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Focus: Editor under NZBC pressure

Pressure from the NZBC will almost certainly mean that Barrie Saunders will have to resign from the Editorship of Focus.

At Easter Council, Paul Grocott, NZUSA President, told constituents that Mr Saunders' employers, the NZBC believed that a conflict of interest arose from the fact of his continuing to edit Focus while at the same time acting as a producer of Check point, an NZBC current affairs programme.

The President said that Mr Saunders had been offered three choices by the Broadcasting Corporation; to resign from the editorship of Focus; to accept a transfer within the Corporation to a "less sensitive" area; or to resign from the Corporation.

When he had asked what action would be taken if he took none of the choices offered to him, Mr Saunders had been told by NZBC executives that "we would be forced to release you."

Mr Grocott said that, while it seemed that little could be done to persuade the NZBC to change its view on the conflict of interest question, he had been directed by the Focus Administration Board to put the matter to the Director-General. "This will still be done," Mr Grocott said, "Though there had not yet been an indication that the NZBC was prepared to listen to reason."

Mr Saunders expects to resign from the editorship of FOCUS shortly after the second issue. This will be published on or about 1 April.

Dr Roger Manvell (above), well-known English film critic, will give an illustrated lecture entitled The New Cinema in England in E006 tomorrow night at 8pm.