"FREEDOM OF THE PRESS"
Sir,-Many thanks to "A.M." for his excellent little article on the above* subject. Personally, I see no reason why the Press ought to have any more rights than any ordinary citizen. If an editor expresses an opinion with which I do not agree, I claim that I, with the same rights and privileges and obligations, should have precisely the same right to express the opposite opinion. If not, why not? So long as they are prepared to grant me this right, the more "opinions" they express the better I will like them. As a socialist, I claim the right to speak, I claim the right to read, I claim the right to write, and I claim the right to hear. That is what I would call "the four freedoms." Where an individual, or a group of individuals, are attacked by the Press, then that individual. or group of individuals ought to have the right of reply. The real power of the Press consists far more in its power to suppress than in its power to express. One would think, to hear the Press talk about Freedom, that it was some sort of sacred right granted to them, but denied to others. That is not so. Stephen Leacock, the Canadian economist and humourist, ‘said: "It is the easiest thing in the world to run a newspaper; all you have to do is to publish a statement to-day, which you know isn’t true, and contradict it to-morrow." The recent debacle of the Tories in England proves to my mind that the Press is not nearly so powerful as it thinks it is.
SOCIALIST
(Palmerston North).
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19461018.2.14.12
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 15, Issue 382, 18 October 1946, Page 28
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277"FREEDOM OF THE PRESS" New Zealand Listener, Volume 15, Issue 382, 18 October 1946, Page 28
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