The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, May 6, 1918, Page 9

sl The Sniffing Bloodhounds of the Press ° Newspaper Man Tells Why the Papers, Always Trailing Public Opinion, ~ Are Perpetually Off the Scent—What the Reader Can Do 3 BY PAUL GREER. SWEET little girl was intro- ducing two friends. “This is my Uncle Douglas,” she said. “I pray for him every night.” In her innocent heart was the same feeling that actuates every newspaper man who fosters a spark of youthful idealism, or who is even honest. Thls hopefulness for the soul of the daily press does not take the form' of loyalty to the paper on which the reporter works, or to its policies. There is more discontent, more of what the British sol- diers call “grousing” in the editorial rooms than in any trench within the confines of the European hell. It is loyalty to his ideal that keeps the good reporter keen—loyalty to what his paper might be —contempt: for what it is. Short story writers have a favorite plot in whlch the city editor or the old reporter, by withholding an article from the paper, could make a fortune. But—in the fiction magazines—their sense of obli- gation to the public is too strong, and the story is spread over the front page. There is another ready plot for romance, where by 11:rmt;ing a news article, the editor would lose his home, or sweet- _ heart, or bank account. The fictioneer would con- vince you that the ethics of journalism compel ruin to be accepted that the truth may be published. As a newspaper man of many years’ standing, I swear that I never yet have seen an editor make a personal sacrifice for the sake of giving the pub- lic the truth. And I have seen them give the public a lie and profit by it. RUN TO MAKE A THE MOST MONEY The thing for the reader to remember is that the object of a newspaper is to make money. Spreading knowledge of current events is a side- line. Even furnishing ready-made opinions on af- fairs. of the day is a sideline. The exactness of this belief is witnessed by a frank editorial in one of the few progressive dailies of the country, The San Francisco Bulletin. “Newspaper men are just like other men,” the editor remarks. “A certain percentage of them, having power, abuse it. A certain percentage of them are influenced by money, by favor, by busi- ness, by politics, or by all of these combined, to advocate what they know is not right. Many news- papers live only by meeting hard conditions of sur- vival, and these conditions, in an imperfect civili- zation, are not always those approved by Christian ethics. “The manufacture and sale of newspapers and of advertising space in newspapers is as much a business as the manufacture and sale of canned goods. True, there are publishers who regard journalism as a public trust that has an ethical as ‘well as a business side, and where the private interest conflicts with the public interest are ready to make heavy sacrifices for what they deem right. But many newspapers respond to business on the theory that it is business—business of readers and business of advertisers—that makes them go.” THE TYRANNY OF ey THE ADVERTISER No doubt this editor could not go any farthet/ in pursult of the truth without losing his job. But there in his confession we can see the newspaper from the publisher’s standpoint. From the point of view of the public, the duty Qf a newspaper is to furnish the news. There is the conflict of mterests ! The editor makes his profit from the advertisers. He could afford to give his paper away and still make a handsome profit. But something that comes for nothing is not appreciated by the aver- age Amer{mn, Hence, the charge.of one. or two- cents a copy for a paper. What the reader pays is not enough to buy the white paper and ink, let alone the cost of writing and of setting in type., It is the task of the public to hold the newspaper as closely as possible to the obligation to give the news of what is going on in the city, county, state, nation and world. This is no longer so difficult since the people are organizing and can concen- trate their power. The joker in this is tha'c although they depend on their advertisers for profit the newspapers can not get advertisements unless they have readers. And the rate of pay they receive for publishing " ads is based entirely on the size of the newspaper’s circulation. To examine this situation closely: The man who stops his paper because of its dishonesty is making himself felt. And the man who continues to take the paper but does not buy anything he sees ad- vertised in it is probably making his disapproval felt more heavily. A refusal to buy goods adver- tised in papers which do not treat their readers fairly and do not print the truth would disrupt the entire system. Advertising, in all but a féw instances, is a weedy growth that is only crowd- ing out the good crop of truthful news. “Never knock your advertisers” is a maxim in every news- paper office. LET THE EDITOR KNOW WHAT YOU THINK OF HIM A great problem for democracy to solve is how to get control of the sources of information. If I were a newspaper reader instead of a newspaper writer, when a thing was printed of which 1 did not approve, 1 should write to the editor. He has to be interested in what people think of his publi- cation, and ®f his policies. He believes the people are gullible fools and that they swallow everything he’ puts before them. It is easy to see that newspapers can be made subject to the force of public opinion, when public opinion organizes itself. The pitiful thing about the voice of the people is that it is so inarticulate. Not even at the polls is the public will fully ex- pressed. Yet the will of the majority is the great- est force and the highest court in the land—when it is aroused, organizes and expresses itself. Public opinion is 10 years ahead of the laws. For that we have the word of professors of sociol- ogy. Where, in this procession is the newspaper? Does it lead public opinion or trail it? Is it at all in advance of that solid embodiment of past cus- toms that we call law? Or is the press of today merely within the law? There may be newspapers in each of these classes. However, I can not call to mind the name of a single dally paper timt is ahead of public opinion. If one exists, be sure it is losing money— which is unprofessional unless you are subsidized. " “Offensive though they generally be to taste, and oftenAo civic morals as well, western newspapers are significant. Their most obvious trait is sensational- ism. So long as news is exciting, they care little whether it prove true. In a deliberate effort to please an untutored public; they do not hesitate to play on every passing prejudice of the mo- ment; and written for the most part by people of small education, often mere boys, their style in every phase but one is apt to be thoroughly vi- cious.” — PROFESSOR BARRET WENDELL, of Harvard College, in “A thera.ry Hlstory of America.” It is doubtful if even William Randolph Hearst imagines he is leading public opinion with his widely scattered organs. In this connection it is well to expose one of the tricks of shoddy journal- ism. It formerly was the custom for the president to allow the press associations to send out his messages several days in advance, that editors might have opportunity to get them into type be- fore he delivered them to congress. These mes- sages of state were to be held in strictest confidence until read to congress. TAMPERING WITH THE PRESIDENT’S MESSAGES Here and there a newspaper would violate the confidence in a cunning way. “If we were the president, we would say thus and so,” more than one editorial ran. Then would come a digest of the presidential message. When finally the state paper was made public, the editor could point to what he had advocated, and say that he had in- fluenced the president’s policies. The booming methods of Lord Northcliffe, the super-journalist of England, much resemble this. . —— The story of how his papers saved the British em- | pire by exposing the failure of shrapnel to kill en- trenched Germans and of how he, with his papers, inspired public opinion to demand a director of munitions who would supply high explosive shells to blast out the enemy is known round the world. What is not known, and yet what is the truth, is that this great publisher took advantage of a private conversation. In a visit to the war office, . he learned that shrapnel had been found ineffective and that it was immediately to be supplanted by high explosives. It was after that the London Daily Mail opened its campaign against inefficiency and demanded | However much that shrapnel be used no more. the British authorities might smart, under the pre- vailing idea of censorship, they could not come out and announce that already they had changed mu- nitions, but must go quietly ahead with their task. There came a day when the Daily Mail could an- nounce that the obsolete shells of the South African campaign were used no more. “I did it,” said Northcliffe, and the censor let no one say him nay. Across the top of his paper he printed for weeks, in great black type: Paper That Got the Shells.” THE SERVICE A NEWSPAPER GIVES “The . Yet the press is credited .with moulding public | thought. In reality it works this way: Each one of us may have wondered if any one else in the world thought as we did. Suddenly a newspaper prints an _expression corresponding with our views, or even attacking them. Immediately we discover that there are thousands who think as we do, and that other thousands, thus put in touch with a new idea, have accepted it. It is by the printed word that the strands of progressive thought are twisted together into the rope with which re- actionaries may hang themselves. It is by the newspapers that an issue may be brought forth. The people read, and themselves decide. Consider an editorial that would start out with the statement that the best shoes, as far as wear and comfort are concerned, are those worn in the United States army. Manufacturers compete eagerly for the government contract, and soldiers buy the shoes from the government at about $4 a pair. - Then let the editor propose a scheme whereby the government would give every citizen the privilege of buying footwear through public officials. . The ordinary wage-earner. would greet the proposal with enthusiasm. In fact something like this plan is now in effect in England and France. But what would the propnetors of the shoe stores say? What would their wives say, and the