Complaint About News Media

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32030, 3 July 1969, Page 14

Complaint About News Media

He had been concerned for some years that the Chamber bf Commerce did not get the publicity from the news media that it deserved, Mr R. E. Smith said at a meeting of the council of the Canterbury Chamber of Commerce last evening.

This bad been particularly noticeable as far as the Associated Chambers were concerned. Last year the national conference in Invercargill had gained good publicity there but relatively little space elsewhere. This year from Picton the publicity had again been good locally, but

had reduced in diminishing circles as it went out

He had noted, Mr Smith said, that the “Marlborough Express” had devoted 644 column inches to conference coverage, compared with only 51 inches in another paper—not a Christchurch one.

Mr Smith said he believed that the chamber did not sell to the public, or even to its own members, the value of the work it did.

The president (Mr R. C. Wallace) said that on One occasion the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation had asked the national president for a television interview and had then failed to arrive. Mr G. W. Hunt said that he felt that some of the criticism was unfair. The “local people" had co-operated with him and good publicity had always been given to exporting.