REPORTING NEWS FROM ASIA

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28445, 27 November 1957, Page 22

REPORTING NEWS FROM ASIA

“Sensitivity” The Biggest Problem I (N.Z. Press Association—Coouright)COLOMBO, November 25. | The International Press Institute's second Asian conference, which opened today at Kandy, discussed the problems of reporting Asian news in the West. The chairman. Mr Wickremesinghe, of Ceylon, said the defi-' ciences of reporting were a prac-. tical problem because if the pic- ! ture obtained in the West were ! limited or distorted it affected ■ the understanding of Asia. The editor of the “Manchester' Guardian,” Mr Alistair Hetherington. said that the problems of adequate coverage of Asia were the amount of space available in newspapers, the established attitudes in the minds of newspaper staffs and readers, and the sensitivity of the growing nations in Asia.

Sensitivity was the biggest obstacle to fair reporting and fair interpretation of what was going on. he said. The Ceylon Prime Minister. Mr Solomon Bandaranaike, appealed at a luncheon later to the Western press to report Ceylon with an understanding of the background of the problems existing there. He said that Ceylon was in an age of transition with the dual problem of a conversion of a colonial society into a free society politically, economically and socially and had to effect the conversion against a background of a world which itself was changing.