The Amenities of Journalism

Does it ever occur to the journalists of New Zealand and of the other colonies, that they have in a great measure themselves to blame for the disabilities and disadvantages under which they labor? From time to time spasmodic efforts are made to obtain a reform in the libel laws; but so far without success. Now and again a journalist has to fight for one or other of the legitimate privileges of the press. Whether he gain or lose, he finds that he has to carry on the warfare single-handed, and at his own cost. He may search the columns of his contemporaries in vain for a word of encouragement or for a denunciation of the abuse to which he stands opposed. Not long since a country journalist had to defend in the Supreme Court the hitherto unquestioned right of the press to republish parliamentary papers. A fundamental privilege was threatened, and he was successful in maintaining his right. In so doing, he performed a great public service; yet scarcely a newspaper in the colony took the slightest notice of the matter. The matter was of vital importance to every journalist in New Zealand; but the press generally assumed an attitude of utter indifference. In the same district, as will be seen by a paragraph elsewhere, a country journalist has endeavored to assert the right of the press to access to public records, and has been defeated in the local court. Unless this decision is promptly upset, a most mischievous precedent will have been established. He has spoken of appealing, but may well hesitate at the cost of a Supreme Court test-case, even if he should succeed. As in the former instance, the press betrays no interest in the matter. Journals which could work themselves into a tempest of anger when a seditious newspaper in far-away Ireland was suppressed, regard with the utmost equanimity the single-handed efforts of a struggling editor to prevent their rights from slipping away, one by one. It is a scandal that it should be so. In either of the cases we have named, the whole influence of every newspaper in the colony should have been at once brought to bear—the press association should have had a column of strongly-expressed opinions in every morning and evening paper; and the costs of the Supreme Court case should have been at once guaranteed. So in the case of libel law reform. A united press would have secured it years ago.

The press is not looked up to as it should be. The question arises: ؟Whose fault is it that public and private references to it are generally disrespectful? Again the answer must be that the fault is with the press itself. Contemporary journals—especially those near enough to be rivals—are almost invariably spoken of in an insulting or contemptuous manner. Too often members of the staff are attacked by name or nickname as the writers of certain articles or paragraphs; anonymous correspondence is assumed to be editorially contributed; and the utmost latitude is allowed to real or bogus correspondents in their attacks upon a rival. ؟What wonder if the public follow the example, and have no better name for their local organs than the Buster or the Rag? It was with pleasurable surprise that we noted some weeks ago in the Wellington Press a friendly and appreciative reference to a local contemporary; but then, we reflected, the Press is an exceptional paper. A Canterbury journal lately quoted a kindly reference by the sporting writer of an Australian paper referring to the illness of the gentleman engaged in a similar capacity on a contemporary. « Here, » said the Canterbury editor, « it would have been, 'Old Jones has gone cronk again, and a good thing, too.' »

The strangest thing is, that there is very little of any real ill-feeling. When a machine breaks down, or a fire occurs, there is often a rivalry between the printers and newspaper-men as to which shall afford the the promptest assistance, and no temporary inconvenience is too great to prevent an issue being lost or delayed. We believe the chief root of the mischief lies in an absurd fashion which has grown up of late years, of affecting to ignore any contemporary journal within a hundred miles of the office. City dailies filch every day from their rural exchanges with no more graceful recognition than « A country contemporary says. » The paper on the opposite side of the street is « a local print, » generally with some such adjective as « obscure » attached. If referred to by name in a report or correspondent's letter, some paraphrase is substituted—a term that in time becomes a nickname. We have known a daily paper established in a city and carried on for four or five years without its name once appearing in the pages of its local rivals, though oblique references were of daily occurrence. Our own work of recording press matters of permanent interest is rendered extremely difficult by this affectation of ignorance on the part of newspapers of the existence of any other journal in their own neighborhood.

Not only does this petty and narrow-minded practice degrade journalism in the eyes of the public, but it is the greatest obstacle to the progress of the profession. A newspaper, say in the North, is victimised in a preposterous libel action. The local rivals chuckle in unholy glee. The papers of the southern cities rejoice because the organ of a rival business centre has suffered. Each forgets that his own turn may be the next.

The time has come for an Institute of Journalists in New Zealand, with an annual convention. Let the wretched unwritten code of mutual discourtesy and affected contempt be repealed, and a system of journalistic ethics substituted that shall be worthy the dignity of a great profession.