Berth!

Give That Reporter a Wide Berth!

Reader Claims That He Was Misreported

Letter to the Editor “T ET’S Speed the Dark Age” is the Lj heading on page 116 of the May issue of PIM, above a staff contri bution. The initials "JT” are doubtless those of Mrs. Tudor. She takes me to task on each of two points contained in the reported statement that I hope “50 years from now, New Guinea natives will be holding the executive positions which ‘whites’ are now filling.”

Objection is taken to use of the word “whites” and to the prophecy itself.

Mrs. Tudor should more rightly take to task the reporter, a member of her own profession, on a Brisbane daily paper, who chatted to me while the May Bulolo was in Brisbane.

Without his adulteration of my state ments there would have been no basis for her argument, at any rate with me per sonally. After I had discussed, in a very factual way, my own particular job, the reporter asked me what I thought would be the future role of the native people here. I am too pre-occupied with the problems of the present to give much thought to the future as a rule, but I thought I would be on fairly safe ground tvhen I said that “some of the positions low occupied by Europeans will probably 3e filled by natives in 50 years time.”

By omitting the phrase “some of” and :he word “probably,” the reporter has changed a reasonable enough idea into i sweeping generality. What I had in nind was the postmaster, a local native, it Nauru Island where I spent some time jefore the war. There is no evidence to

suggest that, even among Europeans like Mrs. Tudor, this is regarded as being the thin edge of the wedge.

BY substituting the word “whites” for “Europeans,” the reporter has furnished Mrs. Tudor with the grounds for her second criticism. I have always preferred the term Europeans.

Probably I used it a dozen times in talk ing to the reporter, but apparently he preferred “whites” and that is what he attributed .to me in his copy. I suppose Mrs. Tudor would excuse this as journal istic licence.

What amazes me, however, is that Mrs.

Tudor, with her wide experience, should be so naive as to accept at its face value the “fill-in” of a junior reporter.—l am, etc.,

W. C. Steele.

Department of Education, Port Moresby.

June 21, 1951.