THE NEWSPAPERS.

New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 489, 5 November 1948, Page 5

THE NEWSPAPERS.

sir,-Messrs. Grapper and Meiviiie (whose innocence is too pure for this vile world) ask for "concrete examples" in support of the charge that newspapers sometimes "slant" news to lead readers to certain conclusions. Let me put this question to them. Is it not a fact that at the height of the controversy about Auckland’s sewerage scheme an Ayckland newspaper was given two statements made by eminent men — statements made with reference to the scheme itself, not mere generalisations; that the two men were Sir John Boyd Orr, then head of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, and Viscount Bledisloe, sometime Governor-General of New Zealand and an ex-president of the Royal Agricultural Society of Great Britain; that both statements were flatly opposed, in their implications, to the policy of the paper; and that both were refused publication? More _ recently, were not full publicity, and_ editorial approval, given to a report on the same question by the engineer of the Drainage Board? And was not a statement signed by a university professor of law expressing the view that quotations from authorities in the report had been garbled, to such an extent as to be mis- leading,» was that not refused publication? I could supply other examples if space permitted. Our newspapers are not as bad as they might be. Some of tlfem show a high sense of editorial responsibility. But there are one or two of them that will go to extraordinary lengths, on occasion, to suppress important information about matters on which they have taken a strong line of editorial policy. I think nearly everybody in the community is aware of this. Hence the general distrust (in some cases largely undeserved) with wich they are regarded by the public. All this is re-grettable-for the integrity of the press is of vital importance in a democracy.

A. R. D.

FAIRBURN

(Auckland).