BOARD AND THE PRESS

Southland Times, Issue 22913, 11 June 1936, Page 6

BOARD AND THE PRESS

AGREEMENT CLAIMED dr. McMillan attacks NEWSPAPERS (From Our Parliamentary Reporter.) Wellington, June 10. A claim that in the past there had been a truce between the Broadcasting Board and the Press was made by Dr D. G. McMillan (Lab., Dunedin West) during the second reading debate on the Broadcasting Bill in the House of Representatives to-dav. “The board prevented radio advertising, while the Press refrained from and suppressed criticism of the board and its activities,” said Dr McMillan. “Now that the truce has come to an end and radio advertising is to be permitted, the Press will doubtless discover its long forgotten duty to the public and engender a spirited criticism. of the broadcasting service. The public, however, will have little difficulty in determining the activating motive. Opposition to radio advertising has been carefully fostered by the Press, which views with alarm the prospect of the development of a new consumer of advertising revenue. Anyone who feels inclined towards the private control of broadcasting should consider the bad results that have attended private control of that other great medium of public education, or, I should say, of public deception, the Press. The suppression and distortion of news and the vigorous and vindictive partisanship that has masqueraded under the assumed disinterestedness of the editorials of some of our papers should be an object lesson to those who deprecate public control of broadcasting. I think that the news service of our broadcasting programmes should be improved and delivered earlier in the day. It is incredible that the news which comes as British Official Wireless and costs the taxpayers of this country a considerable sum of money should be held up under an arrangement with the newspaper Press of New Zealand. The trouble is that it would interfere with the sale of the papers. The report of the National Expenditure Commission showed that the reception of that news cost the taxpayers £2OOO, and that an arrangement had been made with the Press Association to pay £250 for the service.”