DISHONEST JOURNALISM.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XIX, Issue 1977, 17 November 1863, Page 3

DISHONEST JOURNALISM.

We had occasion to allude, in a recent issue, to the dishonest practices pursued towards gurselves by the conductors of the iVI'W Healander. We did so with considerable reluctance, because we have a very strong objection, at all tunes, to anything savouring of j>ersonahties appearing in our columns. But, as a matter of business, we felt constrained to notice the wholesale appropriation of our reports and local no«s byouv contemporary, without acknowledgment, in the hope that public attention being directed to the fact, a sense of shame -would supply the want of the virtue of honesty. But we have been disappointed. We have long since had ample proof of the absence of honesty in this, pai'titmlai 1 ; now, we havo the conviotion forced upon us that there is wanting even, a sense of shame in the breasts of the parties referred to. We -will take Thursday's and Saturday's issues of our contemporary, as fair specimens of tho piraoy of which we complain. Tho Colonial Treasurer made his financial statement on Tuesday evening, and an abstract appeared in our columns on Wednesday morning. On Thursday the speech on the Budget was reported in full in our columns. Well, our contemporary on Thursday appropriated the abstract furnished by our reporter on Wednesday, incorporating it in his own imperfect report. On Saturday the speech on the Budget was reprinted in the New Zealander precisely as it had appeared in the Daily Southebn Cross of Thursday, But this is not all. A public- meeting was held on Tuesday, in connexion with the New Zealand Steam Navigation Company, and a full report appeared in our columns on Wednesday morning. Our contemporary failed to report it on that day, although possessing equal facilities with \is ; but on Saturday he managed to patch, up a report, taking the principal speech, that by Mr. lthodes, from our columns. These are only two issues j but, with one or two exceptions, we believe, since he ceased to publish daily, a large proportion of the original matter in the Daily Southern Cross has been used without acknowledgment by our contemporary. As our reports of Parliament and other local proceedings, laid before the public daily, are the result of very considerable labour, both by reporters and compositors, aud as we pay for this labour, the reports in question are as much our property as the merchandize in the store of any ' merchant in Auckland is his property. Unfortunately for us, there the parallel ends. If any person entered a store, and carried away property worth aa many pounds sterling as the conductors of the New Zealander appropriated special intelligence from 1 us on Thursday and Saturday last, > for which wjj paid hard cash, he would be k arrested and put upon his trial for felony ; and ' if he had succeeded in selling the stolen : property, those who purchased it, knowing it l to have been stolen, would have been liable to • prosecution as offenders in the second degree. J But the law is so lax in respect to property in ' news, that any \inprincipled person can commit . with impunity an offenc, morally as bad as that i which, committed against the property of any . other tradesman, would involve a criminal I prosecutiou, and imprisonment on conviction, t or in aggravated cases, penal servitude. Let it not be supposed thatthc custom of the Press can t be pleaded in extenuation of this misconduct. P Hespectable journals invariably acknowledge the source of their borrowed news ; » but it is not the custom of the Press, (and we j boast a much more extensive experience than , our contemporary) for any local newspaper to t supply its own notorious shortcomings by appropnating the labours of the staff, and the re- . suit of the expenditure, of any other newspaper II published in the same town. If the Nero •■' Zealander proprietor chooses to live upon selling s a reprint of the Daily Southern Cross, we [ cannot help it ; but let him tell his readers so. 0 Our readers will pardon us for again touching upon this topic ; but we have no other tribunal 0 to which we can appeal but public opinion. We have spared neither labour nor expense to c make the Daily Southern Cross a credit to d the colony. At a considerable ontlay we have c introduced skilled labour frdm England and the sister colonies, and in some cases we have *not 1 been permitted to enjoy tho fruits of our enter- ° prise. Butwe donot complairijOf this, nor oi 3 rf the unprincipled opposition which Vfo encoun.e** tered at 'the outset, at the hands of our contenv it porary. We achieved our object, and t gavc Auckland what it never had before, an honest ana independent organ of public opinion. We 0 fear«no fair rivalry j but we will havo mis0 givings if the result of tho dishonest practicei 1 we, ba/e exposed findlupporters in a commercial it I community liko Auckland.