CONTROVERSIAL BROADCASTS

Radio Record, Volume VIII, Issue 27, 11 January 1935, Page 16

CONTROVERSIAL BROADCASTS

Christchurch "Sun" Makes Plea for Revision of Regulations The subject of the regulations governing the broadcasting of controversial matter has been opened once again by the Christchurch "Sun," which stated in its editorial ‘columns last Thursday that "So long as the Board is required to exclude controversial subjects ... 80.. long will radio be denied the opportunity to play the wporiant part it should play in educating the people." The editorial is reprinted in full below. " A WEEK ago we commented on the announcement made by the Post-master-General ‘that it was the intention of the Government to place before the next séssion of Parliament proposals for altering the Broadcasting Act. As was stated at the time, the nature of the modifications or changes that the Government has in view was. not indicated by the Minister, and in considering briefly some of the lines of approach to the problem of making the broadcasting regulations more elactic, so as to enhance the value of programmes to the general body of listeners, we suggested that there was an urgent need for liberalisation of the standard by which the controversial element in radio talks is judged. This is an angle from which many diseriminating critics have attacked the too-conservative policy of the New Zealand Broadcasting Board. The board has it in its power to do an incalculable amount of good in shaping an enlightened public opinion; all that is needed is the proper recognition of this broad truth and a balanced judgment in the arrangement of programmes andi in the choice of speakers to give suit~ able talks. There is a world of difference between presenting a one-sided case coloured by prejudice and presenting one in which every aspect is taken into account. So long as the board is required to exclude controversial subjects, defined as such within rigid and narrow limits, from its programmes, just so long will radio be denied an opportunity to play the important part it should play in educating the people on political and social problems of the day. "Tt is possible that the experience of other countries is bringing wisdom to the Government on the matier.. It has, at any rate, the example of the British Broadcasting Corporation 10 profit by, if it will,k We commend to Mr. Hamilton’s attention the cable message from London which we print to-day, announcipg that Sir Samuel Hoare (Secretary of ®tate for India) has given the first of a series of broadeast ‘talks on'the British Government’s proposals for constitutional reform. in India. This series of talks has been arranged by the B.B.O., it will not. be ‘completed: until’ February 5, and the speakers, numbering about a dozen, will be representative of every shade of political thought on the vital question of India’s future. These speakers have accepted an invitation to broadeast in a series of talks which the B.B.O, itself describes as controversiut. It is clear that the B.B.C. has now (Continued at foot next page,).

(Continued from previous page.) come to a full realisation of the essential fact that it is not necessarily the subject, but the treatment of it, that may be objectionable. When such enlightenment is revealed in our own Broadeasting Act, and the regulations made under it, and the administration of them, broadeasting in New Zealand will begin to take its rightful place in the life of the community.". (Readers will notice that the B.B.C. series of talks on India, referred to in the editorial above, is being repeated. by means of electrical recordings, in the special B.B.C, shortwave programmes.]