RUMOURS AND NEWS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 48, 26 February 1942, Page 6

RUMOURS AND NEWS

ENEMY BROADCASTS

(To the Editor.)

Sir,—Much has been said in recent correspondence concerning the dissemination of enemy propaganda, mostly in a distorted form and one correspondent even suggested the destruction of all short-wave sets in the country. It must be admitted-that talk of this nature can do incalculable harm but is there any reason why we should descend to the destructive methods of the Nazis themselves? Surely the best method of counter-propaganda is to prove enemy statements ridiculous by repeating them from our own broadcasting stations and then giving the true position. In spite of the cynical attitude to war news an enemy statement undenied is more likely to be believed than one ridiculed publicly.— 11 am, etc., LEONARD JAMES. (To the Editor.) Sir,—"W.R.S." advocates the destruction of all short-wave sets—yet indirectly we still have to admit that Germains retain these—otherwise why have we one statement that "large-j scale propaganda broadcasts are being; made by the Allies directed to German \ listeners, with a view to crushing their j morale"? i

"All British" is quite correct in stating "those people who say they heard the Tokio broadcasts about New Zealand admit they personally did not hear the silly threats—but they were passed on by somebody else who heard it from somebody else." We have always had that type of person in our midst —especially at election time. At least mothers today are finding some comfort in news they receive from enemy stations of missing sons.—l am, etc., L.V. (To the Editor.) Sir, —There is never any lack of a few vocal individuals who consider they are able to judge of what is good for the rest of the community and they demand some kind of prohibition. "W.R.S." demands the destruction of every short-wave radio in New Zealand. As a correspondent in the same column says the enemy has also made blunders and surely one of them is the forbidding of his own people listening to the 8.8.C. Does this not suggest lack of faith in one's own case? What does "W.R.S." imagine would be! the mental reaction of a New Zea-I land listener whose radio has been destroyed as he advocates? Would it tend to make him place more faith in the authority which ordered the destruction, or less? It is to be hoped that the people of New Zealand are not so simple and credulous as to allow censorious people to put muffs on their ears. —I am, etc., T. O. MEDDOWS.

(To the Editor.)

j Sir—'Anyone listening to "Radio Newsreel," broadcast from the 8.8.C. on Tuesday evening from 9.30 to 9.55, would have found in it complete answers to the foolish people who al-: tach any importance to Axis propaganda, and to the more foolish who would have every short-wave radio set in New Zealand smashed. If people here would only do, as President Roosevelt was quoted in tlie newsreel as suggesting, 'namely, listen to the war, news with a map in front of them, they would realise that Japan herself is in greater danger at the moment than New Zealand is.—l am, etc.. VERB. SAP.

(To the Editor.) . Sir,—You say in your leader of February 24: "Are we going to allow our morale to revolve round the lying Axis of Berlin-Tokio," etc. And yet, time and time again, have you published the supposed errors and blunders of! leaders in this war; which is enough to make the people criticise and lose faith in ' them. Take ' this issue, on page five, you publish: "British andj American Errors," which makes one j gasp, for if true, then those responsible must be quite incapable of leading us to victory. If not true, then you yourselves are doing exactly what you blame the people for doing, i.e., spreading alarms,- undermining the people's morale and creating dissatisfaction in our leaders.—l am, etc.,

(MRS.) C. Ma'cGLASHEN SMITH,

[The cable message referred to was the report, given prominence in American papers of a broadcast address from Sydney by Marlin Agronsky, of the National Broadcasting Corporation of America. It was the statement of the one correspondent and publication was no more proof of its accuracy than publication of criticisms made, say, in the United States Congress, or the British House of Commons. Suppression, on the other hand, would have a bad moral effect. We have never advocated complete suppression of criticism but that it should be reasoned, taking account of the answers by leaders. The sensible reader would compare the Agronsky broadcast with the accounts given by other correspondents, such as "The Times" correspondent at Singapore, and form his judgment accordingly— Ed.l