JOURNALISTIC VENOM.

Taranaki Daily News, 2 May 1918, Page 4

JOURNALISTIC VENOM.

It is only when no alternative presents itself that we care to reply to matters appearing in a contemporary. The New Plymouth evening paper has lately been exhibiting a good deal of venom over what it is pleased to term "panicky announcements," and the limit of tolerance was reached in a foot note to a letter appearing in that journal yesterday, which footnote can only be described as being as wilfully malicious as it is unjustified. . The writer of the footnote deliberately states that nothing alarming was disclosed in the cable and telegraphic news the digest of which was lately given by us to the ministers of some of the churches. He then goes a further step on his downward path by contending that the announcements were not based on fact, and probably expects most people to infer thereby that we intentionally endeavored to create a scare by disseminating false news, for he drives this argument homo in the following sentence by an expression of belief that, In England it is a punishable offence to disseminate false war news which is calculated to unnecessarily alarm the people." He ought to know that it is an offence in New Zealand, but certainly not such a degrading offence as to deliberatively exercise malice under cover of a Pretended duty. The facts are extremely simple, and so clear that a childcan understand them. The news which came through to us on the Saturday night in question was so grave that the Premier of New Zealand and two of his Ministers, including Sir Joseph Ward, doubted whether it would be necessary for the Imperial Conference to *«*«»•:

place—or, strictly speaking, whether it would be necessary for the Premier and Minister of Finance to go to England. If, then, we sinned with reward to the grave nature of the newts, it war, in very good company,, but, v,o did not in the slightest degree either magnify or minimise the news given by us to the clergy, nor, so far as we have been able to learn, did the clergy. In discharging venom at us the evening paper appears to forget that a very serious charge has been levelled at the clergy, for which a full apology should be made. Possibly tho public are not aware that no cable or press telegrams reach the evening paper between Saturday afternoon and Monday morning, except copies of the official war news, which is to be found on the doors of the post oflice, or any "extraordinary" cable, the receipt of which is very rare. Therefore that paper is not in a position to know what is transpiring until the news has been published by us; otherwise we should be quite content for that journal to edify the public once in a way. We only mention this to explain why the duty of "disseminating" grave news fell to our lot by the only available means—through the clergy—and the excellent version of how the news was made known at the Tabernacle, as given by the correspondent "N.T.M." in yesterday's evening paper, justifies our action, though it lias evoked such a malicious footnote, which, unfortunately, loweis the tone of the Dominion's journalism. But for this we should have ignored the discreditable imputation, as to which we can only use the words of Mr. Balfour by describing the statements as "frigid lies," added to which is hypocrisy of the most cowardly type.