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'Dominion' Report: Cunning Editing

The one capping story which the Dominion did print was headed "Anger Over Student Pranks," and it dealt with the attempt to drink the Foresters' Arms dry.

Summarised, the article stated that students had asked for permission to drink the hotel dry, their offer was accepted, about 50 students were drinking there when the police raided, about 200 more students arrived, and they were not admitted.

The version of the story printed in the Dominion's city edition said even less. The following two paragraphs were omitted:

Mr. Mitchison said student representatives had approached him in the morning and asked permission to drink the hotel dry.

Mr. Mitchison said the students told him they had official permission from the CIB to bring their girlfriends into the bar.

The colour on the story came from what the licensee said. By criticising the students he had initially welcomed, he got the cheapest publicity he's had yet.

When the students were there with the licensee's permission, they were "students". When the police said they couldn't be, they became "teenage boys and girls." When the licensee admitted them, they were "drinking fairly quietly." When the licensee refused them "a really ugly situation developed" and "I told them I was sorry but I didn't want the hotel wrecked."

The Dominion gave no alternative viewpoint, nothing from the students' side, or the police's.

Its treatment of procesh initially totalled five sentences.

In the city edition, three of these were deleted. One read:

There was no evidence of flour bombs or other offensive behaviour.

The other two sentences were complimentary remarks about a large green turtle.—

H.B.R.