The Older and Newer Journalism

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21647, 13 November 1933, Page 7 (Supplement)

The Older and Newer Journalism

MITCH water has flowed under journalistic bridges since the foundation of tho NewZealand Herald 70 years ago, yet a modern reader, turning over the yellowed pages of its old files, cannot but feel a kinship with the men who wrote and read them. New Zealand journalism, unlike that of some other countries, has had an orderly growth, and its guiding principles to-day are still thoso laid down by the able and public-spirited men who set iip their printing presses in the pioneer days. To a modern reader the old newspapers seem heavily freighted with politics, but in this they were emulating the best current journalism of tho Old Country. A new nation was in tho building. Its struggles and difficulties found political expression and were rightly regarded as everybody's business. 13y playing their part to the full and fostering a healthy public spirit day in and day out, the early newspapers reinforced the structure of the young nation. In details of public policy their influence was always strongly felt. The record of tho Herald is a long "tale of persistent endeavour for causes which the event proved to be vital to tho growth and prosperity of the city and province. In another way the early newspapers were true to the best principles of nineteenth century journalism. Their business, they considered, was to deal only with questions of genuine public interest. Tho private affairs of individuals were outside their province and the sanctity of homelife was strictly respected, as it is to-day. Political controversy was sometimes personal to a degree that would not now be approved, but

it was never allowed to invade the sphere of private life. A theory has been put forward that some of tho less worthy features of modern American journalism derive in direct lineage from the undoubtedly "yellow" press of .England in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. America, according to this theory, never knew the saving influence of the Times, and similar papers, which, in Britain insulated the nineteenth century press from the bad ways of a century earlier. It was upon such journals as the Times that the early New Zealand press modelled itself, and this affinity of spirit is as strong to-day as ever. Plow widely newspapers were read by New Zealanders in tlie 'sixties is now hard to determine. It has been said that at the same period in England newspapers were written for and read by " respectable fathers of middle-class families," and that they scarcely reached the mass of the people. There is reason to believe that this was not true of New Zealand. The colonists, whatever their station in life, were abovo the avorage in character and education. Far removed from the Old World, they naturally became eager newspaper readers and their descendants still load the world in that respect. Jt is significant that, newspaper circulations in New Zealand have shown a steady and unbroken increaso through tho intervening years. There was never any such sudden jump as occurred in England with tho rise of Lord Northclill'o and tho " popular v rcss -" Papers of the early 'sixties show very clearly tho difficulties of collecting news. There wero no cables, and in Auckland in 18(jJ the only telegraph line was one operated by the military between Drury and tho Albert Barracks. The colony boasted no railways except a few miles