Brooks takes S.A. trip

Press, 26 July 1983, Page 8

Brooks takes S.A. trip

Mr John Brooks, a rugby writer of “The Press,” has decided to accept an invitation to attend an international news media congress in South Africa next month.

Mr Brooks will attend the congress privately on leave from “The Press.” He received an individual invitation from the South African authorities running the congress. Last week the editor of “The Press,” Mr E. B. Lock, declined an invitation that had been sent to him.

The congress will convene on August 19 in Cape Town and travel to four other South African cities with a heavy schedule of activities before reconvening finally in Pretoria. Mr Brooks said that his trip would end on August 31. In Pretoria the congress will consider a proposal to establish an international rugby writers’ association. "This is an opportunity for me at least to look at the country,” Mr Brooks said last evening. “I have no preconceived ideas about it all.

“I am an entirely independent agent. I don’t be-

long to any group of any type whatsoever.

“I have always been very singularly minded throughout my journalistic career. I never go anywhere with preconceived ideas. I just like to keep an open mind and let the experience wash over me,” Mr Brooks said.

“I have received a lot of advice from various people about this. I have been

pretty heartened in my own decision by the majority of it.”

Mr Brooks said that his primary interest would be rugby and he was keen to see the establishment of an international rugby writers’ organisation. He said that he would probably write about the trip but “The Press” had made no commitment about using his stories. Mr Brooks has reported All Black rugby tours of France and Britain, as well as many tours of New Zealand by overseas teams but he has not visited South Africa before. Television New Zealand’s front man for “The Mainland Touch,” Mr Rodney Bryant, will not attend the media congress.

He said yesterday that he had been informally asked to attend the congress by the London “Daily Telegraph” correspondent, Mr John Reason. Although he had yet to receive an official invitation, he had decided not to go.

Mr Bryant said it was obvious from the official programme that things had been organised so that there

would be little opportunity to talk to anybody or to see anything other than' what the South African Rugby Board wanted him to see.

The non-appearance of an official invitation had also made it impossible for him to arrange to see certain people and places in South Africa.

It had become clear that the congress was specifically aimed at and organised on behalf of rugby journalists, he said. “My interest in the South African situation goes beyond how many black men and how many white men now kick a football together around Ellis Park on a Saturday, and it certainly does not include attending rugby coaching clinics, an ostrich farm, boat trips, barbecues, golf and visits to a winery,” he said. However, Mr Bryant said that if the S.A.R.B. was really interested in letting him see how far the situation in South Africa had changed — and he was willing to believe that it had — he was sure that it would have no hesitation in letting him take up the offer at a later date.