Objection To Open Letter

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31042, 23 April 1966, Page 1

Objection To Open Letter

(From Our Own Reporter)

WELLINGTON, April 22.

A private Vietnam peace plea, carrying 350 names and addressed as an open letter to the Speaker and members of the House of Representatives, has been rejected in its original form for insertion in the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation’s journal, the “Listener.” The letter was to appear as a paid full-page

advertisement in the issue of April 26. The text will still appear as a statement, but without the introductory line addressing it to the Speaker and members of Parliament.

The originator of the plea, Mr R. W. Boshier, of Kelburn, a lecturer in psychology at Victoria University, said today that the Director-General of the N.Z.B.C. (Mr G. H. Stringer) had insisted on the deletion of that line.

In a telephone conversation which he had tape-recorded, Mr Boshier said, Mr Stringer had held that the form of addressing the original adver-

tisement was “unethical," and that any plea thus addressed should be mailed personally to those for whom it was intended.

Mr Boshier said he had conceived the idea last month and had written to hundreds i of university faculty members, clergymen, doctors, lawyers, unionists and others though to be sympathetic to his views,

seeking their signatures and help with'costs. Some 98 per cent had forwarded their signatures and enough money had been collected not only to pay the £97 10s bill for the first full-page advertisement but also to fin-

ance another, which would appear on May 13. Mr Boshier said he had consulted with the editor of the “Listener” (Mr M. H. Hol-

croft), on his draft advertisement. Mr Holcroft had said that such a “sensitive” matter

would be one for decision by the corporation itself. His telephone conversation with Mr Stringer had ensued, said Mr Boshier.

Mr Stringer said tonight that the advertisement had not been acceptable in its original form. “Mr Boshier was given an alternative—which he accepted,” Mr Stringer said. “I know this sort of openletter advertisement is used abroad, but I do not know of its being used in New Zealand. I have told Mr Boshier our standards in the matter. “Our requirements for advertising material, mainly for radio and television, but also applying to the ‘Listener,’ stipulate that, as do other advertising media, the corporation reserves the right to decline to accept any material at its discretion.”