CONTROL OF THE PRESS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26214, 26 July 1946, Page 4

CONTROL OF THE PRESS

It was to be expected that the request by a deputation of journalists to the Lord President of the Council. Mr. Morrison, for an inquiry into the workings of the British press would evoke some paltry echo in New Zealand. This has come, in a question by a Labour member, Mr Richards, to the Prime : Minister, asking whether the Government here contemplates a similar inquiry. There is one point to be first noted, that Mr Morrison, far from giving the deputation the undertaking it asked for, replied that neither he nor the Government could be a party to interference with the traditional rights of the press; and on a careful reading of the report as cabled it is evident that he is in doubt as to the value of such an inquiry as was proposed. Mr Fraser, instead of taking time to reply to the question at his convenience, might well have emulated Mr Morrison’s frankness and decision. -The traditional rights to which the British Minister referred are fundamental. They are not the prerogative of any section of the British press, but are common to all sections. Any attempt to curb the freedom of one “ monopoly ownership ” would be an attack upon the rights of all newspapers, and Mr Morrison knows that. It remains to be learned whether Mr Fraser does also, but his concurrence can surely be anticipated.

iAove original, however, and more diverting than the echoing by Mr Richards of the request of the deputation to Mr Morrison, was his application of it to the press of New Zealand. The gravamen of his complaint is that the daily news sources of the Dominion are in the hands of a “monopoly organisation.” The reference is, of course, to the New Zealand Press Association, which provides the exclusive beam and cable service and the basic telegraph to its members. To call the Press Association monopolistic is, to say the least, misleading. It is open to any press publication to develop alternative sources of news supply, and indeed most newspapers have extensive complementary services. If the Press Association flourishes, it is on the merits of its fair and comprehensive news presentation. The most recent tribute to it came in the . present year when the Labour daily established in Wellington joined this “ monopoly organisation,” and in its first issue declared editorially its confidence in the news service it would be enabled to provide. This is a refutation of the animadversions of Mr Richards from the principal

mouthpiece of his owr Government. As to his further dark mut-' terings about the “ unhealthy trend ” in New Zealand of chain ownership of newspapers (a development that is not general, but is obviously legitimate) Mr Richards might again refer to his own party organs. No inquiry into monopolistic press tendencies would be complete which did not include an investigation into the identity of interests among the several Labour newspapers in this country.