The Press TUESDAY, MARCH 9, 1943. The Publicity Failure

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23891, 9 March 1943, Page 4

The Press TUESDAY, MARCH 9, 1943. The Publicity Failure

Speaking in the Address-in-Reply debate, the member for Lyttelton credited the Government with issuing much good publicity and charged any failure in the publicising of the war effort to “ lack “of co-operation ” by the newspapers. As an example, he said that the newspapers had “ featured ” a recent complaint by the president of the New Zealand Manufacturers’ Federation but had paid no attention to the Hon. D. G. Sullivan s “full account” at the same meeting “of what the manufacturers of “New Zealand were doing,” which would have left “ little cause ” for the complaint. We do not know where or in what way this complaint was “ featured.” It was not in “ The Press,” We do know that Mr Sullivan’s statistical production review has been printed again and again, with many other statements in general and in detail by him and by other Ministers on the same subject. Mr McCombs’s suggestion that the Minister’s statistics should be reprinted every time he launches them upon a new audience is very silly or very impudent. But what is rather worse than silly is the suggestion that this statement of Mr Sullivan’s is enough to dispose of any complaint that the war effort is poorly and inadequately publicised. Mr Sullivan’s facts and figures are valuable; but if they were repeated and reprinted for ever, they would be no more than a column of facts and figures, a contribution to a publicity campaign, the raw material of better publicity, but no answer to any demand for publicity that will inform and impress and invigorate. And there it becomes necessary to say that, though publicity about the war effort, or specifically the production effort, is of high importance, the real charge against the Government is not that it has failed there —true as that is—but that it has failed in the broadest and fullest sense to use publicity as it can be used, and should be used, in the conduct of the war. The Government began by organising censorship and publicity as one service, and the censorship has held the upper hand. It began by expelling the New Zealand current affairs commentators from the radio programmes and has never found how to bring them back. It began to send Ministers in endless procession to the microphone and still has not learned—in spite of advice and example—to keep away those who canqot manage it and to reserve it for those who can, for the right occasion, and for statements skilfully prepared. The Government’s early neglect of the staff machinery necessary for efficient working relations between the armed forces and the press has been in part overcome by improvisation; but its effects are still a handicap. Here, as in other respects, the Government has paid no heed to the recommendations of a committee of New Zealand editors, which was assembled at the Government’s request and which reported to the Prime Minister. Finally the Government early addicted itself to the regular use of the secret session, ignoring the sound and wise example of the House of Commons, which resorts to it rarely and always for some special and singular purpose; and its success in persuading Parliament to comply has been its success in choking publicity at its capital source. It is not the “ lack of co- “ operation ” of the press that has produced these dangers; it is the readiness of the representatives of the people, including the member for Lyttelton, to forget their responsibility.