Risks for writers

Press, 9 April 1980, Page 18

Risks for writers

Sir, — While commending your confidence in the resilience and persistence of editors and their correspondents, as expressed in your footnote to John Balneaves’s letter (April' 5), I am in-clined-to agree with the note of warning put forward by Mr Baineaves. The Prime Minister’s; first diatribe against the editor’ .of - the. “Dominion” revealed a fearful obsession against public criticism. Then domes: the. second rather petulant. attack on Mr. Frost. I wonder if' Mr Muldoon’s . favourite counterparts, Margaret Thatcher and Malcolm Fraser, devote as much time “putting down” the editors of newspapers containing criticisms of them? Probably they are fully engaged in the job of governing, .or making a brave effort to do so.. The Ides of March have passed, but please beware of future portents. How soon will it be before we are treated to blank columns in the press as have appeared Under some other authoritarian regimes? — Yours, etc., L. A. H. BOGREN. April 5, 1980.

Sir, — You 'say you are resilient; resilience should be made of sterner stuff. I was once able to give my views on homosexual law reform, for which I expressed sympathy, but not enough to prevent me being disliked, subjected to attempted entrapment, to have my life threatened and my car "Molotoved,” fortunately abortively. My freedom to question religion had me promised a punch-up by a burly professional Christian, and my heresies on Antarctic conservation had me cold-shouldered until you put a stop to my letters. Now the media-coddled gay publicists are almost universally protected from reply, and I. in turn, am not allowed to upset them and receive those torrents of abuse which pass for gay argument. As for politics, I have been fairly resilient in the past,- but it is getting too near 1984 for me to say what I think about Big Brother. — Yours, etc., VARIAN J. WILSON. April 5, 1980.