THE DAILY PRESS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 26, Issue 667, 18 April 1952, Page 5

THE DAILY PRESS

Sir-You suggest, in your editorial of. March 28, that the New Zealand Press is hardly a machine or a monster. But you refrain from reference to the significant fact that the Press is an industry, and one which requires a great deal of capital. As it is usually assumed that the providers of this capital have considerable control over the selection and presentation of news, one is rather surprised to see your statement that the true functions and influence of a newspaper are in the hands of the men who work for it, Indeed, from my own observation as a journalist, I can only say that I wish you were correct. Would you, or any of the speakers in the forthcoming nine talks on the New Zealand Press, care to express an opinion as to whether or not our Press meets the "obligation to deal scrupuJously with fact and opinion?" You have, of course, said that errors are made by journalists, who are’ fallible enough at any time and especially so when the deadline is rushing towards them. But that does not explain why 80 many newspaper "errors" give the same "slant." Almost any person will say that he does not believe everything he reads in the newspapers. But, in fact, almost any person does believe everything that is frequently reiterated, And any layman who will go to a good public library will find, on the evidence of authorities, that among English and American newspapers the suppression and distortion of fact and opinion is both commen and well-nigh universal. After all, the vast majority of newspaper owners, overseas and in New Zealand, are businessmen whose primary aims must be the making of profits and the supplying’ of propaganda for political policies that will maintain and increase their own personal wealth, There is no incentive for them to provide trustworthy news-services.

No critical study of the New Zealand Press has yet been published. However, most people would concur with your statement that our dailies have integrity above that of the Press in most other parts of the world. But the difference does not, to me, appear sufficient for any complacency. In view of the desirability of a thorough examination of the situation, it is unfortunate that the NZBS talks have, apparently, been planned to evade the major issues. It is, for example, difficult to conceive of a managing editor criticising his employers’ policy or even suggesting that the New Zealand Press could be improved. Yet basic reform is essential if the interests of our community are to be regarded. Government control would not be a satisfactory alternative to the existing set-up, but there would probably be a great improvement if the value of newspaper shares that might be held by any one person were limited, say, to £100, and ‘if steps were taken to raise the ethical Standards of journalists and then to give them more responsibility.

THIS ABOVE ALL

(Christchurch).

Sir-Your editorial on our daily Press read to me like a tract by the Build Up’ Boys, an attempt to dissipate the polite contempt in which our Press is held by the. people. The monopoly which every metropolitan newspaper in this country enjoys, and which you deem of little consequence, has been used to

condemn and obstruct practically every social and industrial reform on our Statute book. It is rather fanciful to say that the suppression, selection and slanting of news are caused by pressures of work and time and space, and detected only in the leisure. hours of reading, Editors and sub-editors are well grounded in the tradition and policy of their papers, so that suppression, selection and slanting would become second nature to them. They do not dictate those traditions and policies, as you infer; failure to uphold them would, naturally, mean certain dismissal. Writing of his leader-writer days in Christchurch, Mr, Justice Alpers says that his job was to attack the Radicals in power, "And attack I did, occasionally with.a wealth of vituperation of which I am ashamed today." It will be interesting to follow the forthcoming talks, given though they are by men still employed by newspapers, to see how closely they resemble the productions of public relations offices.

G. R.

BEYNON

(Auckland).