AUCKLAND “STAR” TACTICS EXPOSED

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 202, 15 November 1927, Page 1

AUCKLAND “STAR” TACTICS EXPOSED

Incident in a Railway Carriage THE SUN Replies to Detractors JUST about two years ago the plan to establish The Sun in J Auckland was projected. From that moment a campaign of hostile propaganda commenced. It has been carried on unceasingly ever since. The policy of The Sun from the outset has been to ignore its detractors. The Sun has been content to prove by its deeds and performances that those persons who are so busy slandering it are strangers to the truth. Their object is obvious; they are merely concerned with the recovery of a valuable newspaper monopoly which The Sun had the temerity to assail. Without troubling to air its grievances in public The gun proved these hostile propagandists to be false prophets on the following points:— 1. When the prospectus of The Sun Newspapers, Ltd., was issued our opponents moved heaven and earth to prejudice the flotation, and broadcast the opinion that the capital would never be subscribed. Within the period required by law the money was forthcoming and the shares allotted. 2. The next canard circulated was that The Sun had purchased an unsuitable site: it was too small, and in any case the buildings could not be erected in time specified by the contract. The site speaks for itself and the contract was faithfully executed on schedule time by the builders. 3. Statements were next circulated that it would be impossible to equip a newspaper office and import and instal the large plant necessary to produce a daily newspaper in the time allowed, which was a little more than a year from the commencement of building operations. The building contract was signed on March 3, 1926, and THE SUN was published on March 23, 1927. 4. In any case, continued the propagandists, nobody would support the paper. It wouldn’t get any advertising and nobody would buy it. Six months, at the outside, was as long as it could last in competition with the wonderfully entrenched newspaper monopolists of Auckland. Seven months have passed and THE SUN is firmly established. The story published below is the answer to No. 4.

AN EPISODE IN A TRAIN •STAR” SPIES USE STOP WATCH TIME: About 7 p.m. DATE: Saturday, November 12, 1927. PLACE:The Auckland Express, near Hunterville. A party of four, including three Aucklanders representing the law, commerce and the press, are returning from the South. They have had dinner at Marton, and are now seated more or less comfortably in one of the compartments of an ancient sleep-ing-car, and are having a talk. The conversation touches on the Royal Show at Christchurch, the advantages of Daylight Saving to travellers, the tne views of the Rangitikei country to be seen from the train, and then turns to newspapers and inevitably to the sun. One of the quartet stated he had heen told by the Managing Director of the Auckland “Star” newspaper that a census showed the circulation of THE SUN to be about 4,000 a night. A second member of the party (who happened to be Mr. A. D. Seabrook, Advertising Manager of the “Star”), remarked that he was in a position to say 'hat the circulation of THE SUN actually is. At his office they knew the capacity of THE SUN’S machine. They had taken a stop-watch, and had timed the machine’s run, more than °nce, and had proved definitely that THE SUN prints only between six and sight thousand copies a night. At this stage the fourth passenger, 'ho was a stranger to the others, sntered the conversation. He claimed to have even more accurate information on this interesting subject. He said that he knew what the figures are from day to day, and as Publisher of THE SUN, he would say in Mr. Seai>took's presence that the statements had just made were untrue, and lothing more than unscrupulous fabrications. COLLAPSE OF MR. SEABROOK OUTSIDERS enjoy the joke The statement of the Publisher of THE SUN (Mr. S. R. Evison) came as ' The discomfiture of r - Seabrook was complete. The other parties to the conversawere quickest to get the humour ° situation and were in a position ® ® n J°3 r the joke. ®®t for Mr. Seabrook it was and is Y »ry serious matter. THE SUN has that for months past Mr. Seakas been circulating similar ateueuts among the business comof Auckland. ® ,lnie has come to give the lie 10 the ®tatements of Mr. Sea- -- ,11 4 Ws employers.