DEARTH OF DOMINION NEWS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18877, 1 June 1923, Page 11

DEARTH OF DOMINION NEWS

A LONG-STANDING COMPLAINT. DINNER OF THE EMPIRE PRESS. CANADIAN JOURNALISTS ENTERTAINED... ' (From Ode Own Correspondent.) LONDON. April 18. In the most tactful way possible at an Empire Press dinner two nights ago tmee prominent Canadian journalists, voiced a grievance that has almost become a pano cry among people from, overseas who ainvo in London. People in the outer domiruoiis are so used to their columns of Rntisii,. European, and, American news that it conies as a shock to them to hnd on arriving Here that, so far as the, great daily papers are concerned, the outer Empire might do a few obscure islands on the edge ot the frozen Antarctic. It is not because news is not sent from other portions ot the. Empire to the chief London papers. • ft is, but much of it finds its way to the wastepaper basket of the sub-editor. . A groat daily throws away anything up to worth of cabled nows a week, simply through want of space, and because ot the combing out. that is necessary to obtain nothing but the best—that is, urn oesl from the point of the proprietors, editors, and sub-dilors. It is hero where the debatable factor lies. Would a column ot Empire news-out of, say, 182 columns of, news and advertisement matter in a oady paper ho a dead loss• to ,the proprictois.. Would that column devoted daily to empire news appeal to so small a proportion of the reading public as to lower the interest value, of the journal, and so handicap it in its competition with its contemporaries? Apparently the proprietors answer these questions in the affirmative, and when the subject is mooted again and again ny private people, or by Imperial Conferences, they smile indulgently and curry on in me same old way. Mr C F. Crandall (lion, secretary of the Second Imperial Tress Conference in Canada), one of the guests at the dinner, did not make any such bald statements as these, of course. What he did maintain was that: practically every readou- of a London daily paper had some sentimental connection with a dominion through a son, a brother, a cousin, or a friend who was out there, and he made bold to affirm that probably those controlling the great, dailies were not aware of this fact. The complaint, he said, was mutual, both hero and in Canada. Canada did not wish to be kept informed merely of our misdemeanours and divorce cases; they wanted to know what wo were doing and thinking, fighting tor. and dreaming for, and what our local and general problems were. Every man who wrote for the public press was a public trustee. If they put before the people the true facts of news, ho did not care what the. leader writers said. Mr J. H. Woods (editor and managing director of the Calgary Herald) and Mr W. Rupert Davies (editor of the Renfrew Mercury and president of the Canadian Weekly Newspapers Proprietors’. Association) also expressed regret at the conspicuous absence of Empire nows in English newspapers. IMPERIAL PRESS CONFERENCES. Another subject that was mentioned was that of future Imperial Press Conferences. . All throe visitors thought that the pace set at the first conference in England was too swift. Canada had tried to keep up to the standard of entertainment, but he thought possibly if South Africa or Australia thought it was necessary to carry on the tradition they would be faced w'ith. an impossible task. They considered it was necessary to simplify their methods in the future and devise some means-whereby the entertaining country would not hear the whole expense of the conference Morover, they thought that every second conference should be held in London. Viscount Burnham, responding to the toast of “The Chairman,” said that nobody, was . more convinced than he was that the whole future of the British Empire, de pended upon or being able to do what was so well expressed in a common ohrase used in that delightful part of the_ Empire, the West Indies,. “Catch each other’s ways.” Nothing conduced to that more than coming together as they had done on this occasion, to entertain three representative and distinguished Canadian journalists, He quite agreed that the amount of Canadian news in our English newspapers was inadequate, but, he pleaded that we were not so bad in that respect as we were before the Imperial Press Conference took place in 1920. Nevertheless, it was true that morn ought fo be done in..that direction to meet the interests not only of Canadian visitors but of the Canadian, colony here, and he hoped the lesson would be token to heart. At to getting together next year, it was hoped that during the holding of the British Empire Exhibition there would be an opportunity of welcoming a large;,body of Canadian and other weekly newspaper , editors and publishers and exchanging ideas ' and thoughts, though obviously they could not have a regular conference in competition with the Exhibition. It was proposed, in response to representations made by the High Commissioners of Australia and New Zealand, and many of the Agents-generai and Consuls, to hold an Imperial Press Conference in those countries in 1925.