BROADCAST INDEBTEDNESS TO NEWSPAPERS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 136, 10 June 1936, Page 6

BROADCAST INDEBTEDNESS TO NEWSPAPERS.

The Postmaster-General made the assertion last evening , that the newspapers had "laid restrictions on the broadcasting news service, presuming to dictate that only very limited use should be made by stations of items received by cable and published in their columns." Considering that the newspapers pay over iL'.OO per week for these cables, and their circulation by telegraph all over the Dominion swells the telegraph revenue, this is surely an astounding statement. Carried to its logical conclusion, theft of any description could be justified. The facts are that the Broadcasting Board pays a limited sum for the use of a summary of the cables, and for the rest they draw on the newspapers —especially those published in the evening—almost exclusively for their news sessions. They take without payment, and with only the briefest acknowledgment, the news garnered by hundreds of newspaper reporters. Anyone, who listens to news broadcasts will recognise these facts. This evidence of ill-will towards the newspaper has been lately a very disturbing feature of Ministerial utterances. It is not too much to ask that any criticism should have as its basis established facts. If this principle were observed there would be no legitimate cause of complaint.