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Politics and Broadcasting: Case Studies of Political Interference in National Broadcasting Systems

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2014

T. H. Qualter
T. H. Qualter*
Affiliation:
University of Waterloo
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Extract

Broadcasting is the most pervasive, and therefore one of the most powerful, of agents for influencing men's thoughts and actions, for giving them a picture, true or false, of their fellows and of the world in which they live, for appealing to their intellect, their emotions and their appetites, for filling their minds with beauty or ugliness, ideas or idleness, laughter or terror, love or hate.

The truth of this statement from the Beveridge Committee on British broadcasting is not now questioned. Indeed the danger today is that governments, instead of ignoring the power of radio to influence opinion, will exaggerate it and take needless precautions against the “contamination” of the public mind. Such an attitude has long been recognized as characteristic of totalitarianism, but in this paper I am concerned to show that the “fundamental freedoms” of speech and of the press do not always extend to the broadcasting services, even in states with otherwise strongly established democratic traditions. In the two countries examined, Great Britain and New Zealand, broadcasting is a government monopoly, operated in Britain through the British Broadcasting Corporation, a semi-independent public corporation, and in New Zealand through the New Zealand Broadcasting Service, a government department under the control of a minister. According to a recent announcement from New Zealand, however, the Government intends “to end direct state control of radio and television in New Zealand and create an independent three man corporation to assume control from 1st April 1962.” The governments of both countries have demonstrated that they regard broadcasting rights as a privilege not to be extended to all who might claim access to them.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science/Revue canadienne de economiques et science politique , Volume 28 , Issue 2 , May 1962 , pp. 225 - 234
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association 1962

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References

1 Report of the Broadcasting Committee, 1949 (Beveridge Committee), Cmd. 8117, 163–4.Google Scholar

2 News from New Zealand, XVI, no. 9 (Washington, DC, 1961).Google Scholar

3 Quoted by SirWilliams, William Emrys, “The Force of Broadcasting,” The Times Radio and Television Supplement, 08, 1955.Google Scholar

4 Licence dated 12th June, 1952, between the Postmaster-General and the British Broadcasting Corporation, Cmd. 8579. (This will be referred to from now on as the 1952 licence.)

5 1952 licence, sect. 20 para. (1).

6 Ibid., 15(3).

7 Ibid., 15 (4).

8 Ibid., 13 (4).

9 Letter from Dr. Charles Hill (Postmaster-General) to Sir Alexander Cadogan (Chairman of the BBC), 27th July, 1955, published in The Times, July 28, 1955.

10 Direction issued by the Postmaster-General to the BBC, 27th July, 1955.

11 Report of the Broadcasting Committee, 1935, Cmd. 5091, 28.Google Scholar

12 Report of the Broadcasting Committee, 1949. Since 1956, the fourteen-day rule has been changed to the seven-day rule.

13 Letter from Dr. Charles Hill to the BBC dated 27th July, 1955.

14 Report of the Broadcasting Committee, 1949, 10.Google Scholar

15 The Times, 29 Oct. 1956.

16 Before 1950 the New Zealand news was prepared for the NZBS in the offices of the Prime Minister's Department. In 1950, in response to fairly wide-spread criticism of this policy, the Prime Minister announced that in future the news would be prepared by the Tourist and Publicity Department. Although the Prime Minister did not also announce this, the personnel previously engaged in preparing the news for the Prime Minister were then transferred to the Tourist and Publicity Department and the Prime Minister himself assumed the Portfolio of Minister of Tourist and Publicity.

17 New Zealand Parliamentary Reports, 252, p. 442.

18 During both the episodes discussed below the author of this paper worked in the NZBS news room. All statistics and reports of news bulletins are based on a personal analysis of the news files.

19 NZBS news broadcast, 9 p.m., 15th July, 1949.

20 All railway services in New Zealand are operated as a government monopoly under a minister of railways. The Railways Department also operates an extensive feeder service of buses and an inter-island ferry service.

21 When Parliament eventually reassembled there was some criticism of the Government's censorship policy, but it was neither searching nor sustained. The Labour Opposition, hoping soon to return to office, did not wish to see any lasting relaxation of the Government's control over the NZBS and, in any case, the railway strike had, by then, become a dead issue.