TO STIFLE FREE PRESS

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 21980, 26 March 1946, Page 2

TO STIFLE FREE PRESS

AUSTRALIA WARNED COMMUNISTS SEEK HOLD PROPAGANDA CAMPAIGNS “Attacks on newspapers have continued through the year, and it is imj possible to avoid the conclusion that these attacks are co-ordinated and inspired,” Sir Lloyd Dumas, chairman of directors, told the annual meeting of Advertiser Newspapers, Limited, Adelaide. Continuing his warning, Sir Lloyd Dumas said: — “Any group seeking to establish an authoritarian control must first of all stifle the free press. In Germany, Japan and other countries whci j democracy has been crushed, men groups found that Government control oi newspapers and broadcasting was among the very first essentials on tneir path to power. “There is, in Australia, a small but active group of Communists whose goal is the control of this country. As a step towards that objective, they have inspired a steady stream of attack upon privately-owned newspapers. They have published many books, brochures and leaflets and, by whispering campaigns and in other directions, have sought to destroy the faith of the people in the newspapers they read. “Their campaign has not been so active in South Australia as in some of the other States; but wherever it is pursued, its purpose is the same. Government Control

“The directors and management of Advertiser Newspapers Limited, do not claim perfection for their publications, but they do claim that the newspapers are the products of sincere, conscientious, and well-trained journalists. Whatever their defects they are infinitely to be preferred to any Government-controlled newspapers irrespective of the party in power. “I would like to take this opportunity of uttering a sober warning to all sections of the public not to underestimate the value of the freedom lo criticise which this company's publications retain, if they themselves desire to retain the other freedoms which would disappear overnight with an authoritarian Government.” Not Monopoly

Sir Lloyd declared that “freedom of the press” was not a catchcry used in defence of existing ownership of newspapers. Newspaper ownership was, in tact, never a monopoly. In the last two decades several daily newspapers had disappeared in Australia, but others had sprung up. Even since the war began, a new daily and a new Sunday paper had appeared in Sydney, and pla.'.s were said to be in hand for new dailies in Melbourne and Brisbane. The public could have no greater protection from a complacent and unscrupulous newspaper publisher than was provided by the certainty that if a profitable newspaper field was occupied by a newspaper which was giving an unsatisfactory service, some other publisher would quickly enter it in competition,

“All shades of opinion have their means of publicity, and that is at it should be. A daily paper cannot seek to satisfy fully any single section of the community. On the one side, the extremists complain against the criticism of their industrial actions. On the other, ultra-conservatives wruc- bitterly in protest against the publicity given to a Labour Prime Mimster. A newspaper publisher must accept the impossibility of pleasing either one of these sections without distorting the picture of Australian affairs pieseiued lo the public. “There may he gaps and shortcomings in the presentation of. thac picture by a newspaper, but we can say that an honest and sincere attempt is made by a well-trained staff of journalists to present the picture as fully and as' fairly as is possible. It can be said with ce’taint/ that no newspaper controlled by a Government, which, after all, is a political party, would approach tile fairness and balance which a good independent newspaper does maintain.”