BROADCAST REVIEW OF WEEK IN PARLIAMENT.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLV, Issue 21103, 1 August 1938, Page 8

BROADCAST REVIEW OF WEEK IN PARLIAMENT.

Notwithstanding all the promises to the contrary, no one who tunes in to the “Official News Bulletins issued by the Prime Minister’s Department,” particularly the Saturday evening review of the Week in Parliament, will be able to avoid (lie conclusion that the news bulletin has steadily deteriorated until it has become nothing more than a propaganda session of the most one-sided nature. “The Week in Parliament” given in the news bulletin on Saturday night is probably designed to please the controllers of the national broadcasting service, but it is neither fair nor is it a full survey of the week's happenings in Parliament. It may be gratifying to Ministers of the Crown to have their sayings given prominence in the weekly survey of the proceedings, but although (as “Observer” said) the Labour Party occupies three-quarters of the seating accommodation in the House of Representatives, it is surely not too much to ask the “Observer” to open his other eye occasionally and have a look at that section of the House not occupied by Labour members. Doubtless the back benchers will be highly flattered by the high praise the “Observer” gave them for their speeches, but if the official commentator had wished to be fair in his review, he could hardly have failed to notice that on Friday a former Prime Minister (Mr Forbes) delivered a very important speech on the Budget. But no, the “Oliserver” did not notice Mr Forbes, but was more interested in the discursive contributions Ihe back benchers made to what has been described by press commentators as a dull week in Parliament. There is nothing new in this one-sided review of Parliamentary proceed,ings, but the average listener will not be blamed if he begins to ask himself why the official commentator on parliamentary proceedings failed to notice that the annual report of the Reserve Bank was presented to the House during the week. The “Observer” found lime Io quote from the reports of the Transport Department and the Department of State Forests, and he found space in his review to give the Minister of Lands an opportunity to try to answer what Mr Laugslone said at the Labour Party’s Easter Conference on tiie question of laud titles. But no room could be found in the weekly review of Parliamentary proceedings for mention of the highly critical references embodied in the annual report of the Reserve Bank in its discussion on the Government’s financial policy and the note of warning sounded in relation to record public works expenditure in times of comparative prosperity. What is the explanation? The inference is irresistible: the broadcasting officials are not permitted to “put over” anything that is critical of the Government. Much has been made of the facilities offered in the broadcasting service to present the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and yet the news bulletins issued every evening and the weekly review of the week in Parliament, have become such one-sided pronouncements that they are now little more than Party propaganda without regard to fair play for both sides.