They Want To

Ban A. Samoa's

News Bulletin

From GLEN WRIGHT, in Pago Pago A charge of deliberate censor ship of news has been levelled at the United States Government Information Office here by Samoan legislators. The accu sation was contained in a state

ment signed by the Speaker of

the Legislative Assembly and

the Leader of the Senate of American Samoa.

The Office of Samoan Informa tion, among other things, publishes a daily news bulletin that is widely disseminated.

“The news, of whatever nature, that is given to the News Bulletin, is carefully sifted for content,” reads the critical statement. “If the content suits certain people, then they are printed; if not, then the public is not subjected to this particular news.

“The legislature of American Samoa desires to go on record at this time as having the desire to give all the news to the people.

“Suppression of the news is not an American tradition and an Ameri can Samoan legislature will follow American tradition. The legislature hereby calls on the News Bulletin and anyone having to do with the publication of this government news medium and especially on Governor Owen S. Aspinall, to join in this great American tradition of freedom of the Press in all its connotations.”

Activities of the US Information Office here have been criticised for some time by the publishers of nearby Western Samoa’s two weekly newspapers. The Samoa Times and the Apia Advertiser, both edited by New Zealanders, argue that its pub lication of a free-distribution daily bulletin is unfair competition that hampers their efforts to grow and prosper.

Peter Creevey, editor of the Times, says that his protests have elicited the answer that when one of the local papers becomes a daily, the US government will quit publishing the NewS' Bulletin. Creevey protests that this is absurd: the Samoan papers cannot get enough circulation to do

that so long as the Bulletin competes.

“While an enormous amount of money is spent by the US on the Office of Samoan Information to produce government news, the local independent newspapers are asked to replace the Daily Bulletin; but they are stymied by its give-away policy, its cheap production methods, and free inclusion of public notices which would normally provide revenue for non-subsidised free enter prise,” says Creevey.

The Times, owned by a consortium of Samoan investors, was started in 1962 and has grown phenomenally during the past two years of Creevey’s tenure. It has a weekly paid circulation of 7,500 in both American and Western Samoa. Its 16 tabloid pages are fat with advertising, 70 to 78 in recent issues.

Nine of its 16 pages are in English.

The Advertiser, 12 smaller tabloid pages per issue, also bi-lingual, is only two-years-old. Despite its front page assertion in every edition that it was “the largest selling newspaper circulated in Western Samoa”, it gave up trying to compete for paid circulation with the Times, as of its September 4 edition, and became a free circulation shopping news of 2,000 copies, fortnightly instead of weekly. It is owned and edited by R. F. Rankin.

It will continue

Nevertheless, the News Bulletin will continue. Several members of the legislature had moved to ban it, but chief of the Office of Samoan Information, Ed Engledow, argued effectively before the lawmakers for its retention.

He asserted that the services now provided by the Bulletin could not be carried out by any other medium. If there was a sufficiently good news paper around he would be happy to lower the Bulletin’s colours, he said.

As a result of Engledow’s testi mony, the legislature voted $76,000 subsidy for support of the Office of Samoan Information in 1970.

Engledow is talking through his hat when he says that the local Press cannot cope.

Hundreds of Americans do not subscribe to the local newspapers be cause they get the Bulletin free. With the income thus lost the local Press could afford to install wire news service, upgrade editorial staffs.

All news items could easily be included in the news columns and propaganda run in Letters to the Editor departments or as signed opinion articles.