THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES FRIDAY, MARCH 12, 1926. MR ISITT ON THE PRESS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19736, 12 March 1926, Page 8

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES FRIDAY, MARCH 12, 1926. MR ISITT ON THE PRESS.

Having been “flogged,” as ho puts it, by various journals for “rhetorical intemperance,” at the recent Methodist Conference, the Hon. L. M. Isitt expresses in a letter which wo publish this morning his satisfaction at having the opportunty of making good his charges. Mr Isitt may believe that ho has utilised his opportunity to that advantageous purpose. Most people, however, after reading ins letter, will conclude that ho has a quaint idea of how a charge is to be substantiated. “There are two evils in this Dominion,” he writes, “that menace onr future, gambling and drink. With the exception of less than a dozen papers the attitude of the New Zealand press towards these evils is determined

by the advertising columns.” He has enlarged the ground of his attack on the press. In his outburst at the Methodist Conference ho confmcd himself to a denunciation of the press for its opposition to prohibition and to a charitable assertion that it was because it was a' cox-rupt press that it expressed the views it did on that question. He now introduces the gambling issue, and perhaps the marvel is that he had not dragged in other questions for the exercise of his fertile imagination. Because the press, “with,” he says, “very few exceptions,” does not view certain aspects of gambling in such a way as would win his approval, he implies that it is tied to certain advertisers as to whose identity no hint is given. This is a travesty of logic. It is open to Mr Isitt to prove the accuracy of his assertion, to explain how such a state of affairs comes about, and to furnish the connecting link. It would be interesting to have a clue to the mystery of the influence of the advertising columns on the newspapers’ attitude towards gambling, but none is provided. Race meetings, totalisator permits, and bookmakers furnish Mr Isitt with material out of which to build an argumentative edifice of a kind, but it is so flimsy that it would be a shame to tilt seriously at it. But the liquor trade is, after all, Mr Isitt’s great subject, and it is in its actions with reference to what he calls “drink reform” that “the money-con-trolled press” so grievously disappoints him. It is so dominated by the liquor trade, it seems, that “it dare not and does not urge reform.” What is the mysterious influence, Mr Isitt asks, that ranges 9o per cent, of the newspapers in opposition to the view expressed by the 319,000 persona who at the last poll voted for the abolition of the liquor traffic. With characteristic aplomb he supplied the answer:

In tbo fight between a huge and remorseless vested interest, out to defend its gains, and 319,000 disinterested people, mostly of the poorer class, who at great cost and self-sacrifice struggle for the uplift of the people, the high-souled press, with its mission to educate and ennoble, says: “Four to seven shillings an inch, gentlemen, for anything in our columns,’’ and after taking the Prohibitionists’ money, throws the preponderating weight of its influence for the degrading trade. Mr Isitt knows, of course, that what we have quoted from his letter involves an economy of the truth, but even if it were not so, what is the inference that is to be drawn? Is it that it is wicked of the newspapers to take money for advertisements from Prohibitionists, or is it that, having taken this money, they should espouse the cause of the Prohibitionists, thereby showing that their opinions are influenced by their advertising columns. If it is beyond Mr Isitt’s comprehension that the papers that oppose Prohibition should do so in all honesty, that is his misfortune, but out of his lack of understanding he should be less ready than he is to frame sweeping conclusions. Mr Isitt is no happier in his grievance over the omission from newspaper reports of a statement made by the President of the Methodist Conference in support of Prohibition. Had the President pronounced against Prohibition, he says, the fact would have been broadcasted and published everywhere. Surely Mr Isitt is not so simple and so deficient in his sense of news value as he affects to be. It should require little intelligence on anybody’s part to understand that whereas a statement by the President of the Methodist Conference against Prohibition would be a novelty such as would attract general attention and possess unquestionable news value, a rhetorical passage by that same dignitary in favour of Prohibition, a mere reiteration of the defined attitude of the Methodist Church, has practically no news value at all. Finally Mr Isitt seeks to impeach the press for being silent while to-day the licensing law is being flouted right and left. Mr Isitt’s skill in drawing vivid pen-pictures is undeniable, but he is not the only well informed and observant person in the community. All that need he said is that if the law is defied, as he alleges, and if the police know it, as he suggests, then the police must be to blame for their failure to prosecute offenders. Mr Isitt is not very fortunate in his target practice. But otherwise he could scarcely reach so engaging a standard in his “rhetorical intemperance.”