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Another Dominion Cock Up

Our story on bias in the Evening Post of Salient No. 4 attracted a great deal of attention from those in the newspaper industry and those students who are very interested in the study of the news media.

After all people like TV 1's press commentator, Keith Ovenden, make a living out of observing the goings-on of the press and their peculiar treatment of everything from industrial disputes, to John Walker running last in the 1500 metres at the Olympic Games.

But it is your ordinary grass-roots student who is most important. It is he or she who skips over the pages, not noticing if the Evening Post has clipped 5 inches of an important international story which appeared in full in Truth the week before.

So, we are pleased when someone sees something unusual in the press (especially our two downtown dailies), clips it out and sends it up to us with comment attached.

This particular story concerns the inanity of the Dominion in publishing (maybe deliberately?) an editorial on two separate occasions. Any other comments on the press (accompanied with clippings) would be gratefully accepted.

It is generally accepted that few readers read the editorials of daily newspapers, but it seems that just to prove the point The Dominion chose to run the same editorial twice.

Unfortunately this was not some daring innovation one the part of the more go-ahead leader writers of that paper, it was a simple old balls up.

On March 2 The Dominion ran one of its usual droning editorials concerning the reappointment of a Dr Peter Tapsell as chairman of the Maori Arts and Crafts Institute and as a member of the Tourist Development Council.

Because Tapsell stood for Labour in Rotorua during the last election, The Dominion tried to tell readers that this showed the burial of the political appointment hatchet and that the National government was really pretty wonderful after all.

But in typical Dominion fashion they couldn't leave well enough alone, and lo and behold they fronted up with the same editorial again on March 5 complete with a new cross-head entitled 'Reaching over the fence', as opposed to the previous effort called 'Jobs for all'.

Few people noticed and there was no comment to this effect in the paper. This leaves cynics to assume that no-one at all reads the poor old Dominion, with its flagging circulation and the persistently right-wing views of editor Jack Kelleher.

This slip up is even more disappointing in view of the fact that over the last year Independant Newspapers Ltd, that mis-named conglomerate, has made a conscious effort to upgrade the staff levels of the paper.

Only a year ago, The Dominion consisted of the parrot-like Kelleher, comparative intelligensia such as Spiro Zavos and Warwick Roger, a sparse sub-editors table, and the odd junior reporter. At times even the staff were surprised to see the Dom appear on the news-stands each morning.

Now it is approaching the flabby Evening Post for over-staffing, for while the lower echelons are still a little underpowered, the senior editorial desks are positively creaking with News Editors, Editorial Managers, Deputy Editors and other big noises who probably spend a lot of time approving purchasing orders for typewriter ribbons.

It used to be said that you couldn't even trust The Dominion to get the 'date right, when a few years ago the Dom appeared complete with the previous day's date.

Now it can be fairly said that you can't trust the bloody thing at all.