One-sided, says S.A. official

Press, 30 August 1977, Page 14

One-sided, says S.A. official

PA Auckland The South African Consul for information (Mr H. W. Thom) has spoken out bitterly against what he called the "totally onesided view” the New Zealand news media took of the South African situation. Mr Thom, who is based in Wellington, was visiting Auckland as the guest speaker at the annual conference of Rotaract District 992. He said that New Zealand was no different than any other country in imposing a blanket boycott on "anything positive from South Africa.”

In spite of the fact that rarely a week passed without newspapers featuring some South African story, the average New Zealander still knew nothing about the situation in South Africa, he said. "The fact that we are building 1.2 schools a day in South Africa is not news, but you can bet that shooting a black in Soweto is. ‘There are always two sides to every story,” Mr Thom said. He had “poured cut a tale of woe” to a jour-

nalist recently on this topic, and had been told that if anything positive about South Africa were to be featured in the news, it would appear to be supporting apartheid. South African stories some times featured “blatant lies and half-truths,” and at other times were unrecognisable because of the way they were slanted.

“I would be the first to admit that discrimination is still rife in South Africa,” he said, “But it is here, too, and in Britain and America.” Mr Thom admitted that initial press pressure had been responsible for bringing about some good changes in South Africa, but now was the time for more objective writing, expressing a balanced view. In some countries, the antiSouth Africa news reporting had become so bad that South African authorities had been forced to buy advertising space to explain the other side of the story when the news media had refused to run good news from South Africa.