Published Caxton Press, Christchurch 1968, first edition, 214 pages, illustrated, photographs .
Mr Holyoake: Whose word do we take in the matter. . . . I have no difficulty in this whatever. . . . I bad never heard of Mr Bick until I read about him in the newspaper.
However much difficulty the Prime Minister had in recognizing the name Bick (and Gordon Bick had directed three television interviews with Mr Holyoake) Mr Holyoake was one of a small minority: in September 1966 Gordon Bick, newly-resigned producer of the N.Z.B.C.'s television programme Compass, had a name and a cause that was known throughout the country.
The name was that of a brilliant and controversial television journalist: the cause was that of press, radio and television freedom from interference by government.
Gordon Bick resigned because he was certain that only government pressure, indirectly applied, prevented the televising of a Compass programme on the conversion to decimal currency. In an election year the Government wanted to avoid a programme that might suggest an increase in prices for consumer goods.
While Parliamentary and newspaper debate raged-Gordon Bick, jobless, looked back on his period with the N.Z.B.C. and considered just how timorously the Corporation had used its so-called independence. Now, in The Compass File Gordon Bick has taken a long, cool but concerned look at television and broadcasting in New Zealand.
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