MINISTERS AND THE PRESS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 128, 2 June 1938, Page 6

MINISTERS AND THE PRESS.

The concerted campaign of attack on the Press of this Dominion, begun by the Prime Minister and carried on by other members of his Cabinet, has now been joined by the Hon. Peter Fraser, who, in speaking at Tauranga last night, made his contribution to the campaign of disparagement and abuse. Mr. Fraser admitted that his own experience with the Press had been fortunate, but in spite of that he was prepared to condemn it root and branch and to prejudge and castigate it for articles which have not yet been written. Even the hardened ones, he said, would be surprised at the misrepresentation and the violence of the leading articles which would be written and the headlines which would be used. He could apparently find nothing to cavil at in Labour's first year, and little in the second, and in the third it is what the papers are going to say, not what they have said, which has aroused his antagonism. Is that Mr. Fraser's idea of justice and fair play? Professor Eliot Jones recent comment on a similar attack on the American Press, that while the remarks of 'President and Ministers may not be taken as i.idicating a desire to censor the Press, it should be realised that a necessary preliminary for any Government that has such an objective is to discredit the newspapers and magazines, has equal force in New Zealand. The public is concerned in the outcome of the Ministerial campaign; if it is ready to sacrifice one of Freedom's broadest avenues, it will not have long to wait before the others are also closed against it.