A BUILDER OF THE PRESS.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 226, 24 September 1929, Page 6

A BUILDER OF THE PRESS.

"I agree'with you that your newspapers in New Zealand are tip-top. They are far better than the average newspaper at Home." So, the other day, wrote Mr. Wickham Steed, one of the greatest English journalists' of his time, to a correspondent in New Zealand. If New Zealand journalists praise their own Press they lay themselves open to charges of prejudice and vanity, but fortunately they can cite the opinions of disinterested outsiders. We recall such opinions to-day because one of the chief builders of the New Zealand Press is dead. Sir George Fenwiek's was a well-known name to New Zealanders, but only men in the newspaper world knew the real value to the public of what he and his contemporaries did in improving the news services of New Zealand and adding steadily to the size and quality of the country's newspapers. The average man knows little of the vast organisation that stretches from the newspaper he is reading to the ends of the world. He takes much as a matter of course a service that gives him daily —for twopence—the results of a Test match in Australia, a. debate in the House of Commons the previous-day,.the latest wheat quotations from Chicago, the progress of an aviator voyaging between two continents, and all the news of his own country. He is far more prone to grumble at mistakes than to be grateful for accuracy, good measure and variety. To-day his attention may be drawn to the debt that he owes to a .pioneering journalist like Sir George Fenwick, who helped to found the New Zealand Press 'Association, and as' editor and manager and managing director during many years was largely responsible for the success of the "Otago Daily Times," a newspaper that has: upheld the best traditions of journalism. But while Sir George's long and honourable connection with journalism was his chief interest, it was only one of many. The list, of his other activities is astonishingly long and varied, and illustrates the saying that it is only the busy man who has time. To such men—hard-working, able, shrewd, public-spirited, with interests beyond the making of money—Dunedm owes a great deal, and the, Dominion is indebted to her for having produced or developed them..