MISDIRECTED!

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25364, 23 October 1943, Page 4

MISDIRECTED!

The refusal of the Director of Broadcasting, Professor Shelley, to permit the broadcasting from the Auckland Town Hall of proceedings at a meeting on Thursday night of the Interchurch Council on Public Affairs is one thing. The terms of his refusal are entirely another thing. The public may be inclined to consider that the addresses at this meeting, which bore directly upon topical matters of moral concern, should, with the authority of the churches in co-operation behind them, have received precedence over the ordinary radio programme—even if the churches were so bold as to claim to be heard on a day other than Sunday. It is, however, to be recognised that once the broadcasting schedule for a certain day has been arranged, particularly if it includes contributions from performers with whom contracts have been signed, the Director of Broadcasting must be reluctant to alter or cancel the programme. When the Government, for purposes sacred or political, suddenly requires the use of the air no such scruples about cancelling the announced programme possess any* weight with but that is probably not the fault of Professor Shelley, who would receive his instructions. The trouble is that apparently on this occasion the Director of Broadcasting failed to seek them. Not content with refusing the broadcast, he informed the Anglican Bishop of Auckland, who had made application for it on behalf of the Interchurch Council: “ We have to advise that the whole question of allowing religious bodies to broadcast on week days is under consideration.” This statement contains more than a suggestion that those directing the broadcasting services in New Zealand have been contemplating the elimination of the present week-day broadcasts of devotional services, or in other words, relegating religion strictly to one day a week. The Minister in Charge of Broadcasting, Mr Wilson, has emphatically denied ever giving consideration to such a proposal as this, though he was said to have endorsed it, and has placed himself on record as disagreeing with it. His statement leaves Professor Shelley alone in his critical consideration of week-day religious broadcasts. Publicly at least, the exact distribution of authority in the National Broadcasting Service as between the Minister and the Director has never been fully defined. _ The matter is possibly one of private arrangement between them, in which case it is obviously desirable that they should maintain a closer liaison. Actually, the Director of Broadcasting might have prevented a misunderstanding that must have caused concern and some distress to many people had he made his statement in the first person singular, which is best suited for the expression of personal intentions, beliefs or prejudices.