DEGRADING JOURNALISM.

Hastings Standard, Issue 273, 17 March 1897, Page 2

DEGRADING JOURNALISM.

Without exception t he leading columns of the Napier Daily Telegraph are the dirtiest in the colony. The editor seems to revel in serching for " copy " midst every dung-heap he can lay his hands on. He is never happy unless he is wielding his pen on some unsavory subject. His effusions invariably contain an essence of scurrility with an unlimited amount of gall. When he cannot obtain facts he invents fallacies, but always takes care to sail as closely as he can to the boundary line of the law of libel. With the tactics of the serpent he crawls around seeking whom he may devour but he is now so well known that his poisonous fangs have lost most of their power. Last evening he served up another specimen of his unsavory work, asking that an investigation be held into the truth or otherwise of a report that a certain resident in the Napier refuge was related to a prominent politician. Even had the report been true it was a disreputable proceeding on the part of the Telegraph to make a remark of any kind, for surely poverty is not a crime. However, it is reasonable to suppose that the writer knew perfectly well that the inmate in question was there unbeknown to his friends. He was supposed to have died some years ago, and an inquiry should have satisfied the editor that he was making a most brutal attack on a gentleman who was in no way responsible. For shooting from behind a hedge and stabbing in the dark the Napier evening paper mixst be awarded the palm. Journalism is at a very low ebb when such a monster as the editor of the Telegraph is allowed to continue his dirty work.