PRESS AND BROADCASTING

Radio Record, Volume VIII, Issue 20, 30 November 1934, Page 5

PRESS AND BROADCASTING

"THE speech delivered by Mr. L. R. C. Macfarlane, the southern member of the Radio Broadcasting Board, to a gathering of business men in Christchurch recently, can be heartily commended for its exposition of the point of view of the Broadcasting Board, and the policy upon which it is working, as well as for its. gentle but pertinent treatment of the attitude of the Press towards radio broadcasting. More speeches would be welcome, both by listeners and the Press, as conducive to a fuller understanding of the problems associated with broadcasting in New Zealand. The ground covered by Mr. Macfarlane was comprehensive, and the points he made must have been particularly informative to his listeners. In the early days of broadcasting, there is no doubt a general fear or suspicion was entertained by some section of the Press towards the possibilities of radio developing into a serious competitor. Many imaginative articles were written and published forecasting the appearance on the breakfast table of the future of some sort of special illuminated newspaper, transmitted by radio with pertinent comments by world authorities. These articles, it has been shown by experience in the past decade, were nothing but imaginative "bolony,""" whose sole excuse for appearance may have been the transfer of a few guineas to the pockets of some impoverished scribe. They overlooked the essential factor of "time" and that radio could not displace the printed word because people’s occupations vary, habits of life are different in one centre from another, and when one group is prepared to listen to the radio another is not. In the printed word is found the maximum of convenience and variety of subjects for the diffusion of information; each type of reader can select at will the information le desires.

in some types of news diffusion, radio, it is true, has played an important part, reacting upon some phases of press enterprise. This is notably the case in the diffusion of race results, the high-lights of big events, and so on. Time was, before radio, when special editions would be issued dealing with such items as the Melbourne Cup and other events of similar intense public interest. To-day there are no groups gathered round the press offices awaiting such news, as it is heard in the home or the club immediately the event is over or as it is being decided. Against that slight disability, however, radio has conferred definite benefits upon the Press and broadened its function. It can definitely be argued and proven that radio has intensified the public knowledge on. practically every phase of modern life and activity. By so doing it has created a new market for journalistic enterprise which is steadily being filled by the Press. There is to-day a demand on the part of the public for fuller and more considered reviews and articles on subjects of general interest from the Press than hitherto. That is occasioned by the wider scope of knowledge on the part of the public on world affairs. Radio has played the main part in that diffusion of interest, and in so doing has created a market which the Press is ably supplying. With the passage of years, the original fear of radio by the Press has declined, and to-day the most far-sighted in the journalistic world agree that each activity has its separate field, and that there is no occasion for anything but harmony between the two. That feeling of mutual respect and comprehension can be intensified by such explanations as that given by Mr. Macfarlane. The points of interest covered by him, show the breadth and magnitude of the task of the Board and reveal a little of the background of activity necessary to enable the service to function so smoothly as it does. .