist" (the italics are our own, having been rendered necessary in order to fully expose the glaring — well we hardly know what to call it, of our contemporary.) This is no typographical error, but the alteration has been calmly and deliberately made, and we would ask our readers to compare this flagrant case of naisre porting with the little homily on the subject indulged in by the Colonist only a week previously. Is our contemporary of opinion that he, and he alone, has a special right to place his own interpretation on what is said by a public speaker, or is this to be looked upon as part of a " system of electioneering tactics " ? One more instance, of a less important nature, but still sufficient to show that the theory and practice of the Colonist on the subject of reports, "especially during elections," are entirely at variance.- Wo fiud it stated in the columns ot' that honest journal, that Mr. Lightband, in speaking of Mr. Branigan's force, said as follows ;— " They were not 'Pannikin' men as had been sneeringly stated in the Evening Mail and other papers." „ . .' . We have already referred to this subject, and corrected a mistake made by Mr. Lightband on this head, but we thoroughly acquit him of having made- use of the word "sneeringly," which emanated entirely from the imaginative brain of our contemporary, who pretends to be so horrified at anything approaching to an incorrect report in any other newspaper. It is all very well for the Colonist to set itself up as a preacher, and fauU-finder, but if any weight is to be attached to its opinions, it must be more careful to show that its practice is in accordance with its preaching. „",, ; "■■,,:' :.^-.''\ .- " ..-.

/■'vWaevjVigtims'-: FuND.. ; --r-_An';earnest ; appeal has been issued to the by it^a Socieiiy; of Friends for subscriptions to \Msisj£s(je j^peaianlfci^tajadV' non-combatants ■ ; ■;wi(Fare^ . ■■i^i^-th^p^^^destru^ I ■Itfceso^juj^ ;

and then refuse —if you can —to help quickly, your neighbors who are now perishing." We are. requested to state that subscriptions^! behalf of this fund will be thankfuU^r received at the Union Bank, or forJUr. Strong, at the office of this papep*^ ; EmSction Intelligence. —We have received the following telegram from the Kikouras. Declaration of Poll at Kaikoura, Ingles 62, Ward 56,, Gooch 20. i ■