Salient Praised, Criticised. Loses

Salient Reporter

Salient was placed an unofficial second by one judge in the annual student press contest.

The Otago student paper Critic won for the second year in succession. The judges of the competition were Mr. M. H. Holcroft, of the New Zealand Listener and Mr. Les Cleveland, currently writing a Ph.D. thesis on the New Zealand Press.

Mr. Holcroft found that Salient did more than any of the other papers to reach the community outside the university.

He liked the "strong controversial tone" of Salient, with "editorials which really say something, and some hard-hitting reports."

But he criticised Salient for the "Yankee Go Home" article, and drew attention to the practice of seeking the official side of a story before publication.

Good Reviews

"I think the literary criticism is easily the best of all the student papers," Mr. Holcroft stated, and also saw evidence of imagination in the use of type. However, he felt that on balance Salient could not quite match Critic's performance as a newspaper.

"As a magazine." he said, "I think Salient is easily in first place."

Mr. Cleveland felt there was ground for suggesting that Salient readers are "not exposed to the quantity and variety of local news that other student readerships are."

He said that the editorial standard of most of Salient content was above average, but also criticised Salient for the "Yankee Go Home" article.

"The crusade mis-fired badly because it does not seem to have been adequately investigated," he said. "The complaint seems trivial and the representation of it laboured.".

He found the literary side of a higher standard, and in particular congratulated Salient on the publication of "the only literary contribution of any calibre" of all the student papers submitted for the contest.

University Books Ltd have presented an annual prize of £10 for the contest.