Journalists’ Association To Mark Jubilee

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29931, 19 September 1962, Page 12

Journalists’ Association To Mark Jubilee

In the days when journalists argued whether their calling was a profession or a craft, they could agree on one point: if it was a profession, it was the poorest paid in the world.

They decided that a profession was a luxury they could not afford, if it meant they could not band together to seek improved remuneration and conditions.

A trade union was proposed to remedy the threadbare incomes and the long hours of reporters and sub-editors of that time.

That was 50 years ago this month, and the event will be commemorated on Friday, September 21, when the Acting-Prime Minister, Mr Hanan, opens the golden jubilee of the New Zealand Journalists’ Association

The only national organisation of journalists in New Zealand, the N.Z.J.A., is the administrative headquarters of eight journalists’ unions in the country's industrial districts, and represents the interests of about 1000 subeditors, reporters, photographers, and proof-readers. Its activities have only enhanced the status of journalism as a profession. The jubilee conference will open at Parliament House, an appropriate venue, for it was in the Press Gallery of the House, on September 21, 1912, that Parliamentary correspondents and other journalists from the main centres met to form the N.Z.J.A. That first meeting, elected a “New Zealand Herald” Parliamentary correspondent, Mr J. M. Hardcastle, chairman. A man who later became manager of his firm and a leading figure in the Newspaper Proprietors’ Association, Mr Hardcastle was a practical newspaperman who belied the concept of the journalist as a gay bohemian The son of a newspaperman, he has two brothers who have served the cause. Mr Alan Hardcastle was a president of the N.Z.J.A. and Mr Harry Hardcastle was a foundation member of the Auckland Journalists’ Union. The first of the association's line of 21 presidents was another journalist of those times who belied any tendency to regard reporters, even of 50 years ago, as

quaint Bohemians. He was Fred Doidge. chief reporter of the “Auckland Star.” later to serve in World War I, establish himself in Fleet stjeet journalism, enter politics in New Zealand, gain Cabinet rank and serve, up till the time of his death, as New Zealand High Commissioner in the United Kingdom. He won a knighthood for his services to his country.

The beginnings of industrial unity among journalists go back beyond 1912 to the turn of the century, when a Canterbury Journalists’ Union was formed. It never won the support of more than one of Christchurch’s four newspapers, the “Lyttelton Times,” and lasted only seven years. An Institute of Journalists was flourishing in Wellington at the time, numbering employers and executives in its ranks. When the N.Z.J.A. and its first constituent unions of the main centres were forming, the institute showed resource and initiative by nipping in ahead of the Wellington Journalists' Union to negotiate the capital’s first industrial agreement.

The credit for forming the N.Z.J.A., which soon emerged as the sole organisation of journalists, is credited to a Wellington journalist, Mr J. J. Grealish, and his colleagues, Messrs Emil Schwabe and E V. Hall. Others who attended the first meeting in Parliament Buildings were (besides Messrs Hardcastle and Doidge) A. Bullock, of Auckland; J. S. Kelly and A. J. Dickson, of Christchurch; S. Minn, A. J. Heighway and M. Forde, of Otago. Observations of early union activities among journalists in Australia, and the removal or amendment of certain restrictions in the Conciliation

and Arbitration Act in this country, were factors influencing the birth of the association in 1912. Its ability to be effective was soon tested when the Christchurch membership filed for an award and had a long battle in convincing the court (much evidence was called to the contrary) that a journalist could be a member of a trade union without impairing his professional integrity and independence. Mr D. G. Sullivan conducted the case brilliantly tor the journalists, and won a notable victory. Journalists have often considered the matter but have never affiliated with the Federation of Labour or any other group. In the intervening years weekly wages have risen from £5-odd to a minimum senior ceiling of approximately £25, hours have been reduced from no-limit to 80 a fortnight, membership has increased from fewer than 100 in the early twenties to about 1000 now, and activities of the N.Z.J.A. have mushroomed to take in the running of literary prize contests, accreditation of reporters and issue of police passes, negotiation with the universities for a return of journalism as an available subject, representation on joint committees selecting men for travel grants, consideration of any matters which concern the standard or the status of the journalist. Some years ago a protest from the association moved the Government to appoint a commission to inquire into charges that reporters were denied reasonable access to news sources at the scene of a North Island airliner crash. A book published by the association to mark the jubilee observes that no industrial union in New Zealand has given less consideration to direct action, and remarks that “a sudden hurt spelling out injustice has always roused journalists more effectively than the level of their own wages, or their conditions of work.” It quotes the example of the single recorded strike, which occurred on a now defunct Hawke’s Bay paper when the editor was dismissed and the journalists considered the reasons for his dismissal were trivial and inadequate. Apart from three who returned after the strike armistice, the remainder of the journalists found employment elsewhere.

The book’s chapter headings give some clue to the association's history and range of interests. They summarise the half-century; deal with the beginnings of the movement; review the effects of two wars and a depression, and the role journalists played on the battlefronts in World War 11.

The question of alignment with group trade unionism is discussed; the shifts of headquarters of the association; the affiliated unions (there are now eight, covering all daily papers and many smaller ones); amove to bring all working journalists into the association; modern trends in the movement; the history of the association’s monthly newspaper; the history of journalism prizes; scholarships and the association’s gold badge and its bearers.