THE WRITERS' CONFERENCE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 41, Issue 1051, 16 October 1959, Page 11

THE WRITERS' CONFERENCE

Sir-Mr Charles Brasch (Listener, September 25) has given clear expression to feelings shared by many in listening to Mr Schroder’s addressWriters and Broadcasting-at the recent Writers’ Conference. Indeed Mr Brasch has, I feel, stated the whole matter, the hopes and the failure, so clearly that he leaves little to be saidexcept to support him. That this particular’ session was a failure, a ehing at once negative and depressing, is not, I think, to be disputed. Mr Schroder, for whatever reasons, misunderstood both his role and his audience. I am less prepared, however, to accept Mr Brasch’s further point that the writers themselves, one and all, had their share in this failure. My disagreement may be a personal one but it is not I think irrelevant. I came to this session prepared to faise more general points about broadcasting and the writer than were raised that evening; and so, for all I know, did others. I had come neither to snipe nor, in the peculiar and pejorative sense of this word, to criticise. I had hoped that the Director of Broadcasting would discuss these larger questions and suggestions. I did not, in the end, raise these matters at all. There was, it seemed to me, little occasion, once the thing was under way, for "shifting the discussion to a higher plane." The whole atmosphere was against it: my own feeling, after the first hour, was also against it. I felt I had been patronised and insulted; and so did many others. There is, however, little point in continuing the post-mortem at this level. I would agree with Mr Brasch that further to prolong that mood would be of little profit to writers or to broadcasting. Late in the session, indeed, in reply to a suggestion (I think by Mr Anton Vogt) that the NZBS consider setting up a "workshop" or experimental or testing studio for radio scripts, the Director indicated that the door was not yet tight shut against the writer. Such a workshop is to be established. What does most clearly emerge from Mr Schroder’s address, and from the resulting tumult, is, I’ think, the necessity to writers and to broadcasting of discussing their relationship in an atmosphere where a_ certain interdependence, and a certain independence, can be assumed from the outset; where questions both large and small can be asked, discussed, answered on either side without acrimony or suspicion. For there is, as Mr Brasch remarked on the evening of this session, a general atmosphere of suspicion and distrust informing the relationship of writer and broadcasting. There is little point in apportioning blame in these matters; it is sufficient to say that Mr Brasch’s point was fully proved at that session. In the interests of such a discussion I can, I think, best quote Mr Brasch’s concluding words, in his letter. ". . . the negative atmosphere in which (this session) ended must not be allowed to dominate the future relations of writers and broadcasting."

MAURICE

DUGGAN

(Auckland).

(This letter, and Mr Brasch’s, was shown to Mr Schroder, who replies as follows: ‘I may best answer Mr Charles Brasch and ‘Mr Maurice Duggan by stating the fact, that in replying to criticism of the Broadcasting Service I have always confined myself, in a matter-of-fact manner, to questions of fact, disshed from opinions and judgments, which i s not my business or inclination to contest. A large and calculated departure from this rule, in a correspondence 1 rather than official, is known to Mr Paice who is now at liberty to print the correspondence in Landfall, if my correspondent agrees. Otherwise, no evidence will be found of that resentment of criticism or that hostility towards writers with which Mr Brasch charged me at

the Conference. Mr Duggan’s letter makes it desirable to recall that the subject of my remarks, proposed to me without further advice or request, was Broadcasting and the Writer. I used the occasion to show that the difference between writing for print and writing for voice and ear presents a problem which many New Zealand writers have not solved and some appear not to suspect. This view may be, as Mr Duggan says, negative and depressing. All I am concerned to say is that it was directly relevant to the proposed subject and the occasion." --Ed. )