N.Z. Airmen In Canada

New Zealand Listener, Volume 5, Issue 106, 4 July 1941, Page 3

N.Z. Airmen In Canada

LOCAL NEWS SENT WEEKLY EW ZEALAND airmen training in Canada are kept up-to-date with news of Dominion happenings, sent them by radio each week. Although we hear little of them except by their letters to relatives and friends, and the personal messages they give in the Boys Overseas programme on Sunday mornings, they are kept, through this service, in regular touch with news of home. The service has been operating for nearly two months. The news is prepared by the Prime Minister’s Department, Wellington, in the same way as the daily and weekly bulletins sent to the Middle East. It is cabled by the NBS to the Australian Broadcasting Commission, and in Sydney is incorporated as a New Zealand section into a bulletin of Australian news, sent by short-wave to Canada each Sunday. The bulk of our local news is cabled across at the end of the week in skeleton form, and on Saturday evening an additional cable is sent with the latest sporting and racing results. The bare bones of these two sections are filled out in Sydney before being spoken into the short-wave microphone. The news sent covers a wide field. There are paragraphs about leading personalities in the news, and obituaries of any people.who are likely to be known to the men, such as former schoolmasters. The names are given of winners of art unions, details of fires and accidents, news of the formation or extension of the W.A.A.F., and Territorial and Home Guard training, political gossip such as candidates announced for electorates, and visits of outstanding people to our shores. For the men who come from farming districts there is news of agricultural conditions, and for the mechanicallyminded a note about the make of new ambulances. Occasional reference is made to new buildings completed or to coal output, or to a significant resolution passed by such bodies as the R.S.A. It would be impossible to provide a news coverage to suit all tastes, or to supply as much news as the boys would have at home through conversations with their friends and through reading the newspapers, but in these short summaries an attempt is made to keep the boys informed of at least the major happenings in New Zealand. The sporting section naturally gives pride of place at this time of year to the Rugby games, but the winners of the chief races are also given. It is wonderful how much sporting information can be crowded into 100 words.