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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Vol 36 No. 5. 29 March 1973

Wrong Facts

Wrong Facts

Dear Sir,

If you wish to maintain any sort of credibility when fabricating material for "Salient" you should at least observe the practice of not altering easily verifiable facts.

I refer to the so-called "N.Z.P.A. Reuter bulletin" which appeared on the cover of last week's "Salient" (21 Mar.) in which "Salient" incorrectly names Vorster as being Prime Minister of South Africa in 1960 when, in fact, he did not become Prime Minister until after Verwoerd's death in 1966.

Yours faithfully,

M. J. Warley

We are indebted to Mr Warley, and 2,000 others for pointing this error out to us, however we do know that Verwoerd was the South African Prime Minister in 1960. If Mr Warley would like to come in at 11am on Tuesday mornings and check our copy he could ensure that we do not make such errors again. After staying up several nights on end preparing the paper we sometimes make the odd mistake — Eds.

Cartoon of a man with a beard holding a finger in the air

Dear Sirs,

If there was ever any doubt about the need for a radical change in our society and education system it must be dispelled after seeing the ignorance displayed in last week's anti-Salient letters. The fact that these letters come from tertiary students demonstrates clearly that die only critical ability developed by education in this country is against those forces which challenge the existing system, rather than developing a critical ability which is self-reflexive. As all Marxists know, but never live by, when criticism is not self-reflexive it is merely dogma.

The ignorance contained in these letters is ignorance of the most pathetic kind, i.e. lack of understanding of one's own situation. This turns men into pawns, rather than letting them realise their own potentialities and give their lives direction.

As ignorance is the result of the social and educational system, the authors of those letters must be excused. However, one cannot condone the faulty logic contained in, e.g. the criticism of Salient for (i) presenting a Marxist interpretation (which is nowhere to be found in the popular press that gives only a capitalistic intepretation of overseas events) and then (ii) failing to provide an alternative intepretation. To a simple boy from Naenae like myself, this appears to be a contradiction of the most silly nature.

As if this was not bad enough, it has been my experience that the unwritten but official policy of editors in the daily press is to avoid at all costs any controversial local issue, involving either parliamentary party. The result of this is one gets no interpretation of the local scene, just a steady diet of overseas disasters, verbatim political reportage (not journalism) and local chit-chat of the most nauseating kind.

Since current psychology has demonstrated that the very act of perception involves interpretation, the only way a newspaper can attempt to conceal its bias is not to print anything at all. The blank pages resulting from such an editorial decision by any daily in New Zealand would give a fairer visual indication of their present news content, rather than the mystification created by the pages of black type at the moment.

While this state of affairs continues it is true that there will be no Revolution in Naenae. The people there are reduced to a Bingo and Booze mentality by the crippling effect of their uncritical education and the constant lack of information available to them.

Contrary to what one of your critics writes, viewing the world through other men's spectacles does not distort the vision, but allows for a unique chance for comparison and thus critical evaluation of one's own situation. For this process to be carried out efficiently, one must know whose spectacles one is wearing. This can only be known when editors stand up and identify their position. This is one criticism that cannot be levelled against you.

As one who is avidly anti-Marxist, I consider you to be doing an excellent job.

B. Reyburn