OPPOSITION JOURNALISM.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5570, 20 May 1896, Page 3

OPPOSITION JOURNALISM.

"Gagged by the Press" is the title under which the Chiiha, County Gazette of a recent date discusses the reporting of a political meeting at Clinton, when Mr Thomas Mackenzie received a vote of thanks and confidence by a narrow majority. There were about 150 persons presentatthe meeting, but when it came to voting only seventeen supported the motion of thanks and confidence, while about a dpzen voted against it. The meeting was throughout, apparently, divided in opinion, and the "heckling" of the member by Mr Walter Keay was a lively performance. The climax was reached when Mr Mackenzie three times fenced the question: " Name one thing you have done for this electorate during the nine years yo\i have represented it." Three times did Mr Keay demand a straight answer, and Mr Mackenzie, evidently losing his temper, replied with great warmth, " I never yet sneaked or grovelled for money votes for my electorate, and I don't intend to." Mr Keay's retort that Mr Mackenzie made much of the cry of spoils to the victors, and as this district wanted a share of the spoils, if Mr Mackenzie would not obtain them another would have to be got Avho .would, fairly " brought down the house." Mr Keay was the local correspondent of the Otago Daily Times, and in due course he telegraphed a brief report of the meeting to that journal. That report, he complains, was ignored, and instead a " beautifully polished record " of the meeting was published. Mr Keay declares this to be a proof " that the Opposition Press is unfair, biassed, and incapable of discriminating between right and wrong." He says that at the meeting "the Opposition received such a backhanded slap that it would have been sheer folly" for an Opposition journal to publish "a statement that was true and correct in every particular." This is not quite Jogical, for Mr Keay does not surely expect even Opposition newspapers to be conducted on lines of "sheer folly;" yet, if he does not, he has no grievance. The outstanding fact is that the report supplied by the newspaper's regular correspondent was set aside for another, which it is asserted was supplied by Mr Mackenzie himself. The "suppressed " report has been published in the Clutha County Gazette, and it is evidently written without bias. Its closing statements that " the reception accorded to the speaker was anything but flattering," and that the " Clinton electors were not in touch with his political actions," were fair deductions from a meeting at which the address occupied an hour and a half, and the questions and wrangling extended to two hours. The Otago Daily Times afterwards refused to allow Mr Keay to defend himself in its columns, even though he offered to pay for the letter as an advertisement. The whole incident is perhaps trifling, and hardly deserving- of the two columns devoted to lit in the Clutha newspaper; but it is , valuableasan indication of how the party that loudly professes political purity man- ■ ages the' business of reporting public meetings;