NEWS INCREASE

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22196, 5 December 1946, Page 5

NEWS INCREASE

PACIFIC AREA REUTER’S EXPANSION NEW ZEALAND WRITERS SYDNEY, Dec. 4. Plans have been laid for important developments which would advance the position of New Zealand and Australia in the international news field, said the general manager of Reuter’s, Mr. C. Chancellor, before leaving by flyingboat for London. Mr. Chancellor and the managing editor of Reuter’s. Mr. W. Cole, have concluded a five weeks’ visit to Australia and New Zealand, where they had talks' with the directors of the New Zealand Press Association and the Australian Associated Press. The talks covered a wide field, embracing closer co-operation between the N.Z.P.A. and the A.A.P. and Reuter's, and problems of press communications in the Pacific. Impressed By Newspapers

“I have been very much impressed by your newspapers,” said Mr, Chancellor. “They are second to none technically and in journalistic quality you have a free press—vigorous and challenging. Your journalists are well trained and capable. I feel it important to say this at a time when so many established values and institutions are being criticised and challenged.

“Your newspaper press, like the newspaper press in England, doubtless has its faults and blemishes, but it is a free press serving* the public—an institution which is essential to the work of our free democratic system. It is the duty of the citizen to support and strengthen it.

“It is also a duty to understand how it. works and the principles underlying it. I can see a grave danger to our whole way of life in the action of some people who.seem to be deliberately exploiting the failings of our newspapers for the purpose of weakening one of the main bulwarks of our British conception of human rights. The people of New Zealand and Australia are among those who have the blessed possession of a free press. “The duty of a free press is to watch the interests of the people. The newspapers represent all the people, all the time. A Government only represents some of the people, some of the time. Co-operative Ownership

“Reuter’s is wholly and co-opera-tively owned by the newspapers of the United Kingdom on a non-profit making basis. The N.Z.P.A. and A.A.P. are also co-operative, newspaper-owned, non-profit-making institutions operated on exactly similar principles. “We believe in the same things. We have the same conception of truth in the news and we can work together. One of the first things we intend to do is to work out a joint scheme for enlarging our news services in the Pacific and the Far East in those countries of vital interest to New Zealand and Australia'.

“This will lead to the appointment of a number of New Zealand and Australian journalists to key posts in the Pacific—to Tokyo, Singapore and Batavia. There will be an increasing flow of Far Eastern news to your part of the world, and this news will be collected and handled under the control of New Zealand and Australian journalists.”