The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun THURSDAY, DECEMBER 28, 1944. NEWS OF THE N.Z.E.F.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 307, 28 December 1944, Page 4

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun THURSDAY, DECEMBER 28, 1944. NEWS OF THE N.Z.E.F.

A YEAR ago the Auckland Star criticised the service of news concerning the Second Division of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force in Italy. Care was taken to make it clear that the three official war correspondents were capable and conscientious journalists, and that it was the system under which they worked, the Army controls and censorship to which they were subjected, rather than their actual work, that called for criticism. In a word, it seemed that the three official correspondents, themselves subject to Army discipline, as members of the Division, were required to write to military specifications, and that in consequence they wrote for a "brass hat" instead of for the reading public in New Zealand. Apparently this severe but constructive criticism has had some effect, for there has been a notable improvement in the character of the news supplied. In fairness to all concerned, this much more readable and informative service now deserves favourable comment. Of all the war news that is cabled to New Zealand, none is more eagerly read than that which tells in some detail of what our own men are doing and suffering in action. It is to be deplored that for so long the service remained capable of much improvement, but now that many of the defects have been remedied' the enhanced value of the news being supplied should be recognised. An outstanding improvement is that which permits the use of individual names, where one or two soldiers, or a distinctive group, have done something conspicuously noteworthy. The use of names—names inevitably known to great numbers of people in various localities—gives Second Division news a genuine value. It is difficult to understand why it was forbidden for so long. It was certainly not because the nayie of a New Zealander could be of any value to the Germans. The work of the official correspondents with the Division is hard and exacting. It should not be taken for granted by the reading public. Recent dispatches have made it clear that the correspondents are right up in the line, among the men who are bearing the brunt of the fighting. They have been there ever since the Division went into action in Greece, in the dark and under-equipped days of 1941, and they will remain there, -baring most of the hardships and perils of the fighting soldier, so long as the Division remains in action. Air mails being as fast as they are. it is a pitv that the war correspondents are not encouraged to write weekly dispatches of secondary news—background matter, such as the ordinary soldier is permitted to put into a private letter. There are few newspapers in New Zealand which would not be happy to find space for air mail dispatches of this kind, because the greater detail which would be possible in the context would allow of a clearer reading and understanding of the necessarily condensed cable reports. Obviously the Division has much' hard fighting in prospect. Is it too late to inaugurate such a service? Much less satisfactory than the improved service of N.Z.E.F. news is the supply of official photographs from Italy. For altogether too long these photographs have dealt with subjects of a rear base type. Other divisions on all fronts are publicised pictorially by arresting near-to-action studies but New Zealanders are seldom depicted under actual battle conditions. Not for a moment is it intended to imply that the photographer should be blamed for this. Somewhere, at home or in the field, there must be an official who is responsible for this paucity of photographic studies of New Zealanders in the line. As other improvements have been made,. opportunity should be taken to remedy this, the most glaring shortcoming of all.