“SUPPRESSION” OF NEWS.

Taranaki Daily News, 11 May 1935, Page 6

“SUPPRESSION” OF NEWS.

A member of the Farmers’ Union, Mr. A. Busing, suggested at a meeting of the North Taranaki executive yesterday that the Press of New Zealand is deliberately suppressing news of the outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease in Britain. It is a pity that people who make public statements of this nature do not fortify themselves’ with facts before giving expression to what Can be nothing more than misinformation, suspicion or imagination. Probably there always will be some who conceive all sorts of mysterious and sinister reasons for the publication or nonpublication of news in the daily papers, although as a matter of fact there is no suppression of news in any organised form by New Zealand newspaper's, and to suggest ’that “pressure has been brought to bear” on the Press with the object of withholding information about foot-and-mouth disease is entirely contrary to fact. Tn any case, what possible benefit could it be to the newspapers to adopt such a course? A newspaper depends for its public goodwill, or in other words its circulation, on a free and unbiassed presentation of news and views, and for its prestige on its leadership in public affairs, in which if it is to be successful it must make what it considers the good of the community its first consideration. The newspaper would soon lose popularity, and fail in its duty to the public, if it did not take such a line of action. In the case of foot-and-mouth disease, of what possible advantage could it be to prevent the public from learning about outbreaks of the disease in England? As it happens the Daily News has on several occasions lately published articles about the outbreaks at Home, one of them being over a column in length. Such suppression as Mr. Busing alleges simply does not exist.