Journalists win access to F.O.L. coisferemice

Press, 9 May 1984, Page 8

Journalists win access to F.O.L. coisferemice

Parliamentary reporter Journalists won access, at least in theory, to reporting debates at the Federation of Labour’s annual conference this week after the conference was told yesterday that it risked having "tainted information” being fed to journalists if they were kept out. The conference amended a resolution, which had been recommended by its national council after it had received complaints about news media coverage of last year’s conference. The decision by the conference yesterday was accepted by the president, Mr W. J. Knox, only after he had sought two hand votes and a formal card vote from delegates to clarify the conference’s attitude. The cord vote was passed by 344 votes to 187. The conference threw out

a proposal under which reporters would have been allowed to attend and observe all open sessions of the conference, but would have been forbidden to make verbatim reports or recordings of conference debates, unless the conference had specifically given permission beforehand. Another proposal under which the conference, or the chairman, could move into committee on any debate was passed. The decision followed a video screening of television coverage of last year’s conference. The president of the New Zealand Journalists’ Union, Mr A. J. O’Brien, told the conference that the F.O.L. had the right as a private organisation to close its meetings to journalists. However, its decisions affected many thousands of people such as housewives

and workers, who were not members of unions. Restrictions would be an open invitation to misinformation, he said. It would not stop people from feeding information, often tainted with their particular bias, to reporters outside the hall. The journalists’ union had earlier advised reporters covering the proceedings to regard debates to which restriction applied as being in committee and to leave. The mover of the original resolution, the secretary of the F.0.L., Mr K. G. Douglas, justified his move as a means of giving protection against reporting out of context. It was an attempt to introduce a sophistication into the relationship with the media, requiring the owners of the media and the editors to take the F.O.L. seriously, he said.