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| author | nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org> | 2025-02-06 10:21:04 -0800 |
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| committer | nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org> | 2025-02-06 10:21:04 -0800 |
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diff --git a/75303-h/75303-h.htm b/75303-h/75303-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0ef5894 --- /dev/null +++ b/75303-h/75303-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2108 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + + <title> + Stentor | Project Gutenberg + </title> + + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + + <style> + +/* DACSoft styles */ + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +/* General headers */ +h1 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +/* Chapter headers */ +h2 { + text-align: center; + font-weight: bold; + margin: .75em 0; +} + +div.chapter { + page-break-before: always; +} + +.nobreak { + page-break-before: avoid; +} + +/* Indented paragraph */ +p { + margin-top: .51em; + margin-bottom: .49em; + text-align: justify; + text-indent: 1em; +} + +/* Unindented paragraph */ +.noi {text-indent: 0em;} + +/* Centered unindented paragraph */ +.noic { + text-indent: 0em; + text-align: center; +} + +/* Drop caps */ +p.cap {text-indent: 0em;} + +p.cap:first-letter { + float: left; + padding-right: 3px; + font-size: 250%; + line-height: 83%; +} + +.x-ebookmaker p.cap:first-letter { + float: left; + padding-right: 3px; + font-size: 250%; + line-height: 83%; +} + +/* Non-standard paragraph margins */ +.p2 {margin-top: 2em;} + +.p4 {margin-top: 4em;} + +.pad2 { + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; +} + +/* Horizontal rules */ +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: 33.5%; + margin-right: 33.5%; + clear: both; +} + +hr.chap { + width: 65%; + margin-left: 17.5%; + margin-right: 17.5%; +} + +@media print { + hr.chap { + display: none; + visibility: hidden; + } +} + +/* Tables */ +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} + +td { + padding: .25em; +} + +th { + padding: .25em; + font-weight: normal; +} + +/* Table cell alignments */ +.tdl { + text-align: left; +} + +.tdrb { + text-align: right; + vertical-align: bottom; +} + +.tdrt { + text-align: right; + padding-right: 0.75em; + vertical-align: top; +} + +/* Physical book page and line numbers */ +.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + right: 3%; +/* left: 92%; */ + font-size: x-small; + font-style: normal; + font-weight: normal; + font-variant: normal; + text-align: right; + color: gray; +} /* page numbers */ + +/* Blockquotes */ +.blockquot { + margin-top: 1em; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-bottom: 1em; +} + +/* Alignment */ +.right {text-align: right;} + +/* Text appearance */ +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +/* Small fonts and lowercase small-caps */ +.smfont { + font-size: .8em; +} + +.smfontr { + font-size: .75em; + text-align: right; +} + +/* Images */ +img { + max-width: 100%; /* no image to be wider than screen or containing div */ + height:auto; /* keep height in proportion to width */ +} + +.illowe4 {width: 4em;} + +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; + page-break-inside: avoid; + max-width: 90%; /* div no wider than screen, even when screen is narrow */ +} + +/* Footnotes and sidenotes */ +.footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + +.footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + +.fnanchor { + vertical-align: super; + font-size: .65em; + text-decoration: none; + white-space: nowrap; +} + +/* Transcriber's notes */ +.tnote { + background-color: #E6E6FA; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + padding: 0.5em; +} + +.tntitle { + font-size: 1.25em; + font-weight: bold; + text-align: center; + clear: both; +} + +/* Title page borders and content. */ +.title { + font-size: 1.75em; + font-weight: bold; + text-align: center; + clear: both; +} + +.subtitle { + font-size: 1.5em; + text-align: center; + clear: both; +} + +.halftitle { + font-size: 1.5em; + text-align: center; + clear: both; +} + +.author { + font-size: 1.25em; + text-align: center; + clear: both; +} + +.works { + font-size: .75em; + text-align: center; + clear: both; +} + + </style> +</head> + +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75303 ***</div> + + +<figure class="figcenter x-ebookmaker-drop" id="cover_sm"> + <img src="images/cover_sm.jpg" alt="book cover" title="book cover"> +</figure> + + + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p class="noi halftitle">STENTOR</p> +</div> + + + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p>“The new spirit in the Press, which aims, not +at influencing statesmen by giving them an +instructed and enlightened public opinion, but +at making them subservient to a power which +will exalt them or hound them out of office, +according to whether they will or will not accept +its dictates and its terms.”</p> + +<p>“The insolent pretensions of newspaper +owners to reduce Downing Street to the position +of an annexe of Fleet Street.”</p> + +<p class="right">—<cite>Certain People of Importance</cite>, +by <span class="smcap">A. G. Gardiner</span>.<br></p> + +<p class="p2">The freedom of the Press is the freedom of +public opinion, that’s the beginning and the end +of it. Can you pretend that public opinion is +free, when more than half the leading journals +are the voice of one man? There is a danger to +the freedom of the Press, Janion; and that +danger is you. You are simply a trust +crushing out or buying up all opposition, till +you control the market—till you can sit in your +office and say, “What I think to-day, England +will think to-morrow.”</p> + +<p class="right">—<cite>The Earth</cite>, by <span class="smcap">J. B. Fagan</span>.<br></p> +</div> + + + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h1 class="nobreak">STENTOR</h1> + +<p class="noic">OR</p> + +<p class="noi subtitle">THE PRESS OF TO-DAY<br> +AND TO-MORROW</p> + +<p class="p2 noic">BY</p> + +<p class="noi author">DAVID OCKHAM</p> + +<p class="noi works">“The abstract and brief chronicle of the time.”</p> + +<div class="pad2"> +<figure class="figcenter" id="logo"> + <img class="illowe4" src="images/logo.jpg" alt="logo" title="logo"> +</figure> +</div> + +<p class="noic">E. P. DUTTON & CO., INC. : NEW YORK</p> +</div> + + + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p class="noic">STENTOR, COPYRIGHT, 1928<br> +BY E. P. DUTTON & CO., INC.<br> +ALL RIGHTS RESERVED :: PRINTED IN U.S.A.</p> + +<p class="p4 noic"><span class="smcap">First Edition</span></p> +</div> + + + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS">CONTENTS</h2> +</div> + + +<table> +<col style="width: 10%;"> +<col style="width: 80%;"> +<col style="width: 10%;"> +<tr> + <th class="smfontr">CHAPTER</th> + <th class="tdl"></th> + <th class="smfontr">PAGE</th> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdrt">I</td> + <td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#I">The Birth of Stentor</a></td> + <td class="tdrb">9</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdrt">II</td> + <td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#II">The Nature of Stentor</a></td> + <td class="tdrb">13</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdrt">III</td> + <td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#III">The Dictators</a></td> + <td class="tdrb">25</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdrt">IV</td> + <td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#IV">The Mannerisms of Stentor</a></td> + <td class="tdrb">40</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdrt">V</td> + <td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#V">The Newspaper of To-Morrow</a></td> + <td class="tdrb">48</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdrt">VI</td> + <td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#VI">Poison Gas or Fresh Air</a></td> + <td class="tdrb">59</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="tdrt"> </td> + <td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#APPENDIX">Appendix</a></td> + <td class="tdrb">66</td> +</tr> +</table> + + + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_9"></a>[9]</span></p> + +<p class="noi title">STENTOR</p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="I">I<br> +<small><i>The Birth of Stentor</i></small></h2> +</div> + + +<p class="cap">It is some eight thousand years ago that +Man, having already set himself apart +from the brute creation by walking on two +legs and creating the art of speech, paved +the way to the “best seller” by the invention +of writing.</p> + +<p>The nomad settled in the village. From +the village there grew the city. Empires +rose, fell, and crumbled into decay. Plato, +Homer, Aristotle, Dante, da Vinci, Shakespeare +enlarged the boundaries of intellect +and of emotion. America was rediscovered. +Moveable types were introduced to Europe. +And the newspaper, via the printed book +and the pamphlet, sprang from the loins of +Gutenberg. Grub Street gave place to Fleet +Street, and the Carmelites to Carmelite<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_10"></a>[10]</span> +House. Compulsory schooling for the +masses produced a new social phenomenon +in the shape of whole nations among whom +the illiterate was the exception, and Demos +roared voraciously for newsprint. And the +halfpenny “daily” created a demand for the +forest products of Newfoundland.</p> + +<p>So may our grandchildren condense their +Outline of History.</p> + +<p>Historically considered, the Newspaper is +an upstart, although its germs existed in the +Roman Empire in the shape of <i lang="la">Acta Diurna</i> +and <i lang="la">Acta Publica</i>, Government publications +which contained registers of births and +deaths, and particulars of the corn supply +and of payments into the Treasury. The +<i lang="la">Acta</i> even embodied so modern a feature as +the Court Circular.</p> + +<p>Journalism found no incitement during the +Dark and Middle Ages, and the use of moveable +types at first stimulated the production +of books rather than that of periodicals. By +the latter half of the fifteenth century, rudimentary +journals were, however, making +their more or less regular appearance in +Germany, Austria, and Italy, and embedded +in Continental archives is to be found at<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_11"></a>[11]</span> +least one copy of a contemporary account of +Columbus’ voyages to America recorded +while his journeyings still represented the +latest news.</p> + +<p>The sixteenth century saw the <i lang="it">Gazzetta</i>, +an Italian production in manuscript, to be +read on payment of a <i lang="it">gazzetta</i>, a small coin +of the period, which eventually gave its name +as a synonym for newspapers and other publications. +None of these Continental attempts +to assuage the thirst for news seems, +however, to have embodied the seeds of +permanence, and the idea of a Newspaper +in the modern sense, that is, of a publication +issued at regular intervals and characterised +by continuity in administration and policy, is +largely English. The first regular English +newspaper was the <cite>Weekly News from Italy, +Germany, etc.</cite>, founded in 1622, and nineteen +years later an English paper secured a +“scoop” by publishing a report of a Parliamentary +debate for the first time on +record. In 1709, London had its first daily +under the title of the <cite>Daily Courant</cite>; the +<cite>Morning Post</cite> dates back to 1772; and the +<cite>Times</cite>, originally established as the <cite>Daily +Universal Register</cite>, followed in 1785.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_12"></a>[12]</span></p> + +<p>It is almost impossible to assign a definite +historical date for the inception of the newspaper +as a regular institution created to +satisfy a public demand, since so many of +the journalistic pioneers were both of a fugitive +and ephemeral nature, whilst others +were pamphlets rather than news bulletins. +But if we strike a mean between the <cite>Daily +Courant</cite> and the <cite>Morning Post</cite>, we may say +that the newspaper has enjoyed some two +centuries of vigorous life. It has thus witnessed +the birth of the Industrial Age and +of its offspring, Mechanical Transport, has +seen the formation of the United States of +America, the peopling of Canada and Australia, +the fall of most European thrones, +the development of great communities in +South America, the birth of flying, and the +shifting of the centre of gravity of political +power from the semi-instructed few to the +uninstructed many. If Stentor has lost his +head a trifle at the contemplation of such an +unparalleled record of human activity, and +of a period pregnant with such almost unimaginable +possibilities for good and evil, +who shall wonder?</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_13"></a>[13]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="II">II<br> +<small><i>The Nature of Stentor</i></small></h2> +</div> + + +<p class="cap">What is a newspaper? Ask any editor +or proprietor, and he will tell you that +its primary function is the dissemination of +news, and its secondary, but none the less +immensely important, task is that of commenting +on the happenings of to-day or forecasting +those of to-morrow, with the object +of educating the community and guiding public +opinion. So we are frequently informed, +in rotund periods, by noble lords who respond +to the toast of The Press at public +feastings.</p> + +<p>What, actually, is a newspaper? To begin +with, it contains advertisements, mainly +of women’s dress, soaps, face creams and +powders, chocolate, beer, whisky, tobacco, +and motor cars. Democracy’s needs.</p> + +<p>Then there is a page of pictures, gathered<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_14"></a>[14]</span> +at great expense from the ends of the earth, +often transmitted by aeroplane, and providing +a feast of new hats and evening wraps +from Paris, railway accidents, shipwrecks, +upturned tramcars and motor lorries that +have fallen into ditches, the more or less +recognisable portraits of men and women +performing at the Divorce Courts or for +some other reason temporarily in the public +eye, photographs of film actresses, and +pictures of the diversions of the Rich +at the races, on the moors, on the Lido, +and on the Riviera. Democracy’s peep-show.</p> + +<p>After these hors d’œuvres come the leading +articles, letters to the editor, “nature +notes” straight from Fleet Street, an instalment +of a serial story depicting a life such as +was never lived on land or sea, pictures which +are believed to amuse the children, and +“leader page articles” largely contributed +(or at least signed) by doctors, divines, the +wives of ex-Cabinet Ministers, Russian +Princesses, actresses, and—occasionally—journalists.</p> + +<p>There are also articles in which women +are instructed how to dress, cook, arrange a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_15"></a>[15]</span> +luncheon table, plan schemes of interior +decoration, pack their trunks for a holiday, +economise in the household, and retain the +affection of their husbands.</p> + +<p>The residue is news.</p> + +<p>But not all of it.</p> + +<p>For much of this residue is news only in +a specialised and restricted sense. City +notes, produce market notes, the movements +of shipping, and golf, bridge, gardening, or +motoring notes do not appeal to every +reader. Nor, for that matter, does literary +criticism, or the critiques of plays, films, concerts, +and picture exhibitions.</p> + +<p>But the residue of the residue is news. +And that includes “gossip” by ladies and +gentlemen apparently on terms of the utmost +intimacy with Royalty and the nobility +and gentry, the deaths of centenarians, the +bright sayings of witnesses at police courts, +the witty sayings of judges, the wise sayings +of magistrates, and the futile sayings of +coroners.</p> + +<p>Add a crossword puzzle, and you have a +newspaper. Democracy’s Mentor.</p> + +<p>New inventions and institutions achieve +popularity in accordance with the readiness<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_16"></a>[16]</span> +with which they lend themselves to vulgarisation. +So it has been with wireless and the +kinema, and so it is with the Press. Cynics +may say that every country has the newspapers +it deserves, but that begs the question. +The mass of the public undoubtedly likes its +newspapers well enough (without having any +very great respect for them) but it also likes +novels and film plays entirely devoid of artistic +value, just as it likes third-rate music +and fourth-rate pictures. The real question +is how far is popular taste natural, and how +far has it been debauched by those who aim +at giving the public what it wants, or what +it is supposed to want. A brewer who succeeds +in inducing his customers to acquire a +taste for doctored or synthetic beer may be +entitled to say that he is giving them what +they like. But he is not entitled to say that +they are incapable of appreciating unadulterated +malt and hops, or that they would +really prefer the genuine article if they +were allowed a free choice between the +two.</p> + +<p>When compulsory schooling led to an +immense and sudden increase in the number +of people able to read without difficulty, well-meaning<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_17"></a>[17]</span> +enthusiasts rejoiced at the prospect +of the artisan beguiling his leisure with +Dante, Milton, Schopenhauer, Ruskin, Darwin, +George Eliot, or the works of Alfred +Lord Tennyson. Actually, these newcomers +to the world of letters turned mostly +to the penny novelette and the “bitty” +weekly. They might have patronised something +better if the pioneers of reading matter +for the million had made the experiment of +seeing whether there was a market for something +better. But the experiment was not +made. And it was on the basis of a culture +largely represented by the “snippety” +weekly, that the creators of newspapers for +the million began to build about a generation +ago.</p> + +<p>Let it be conceded that their intentions +were largely laudable. The appeal of the +newspaper had previously been restricted to +a degree almost incredible to contemporary +men and women under thirty. The daily +paper was the preserve of the well-to-do +and the “comfortable classes”; the masses +bought evening papers for racing tips and +other sporting information, and on Sundays +they were regaled with a ragôut of the murders,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_18"></a>[18]</span> +the robberies, the assaults, the divorces, +and the more unsavoury police court cases of +the week. Journals of international repute, +such as the <cite>Times</cite>, the <cite>Daily Telegraph</cite>, the +<cite lang="la">Neue Freie Presse</cite>, the <cite lang="fr">Journal des Débats</cite>, +sold fewer copies in a week than the popular +organs now dispose of in a day.</p> + +<p>The Harmsworths, the Pearsons, the +Hearsts, were to change all that. In order +to make the daily paper a necessity, or a +habit, of the masses, it was essential to depart +from the pomposity of the older +journals, with their long and platitudinous +leading articles about nothing in particular, +their unattractive “make-up,” their bald +presentation of news, the immense length of +their police court reports, and their adherence +to the theory that the fall of a Cabinet +in Patagonia was of more interest to the +reader than a murder on his doorstep. The +motto of the new Press was Brightness, +Brevity, Enterprise, and Cheapness. It introduced +photographs. It presented its news +more attractively. It catered for the interests +of women. It printed the light, but +informative, article on topics of the day,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_19"></a>[19]</span> +often written by a specialist. It quickened +up the transmission both of the news and of +the newspaper. It aimed, in short, at mirroring +passing events for the multitude +rather than providing reading matter to be +digested at leisure by the banker, the lawyer, +the country gentleman, and the politician. +And it succeeded remarkably—up to a +point.</p> + +<p>But man cannot live by brightness alone. +And brightness became a fetish. Insensibly, +and on the whole probably unconsciously, at +least at first, the newspaper made excessive +sacrifices in the pursuit of its passion for the +purely readable. It concentrated on the tabloid +and the snippet. It plastered its pages +with pictures, so that we have reached the +stage at which if Dean Inge, Bernard Shaw, +the ex-Kaiser, President Coolidge, Mr. +Lloyd George, or Mr. Charles Chaplin be +mentioned on six consecutive days of the +week by the same paper, each mention will be +accompanied by a photograph, usually the +same photograph, the size of a postage +stamp. Similarly, the obsession of the Press +for “human interest stories” (a characteristic<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_20"></a>[20]</span> +legitimate enough in itself) has been developed +to the point at which the wives and +mothers of condemned murderers are interviewed +directly after the verdict with a request +for their comments on the justice of +the sentence, while respectable householders +are despatched with cameras to photograph +the tears of miners’ widows after a colliery +accident.</p> + +<p>“Human interest” with a vengeance. But +the worst feature of this vulgarisation of the +popular Press is the resulting vulgarisation +of the public. News editors would not instruct +their reporters to interview divorcées, +husbands whose wives have just been killed +in motor accidents, or bereaved mothers, unless +journalistic insistence as the “personal +touch” had so greatly succeeded in banning +decent reticence. The law does not punish +such outrages on public taste, although it +punishes many offences of far smaller detriment +to the community.</p> + +<p>Side by side with vulgarisation is persistent +falsification of values. The Press promotes +mass hysteria, as is shown by the excesses +accompanying the visits of American<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_21"></a>[21]</span> +film stars to England or of European queens +to the United States. It consistently denounces +the very evils, or imaginary evils for +whose creation it is itself so largely responsible, +finding, for instance, good “copy” both +in detailed descriptions of a play alleged to +be lewd, and in criticisms of the same play +by clergymen who have not seen it. And it +is driving privacy from the world by its discovery +of the new creed that if the pen be +mightier than the sword, the camera is +mightier than either.</p> + +<p>Insistence on the personal note has also +brought in its train a Mumbo-Jumbo belief +in the virtue of names. It is assumed that +the public will attach more importance to an +article signed with a name with which it is +familiar than by an unsigned contribution, +and although this theory is based on a certain +element of fact, it is in practice overworked +to the point of nausea. The reader +will no doubt attach special importance to an +article under the signature of Arnold Bennett, +or H. G. Wells, especially if it deal +with a subject with which the writer is particularly +identified. He will also be more<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_22"></a>[22]</span> +impressed by an article on tennis by Suzanne +Lenglen than by an equally good but anonymous +contribution. But is he equally impressed +by the fact that a column of platitudes +on motherhood, the contemporary +young woman, or the decay of church-going, +is signed by a, no doubt, estimable lady, +whose only claim to public distinction is that +she is the wife of an ex-Lord Mayor or the +bearer of an obscure Hungarian title? +Editors and proprietors apparently think so, +thus indicating their cynical estimate of the +level of public intelligence.</p> + +<p>Furthermore, this passion for names is +responsible for the perpetration of the +grossest frauds on the public. It is notorious +in Fleet Street that articles alleged to be contributed +by politicians, musical comedy actresses, +film stars, and professional footballers +are, in fact, often not written by the +illustrious who are their reputed authors. Indeed, +the illustrious are as like as not incapable +of writing a page of grammatical +English, as is also the case with the self-advertising +commercial magnate, whose reputed +views on economic questions or industrial<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_23"></a>[23]</span> +co-operation, neatly typed and flanked +by carefully touched-up photographs, descend +on the desks of editors in the company of +the pigeon-English letters of pushful publicity +agents.</p> + +<p>But this fraud on the public, and there is +no other name for a species of false pretence +which is growing so rapidly that it is developing +into an open scandal, is, relatively, a +minor affair. The real evil is that the controllers +of the Press, themselves largely amateurs, +are going out of their way to encourage +the incursion of the amateur into what +is a highly-skilled and highly-complex avocation. +And that constitutes the real false pretence. +It does not matter very much whether +that popular film comedienne, Miss Ruby +Vamp, is actually responsible or not for the +article on “Should Curates Charleston?” +extensively and expensively advertised by +the “Daily Dope.” But it does matter if +the public be led to believe that an article on +foreign relations written to order by a hack +journalist for the purpose of provoking a +sensation or promoting the policy of a newspaper +proprietor should purport to be, and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_24"></a>[24]</span> +should be accepted, as from the pen of an +impartial diplomatic expert, who has, in fact, +only lent his name in return for money or for +purposes of self-advertisement.<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="noi"><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">[1]</a> In December last, the Lawn Tennis Association passed +resolutions prohibiting a competitor in tournaments and +matches from writing articles thereon for the Press +“under his own name, initials, or recognisable pseudonym,” +and also from allowing a player to permit his +name to be “advertised as the author of any book or +press article of which he is not the actual author.” This +resolution was boycotted by a portion of the Combine +Press, while one newspaper distorted the attitude of the +Association as representing “interference with amateurs,” +and “dictating to newspaper proprietors and editors.” +Imperence.</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_25"></a>[25]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="III">III<br> +<small><i>The Dictators</i></small></h2> +</div> + + +<p class="cap">Few people understand the economic, +still less the social, significance of Trusts +and Combines. The public is familiar +enough with the amalgamation of a number +of more or less competing concerns engaged +in the same industry; it is not so familiar +with the conception of a Trust which owns or +controls undertakings of widely-differing nature, +such as the modern Combine which +aims at controlling an article during the +whole cycle of operations from the winning +of the raw material to the marketing of the +finished product. Still less is it familiar with +the process whereby control, which is far +more important than ownership, can be acquired +by putting up quite a small proportion +of the total capital invested in a commercial +undertaking.<a id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="noi"><a id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2" class="label">[2]</a> A large proportion of the capital of modern joint-stock +companies is provided by debenture-holders, who +normally have no voting rights whatever, and by preference +share-holders, who may vote at meetings only +when their dividend has been in arrears for a prescribed +period. Even ordinary share-holders may have no voting +rights, and the entire control, including the appointment +of directors, can be vested in the owners of a particular +class of share representing less than a tenth of the company’s +total capital.</p> + +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_26"></a>[26]</span></p> + +<p>It is as the result of control rather than +actual ownership that the British Press has +within the past few years largely come into +the hands of some four or five men. The +Independent Press has, in consequence, almost +ceased to exist. There are still, of +course, newspapers uncontrolled by Combines +or Trusts, but these are in the main restricted +alike as to circulation, influence, and the +range of their geographical distribution. +Moreover, independence of ownership does +not necessarily mean independence of control +by a political party in whose interests +the paper is administered by its nominal +owners.</p> + +<p>The “Trustification” of the Press is an +entirely logical development, and has been +accepted by the public in much the same way +as amalgamations in any other industry. +But there is a vital difference between a +Newspaper Trust and a Beef Trust. The<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_27"></a>[27]</span> +Newspaper Trust controls and manipulates +public opinion. Its workings are largely subterranean. +It is guided on occasion by purely +political considerations to an extent impossible +in any other industry. It may exercise +a decisive influence on the issue of war +or peace. Obviously, the control of a nation’s +Press by a handful of men is not to be +regarded in the same light as the control of +its chemical industry. A “deal” in newspapers +embodies, ultimately, a “deal” in +the means of manipulating public opinion.</p> + +<p>In every industry, the appetite for amalgamation +grows by what it feeds on. The +tendency is for the immensely powerful and +wealthy Newspaper Trusts to absorb more +and more publications. Very often, a competing +organ is bought only that it may be +“killed,” as happened to London’s oldest +evening paper, <cite>The Globe</cite>. Amalgamation +is often only a euphemistic term for the disappearance +of an old-established paper. The +independent journals cannot withstand the +tentacles of the Octopus. Either they are +forced out of existence by sheer inability to +stand up against their much wealthier rivals, +or the owners are induced to sell by offers<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_28"></a>[28]</span> +too tempting to refuse. In the latter instance, +the matter has usually been decided +on down to the last detail by the directors on +both sides before the offer is submitted to the +share-holders who are the nominal and legal +owners of the property.</p> + +<p>The Dictators of Public Opinion thus enlarge +their realm. It may be asked why, +granted that the disappearance of existing +Independent Newspapers is inevitable, new +Independent organs do not make their appearance. +The answer is that few undertakings +involve the risk of such great loss, +coupled with so much uncertainty and the +necessity of putting up so much working +capital to provide for possible losses during +the first two or three years of existence, as +the launching of a great newspaper. Excluding +a journal subsidised by Labour organisations, +only one serious attempt has +been made in England during the last twenty +years to found a new morning paper of national +scope. It failed, after its millionaire +proprietor had tired of losing money on the +venture. The last attempt to establish a +new London evening paper failed on the +score of finance, distribution alone (<i>i.e.</i>, getting<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_29"></a>[29]</span> +the paper into the hands of readers +after it had been printed) costing a thousand +pounds a week. London, which is the journalistic +centre of the United Kingdom (the +small size of the country making possible +the “nation-wide” newspaper, with which +there is nothing really comparable in the +United States), has actually far fewer morning +and evening papers than twenty years +ago.</p> + +<p>It has more Sunday papers. But that is +one of the results of Trustification. By +placing a Sunday paper under the same control +as one or more morning and evening +journals, overhead charges, which eat up +money in the newspaper industry, are largely +reduced. Administrative and mechanical +costs are lowered. Each paper in the Combine +can give free publicity to the rest. Distribution +costs are shared. Against such conditions, +the lone hand fights a losing battle, +and economic factors operate as much +against the creation of new Independent +journals as they operate for the absorption +of those still in existence.</p> + +<p>Since the armistice, the process of Trustification +has undergone a remarkable acceleration.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_30"></a>[30]</span> +It has also entered on a new and +immensely significant phase, the unification +of control of publications of the most widely +differing nature, thus bringing illustrated +weeklies, fashion papers, monthly magazines, +technical and trade journals, children’s +weeklies and monthlies, and directories and +other works of reference under the same +ownership as morning, evening, and Sunday +Newspapers. The modern Combine +will even control the manufacture of its +paper, and the supply of raw material for +the purpose.<a id="FNanchor_3" href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></p> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="noi"><a id="Footnote_3" href="#FNanchor_3" class="label">[3]</a> See <a href="#APPENDIX">Appendix</a>.</p> + +</div> + +<p>Such comprehensive Trustification may +either assume the shape of complete amalgamation +of separate companies, or be +effected by the process known as unification +of interests, in which a common control is +brought about by such means as the presence +of the same men, or their nominees, on +the boards of companies which retain their +corporate entity but are animated by a common +policy and administered to serve common +interests. The result is in either instance +the same.</p> + +<p>The world has never known anything comparable.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_31"></a>[31]</span> +A handful of men, sitting over a +luncheon table, can decree what the community +is to think, what it is to be told, what +it is not to be told. So we have reached the +“Fordisation” of the intellect, which works +through mass suggestion reinforced by damnable +iteration. And this is mainly the work, +not of men with missions, not of enthusiasts, +or patriots, or men of culture, not even of +journalists, but of men who have “gone +into” the newspaper industry as they might +have “gone into” the establishment of +bacon-curing factories.</p> + +<p>Does it require a prophet to forecast the +colossal influence of the Dictators on the +opinions, the conduct, and the ideals of the +next generation?</p> + +<p>For the process of Trustification cannot be +arrested. Law and public opinion are alike +powerless to stem it. No Anti-Trust legislation, +as has been proved by America, is +ever or can ever be of the smallest effect, +since there are too many means of evading +the spirit of the law while adhering to the +letter. Interlocking directorates, ownership +of shares carrying control over the entire +undertaking, secret arrangements for pooling<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_32"></a>[32]</span> +profits, are among the common methods +adopted in order to set up a <em>de facto</em> Trust +when it may not be legal or politic to establish +a Trust in name. Newspapers which +succeed in maintaining a semblance of independent +ownership and independent policy +will thus be brought within the orbit of the +Combines although they may nominally remain +outside. The Trusts will become +Super-Trusts, and the Press of the whole +country may be dominated by two, three, or +even one combine, with a single individual as +Arch-Dictator.</p> + +<p>The process is inevitable, even if only for +the reason that the splitting up of a Trust +that has once been formed entails reduction +in profits. Northcliffe, who was above and +beyond everything else a journalist, aimed +merely at the supreme control of the journals +created by his genius. The contemporary +Dictators, who are not journalists, +aim at dominion over the whole field of +the Press. They have already gone most +of the way towards attaining their ambition.</p> + +<p>A special factor which has received very<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_33"></a>[33]</span> +little consideration will operate in the near +future towards the tightening of the stranglehold +of the Press Combines. Trustification +of the Newspaper Industry has recommended +itself to financiers on the ground, +<i lang="la">inter alia</i>, that it enables expenditure to be +cut down. The history of nearly every industrial +combine, excepting those affecting +the Press, has since the armistice been one of +profits that have failed to come up to the +promoters’ estimates. In numerous instances, +despite the considerable economies foreshadowed +in the prospectus, earnings have +been materially lower than those of the former +separate undertakings now under one +control. Indeed, the process of amalgamation +or of acquiring controlling interests has +during the past few years been in general +disappointing to share-holders.</p> + +<p>Until now, the Newspaper Trusts have +been more fortunate, partly because certain +classes of advertisers have been induced to +spend much more money, partly because of +the economies effected by the wholesale +discharge of staffs consequent on the so-called +amalgamation of papers which have<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_34"></a>[34]</span> +been bought only that they might be +“killed”;<a id="FNanchor_4" href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> and in part because the results of +acquiring share-holdings at fancy prices have +yet to materialise.</p> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="noi"><a id="Footnote_4" href="#FNanchor_4" class="label">[4]</a> “<cite>The Yorkshire Evening Argus</cite> having been amalgamated +with the <cite>Bradford Daily Telegraph</cite>, the Editor +of the former paper (Mr. J. W. Masters) confidently +recommends the members of his loyal and competent staff +to all who need literary assistance, and would be glad to +receive applications from editors and others having positions +to offer.”—Advertisement in the <cite>Times</cite>, December +15, 1926.</p> + +</div> + +<p>This prosperity cannot be expected to last +indefinitely. The newspaper brokers, that +new class of financial intermediary which is +playing so significant a part in the making +of “deals” in public opinion, have done uncommonly +well out of their buyings and sellings. +They may still do well in the immediate +future, but they have no concern with +the ultimate prosperity of the industry. The +future position of share-holders in the Press +Trusts does not seem so assured as they +imagine to-day. As profits decline, or fail +to increase in accordance with expectations, +the dictators will decree reductions in expenditure, +beginning with the human material +which has created their profits and their<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_35"></a>[35]</span> +goodwill. The desire for economy, which is +on the whole more likely to be attained by +means of centralised administration than +with a number of separate and individual +undertakings, will obviously outweigh any +arguments that might be brought forward in +favour of “unscrambling” the Press Trusts, +or splitting up the Combines into smaller +undertakings. Furthermore, when the +Trusts feel the pinch, or regard their profits +as insufficiently bloated, the ambition to +drive out what remains of the Independent +Press will be accentuated, and yet more +journals outside the Combines will be forced +to surrender.</p> + +<p>With the process of Trustification has +come a complete change in the character of +the Controllers of the Press. Men such as +Delane of the <cite>Times</cite> were great editors, that +is, great journalists, who stamped their impress +on an age which still held to the belief +that the editor was responsible for the editorial +policy of his paper, and was something +more than the mere paid servant of his +proprietors, to be engaged and discharged +as one “hires and fires” a scullery maid.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_36"></a>[36]</span> +Men such as Northcliffe (with all his faults +a great man and one with a touch of that +indefinable quality which we term genius) +were possessed of creative ideas; they had +vision and ideals; they saw in the newspaper +something more than a mere instrument for +money-making. If they made money it was +not because it was their primary ambition to +do so, or even because they particularly cared +about money, but because their creations +could not help attaining a considerable degree +of material success.</p> + +<p>To-day, with negligible exceptions which +are unlikely to be perpetuated, editors are +merely hired servants. A. C. P. Scott is +an exception.<a id="FNanchor_5" href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> Another Delane is an impossibility. +Another Northcliffe is unthinkable, +since the new Dictators have +fashioned the rôle of the Press, and their +own rôle, after a diametrically opposite +conception.</p> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="noi"><a id="Footnote_5" href="#FNanchor_5" class="label">[5]</a> Editor of the <cite>Manchester Guardian</cite>, and controller of +its editorial policy.</p> + +</div> + +<p>In the stead of the Delanes and the Northcliffes, +we have control by self-seeking +millionaires with a megalomaniac itch for interference. +A dozen years ago, the spectacle<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_37"></a>[37]</span> +of a newspaper proprietor expressing on the +front page of his principal organ his entire +disagreement with the opinions of his dramatic +critic on an entirely undistinguished +play would have been incredible. Such an +outrage on taste is symptomatic of the dictatorship +by the new Overlords of the Press. +Here we have yet another manifestation of +the amateur’s conception of journalism. +Anyone, thinks the modern proprietor, can +be a dramatic critic, a musical critic, a literary +critic, a Parliamentary correspondent, +an editor, especially if his name be known to +the public in a capacity entirely unrelated to +journalism. If he be a peer or possess a +courtesy title, then he is the beau ideal of +journalism.<a id="FNanchor_6" href="#Footnote_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></p> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="noi"><a id="Footnote_6" href="#FNanchor_6" class="label">[6]</a> “Anyone can write leading articles,” the author was +once solemnly assured by one of our best-known editors. +He was neither endeavouring to be humorous nor to be +cynical; he was merely expressing what the Conductors +of the Press themselves think of the Press which they +conduct.</p> + +</div> + +<p>Amateurishness and the love of interference +also combine to give us the ponderous +signed contributions with which newspaper +proprietors regularly favour their own journals. +Whether these articles are in every<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_38"></a>[38]</span> +instance, or in any instance, actually written +by their signatories, is a matter with which I +have no immediate concern. But they are +significant of the driving forces behind the +modern Press Trust; they exemplify the rôle +of the Press as an engine of propaganda, self-advancement, +and self-advertisement, for its +millionaire owners.</p> + +<p>To quote Mr. St. John Ervine:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“We know there are certain demented millionaires +who own newspapers and will write for +them; and when one of these men writes an article, +the staff hides its head and goes about the rest of the +week explaining it away. We (the journalists) are +the paper. We are the goodwill of the paper, and +when they sell a paper they sell what we have +made. When they sell what we have made and say +‘We don’t want you any more,’ we should be +regarded as the first charge on the price of that +paper. We have known proprietors who have +ruined papers. Such a man should be in gaol for +ruining a good business.... Editors used to put +the proprietors of newspapers in their place, and +there is no reason why it should not be done again.”</p> +</div> + +<p>Mr. Ervine, it may be added, made these +remarks at a meeting convened by the Institute<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_39"></a>[39]</span> +of Journalists on December 11, 1926, +under the chairmanship of Sir Robert Bruce, +editor of the <cite>Glasgow Herald</cite>. His remarks +were, of course, boycotted by the leading organs +of the Press Trust.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_40"></a>[40]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="IV">IV<br> +<small><i>The Mannerisms of Stentor</i></small></h2> +</div> + + +<p class="cap">A problem for the consideration of +the Dictators of the Press is that of +reconciling the up-to-date nature of the modern +newspaper in most respects with its extraordinary +conservatism in others, an inconsistency +that affords genuine amusement +to the student of contemporary life and manners. +The Press is still old-fashioned enough +to regard Woman (with a very large +“W”) as a remarkable creature that has +only just been discovered. Her slightest and +most inconsequential doings are regarded as +of the most compelling interest. “Women +Present at Football Match” declaim the +headlines, and the game is immediately +vested with a special and romantic atmosphere.<a id="FNanchor_7" href="#Footnote_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a></p> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="noi"><a id="Footnote_7" href="#FNanchor_7" class="label">[7]</a> I do not dilate on this theme, since it has so admirably +been expounded by Rose Macaulay, who is human enough +to rebel against her sex being treated by the Press as +though it were almost human.</p> + +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_41"></a>[41]</span></p> + +<p>Again, we have progressed beyond the +“Book of Snobs,” but “public schoolboy,” +“old Etonian,” “wife of Ex-M.P.,” and +“Colonel” are still imagined by sub-editors +to be invested in the reader’s mind with an +aura denied to the mass of human beings. +As for members of the nobility, let an +amiable and undistinguished peer die of heart +failure in his eightieth year, or collide in his +motor car with a taxi-cab, and the news is +conveyed to a bored public by means of +special contents bills. For the public is +bored, when it is not disgusted, by these endeavours +to make the world safe for Snobocracy. +Yet a journalist who attempted to +point out that both social values and news +values had altered since the days of the +Great Exhibition, and, in particular, since +the Great War, would be told that he did +not know his business and that he was most +certainly a Bolshevik.</p> + +<p>Again, while proprietors and editors long +ago realised the implication of Northcliffe’s +discovery that Woman was a creature of +sufficient intelligence and curiosity to read<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_42"></a>[42]</span> +a newspaper (even if only for the advertisements +of drapers), they still regard her in +the light of an intellectual crétin so far as +concerns the provision of reading matter. If +any critic consider this statement too severe, +let him—or her—concentrate exclusively for +the next two days on the fashion and “Society” +columns and the “Woman’s Pages” +of the Popular Press.</p> + +<p>Moreover, the editorial conception of +women is that they are without exception +possessed of inexhaustible means, leisure, and +ability to make holiday at expensive resorts +all the year round and to attend all the costliest +“functions” as a matter of course. No +other explanation of the fatuous drivel +offered up for the special delectation of female +readers offers itself to the reasoning +mind.</p> + +<p>Do you think I have been unfair? Then +read this characteristic paragraph from an +evening paper, headed “Earnest Young Women”:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“It must not be thought that the American girl +merely dances her way through life. Not at all. +She must have variety, therefore she dabbles lightly +in art, literature, politics, or philanthropy. She has<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_43"></a>[43]</span> +days for visiting hospitals or other institutions or +she makes political speeches as Miss Barbara Sands, +grand-daughter of Mrs. William K. Vanderbilt, has +been doing recently, and as Sarah Murray Butler +does all the time, or she even takes up business in +her odd moments, like Elinor Dorrance, who at +eighteen has decided to know all about the famous +Campbell soups company of which her father is +head and which she will inherit.”</p> +</div> + +<p>This is not parody. It is the real thing, +complete with snobbishness, clichés, naïveté, +and the conviction that it doesn’t in the least +matter how you write or what you write +about so long as you are writing for other +women. And it is published in a paper whose +owners lay stress on the fact that it caters +especially for intelligent and cultured womanhood.</p> + +<p>“The famous Campbell soups company.” +“Famous” is the sub-editor’s favourite +word,<a id="FNanchor_8" href="#Footnote_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> applied by him with unwearying zeal +to all men and women who have ever got +themselves in the public eye—unless they are +really famous—applied even to furniture +polishes, blends of whisky, and popular cigarettes. +The sub-editor, that romantic soul,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_44"></a>[44]</span> +also assumes that the normal behaviour of +the notorious or the merely well-known is +flamboyant, so that when they manage their +affairs without limelight they are “quietly +married,” or they “leave quietly” for their +honeymoon. The one thing the Press will in +no circumstances permit them to do is to die +quietly.</p> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="noi"><a id="Footnote_8" href="#FNanchor_8" class="label">[8]</a> “Amazing,” “mystery,” “thrilling,” and “dramatic” +are also hot favourites in the Stock Phrase Stakes.</p> + +</div> + +<p>Is it not time that the pages of the Press +were one quarter so up-to-date as the machinery +which prints them? and that “journalese” +should cease to be a synonym for +the vapid, the crude, the provincial, and the +semi-illiterate?</p> + +<p>Impartiality being even rarer than commonsense, +no one would be foolish enough to +demand from a newspaper either complete +lack of bias, or the presentation with equal +prominence of both sides of a controversial +case. Such impartiality would be contrary +to human nature. But natural prejudice does +not necessarily involve the deliberate distortion +of news.</p> + +<p>News can be, and is, habitually manipulated +both by distortion and suppression. +The first procedure is, on the whole, less objectionable,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_45"></a>[45]</span> +since a little knowledge on the +part of a reader will often enable him to +realise that a case is being overstated. Moreover, +he may allow for the known political +complexion of a journal. Suppression assumes +two shapes, partial and complete. The +latter, which is the more unusual, comes into +play when a newspaper does not find it convenient +or politic to give publicity to events +or ideas, but this reticence does not necessarily +spring from sinister or interested motives. +Indeed, it may simply be because the +news editor, who lives in a curious world of +his own, often remote from the contacts of +the outer world, and who is avid only of +stereotyped sensations, fails to recognise +news when it is thrust under his nose. In +such instances, a rival may possibly recognise +“news value.” Or again, he may not.</p> + +<p>This partial suppression, of which the +Socialist newspapers are quite as guilty as +the so-called “Capitalist Press” denounced +by them for the practice, is one of the deadliest +weapons in the armoury of journalism. +Let it be clearly understood that we are concerned +here not so much with a matter of unfairness<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_46"></a>[46]</span> +or injustice to an individual or a section +of the community, as with injustice to +the community as a whole, which is deliberately +and systematically deprived of knowledge +of all the facts necessary to form a +judgment regarding the issues at stake in a +question which may affect the national well-being.</p> + +<p>For instance, it is impossible for the average +newspaper reader to form a detached +opinion of the rights and wrongs of a coal +strike. The miners’ wages are alternatively +exaggerated and minimised; exceptionally +high earnings in the coal fields are paraded +as typical of the average for the industry as +a whole; or the earnings of coal hewers are +represented at much below the real level on +the strength of figures including the wages +of boys and surface workers. All these facts +are readily available and accessible in any +modern newspaper office. But only a selection +of them is published by any one paper.</p> + +<p>Again, to take an example of complete +suppression, the curtain may never be lifted +by the Press on a political or other scandal +of which the exposure is emphatically in the +public interest. Such a boycott may be just<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_47"></a>[47]</span> +as much due to the belief that the subject +has no news value as to any ulterior reasons. +But the injury to the community is the same +in either event. Newspaper readers are not +concerned with the motives animating editors +and proprietors; they <em>are</em> concerned +with the results of those motives.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_48"></a>[48]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="V">V<br> +<small><i>The Newspaper of To-Morrow</i></small></h2> +</div> + + +<p class="cap">The professional will not, of course, be +entirely eliminated from journalism. +Despite their love of the amateur, newspaper +proprietors realise that his place is not +among the reporters, the news editors, the +sub-editors, the financial editors, or the “art +editors”—whose concern lies not with art, +but with news photographs. As to editors, +that is another matter. The rôle of editor +tends more and more to become that of conduit +pipe between staff and proprietary, +whose views and policy he is called on to expound +and further. So that the amateur +will add the editorial chair to his Press conquests. +Indeed, he has already made a beginning.</p> + +<p>One figures the popular “dailies” of the +next decade, with their signed articles by<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_49"></a>[49]</span> +film stars, politicians, jockeys, footballers, +tennis players, and racing motorists. One +visualises their Women’s Page, Beauty +Hints, and Guide to the Fashions, ostensibly +conducted by popular actresses whose time +is already fully occupied in meeting the conflicting +claims of the Stage and of “Society.” +One foresees the daily sermon by the proprietor’s +pet divine, and the daily health article +by the medical man who regards the +stylo as more lucrative than the scalpel. One +foresees also an immense increase in the number +of photographs and other pictures, aided +by the development of telephotography, television, +and air transport. The motorist, the +golfer, the collector of antique furniture, the +amateur gardener, the investor, will find +more space devoted to their special interests. +There may even be room for an increase in +the amount of space (if not of the quality) +devoted to book reviews, although this forecast +is admittedly optimistic. (What the +public is supposed to want is not literary +criticism, but “gossip” about the personal +habits, the clothes, the recreations, the holidays, +and the monetary earnings of authors.)</p> + +<p>The leading articles will remain, partly<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_50"></a>[50]</span> +through conservatism, and in part because of +their utility for purposes of propaganda and +“uplift.” The serial story will improve in +quality, since that is one of the logical sequences +of the passion for well-known names. +More and larger prizes will be awarded for +guessing contests and other competitions. +The scope of newspaper insurance will be extended, +although this function may ultimately +be curtailed or even cease when the process +of Trustification has gone so far that individual +journals will no longer be under the +necessity of trying to abstract each others’ +readers. The pictures and stories for the +nursery (and what the nursery really thinks +of some of these efforts for its entertainment +would surprise their purveyors) will be +raised to the dignity of a whole page, complete +with editor, the latter probably the +wife of an ex-Cabinet Minister. The Sabbath +will be kept holy by an increase in the +space devoted to autobiographies of contemporary +criminals and the retelling of old +crimes. In short, the Newspaper will have +travelled a stage further on the road to supplant +the book, to supplement the playhouse.</p> + +<p>It is pertinent at this point to refer to one<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_51"></a>[51]</span> +of the seeming paradoxes of the modern +Press, the diminution of its influence as its +circulation and wealth have increased. +Strictly speaking, the process has rather been +one of a shifting of the centre of influence. +When circulations were small, readers belonged +to the influential classes. A leading +article in the <cite>Times</cite> could cause the Cabinet +to reflect, could influence European chancelleries, +could even exercise a definite effect on +projected legislation. In much the same way +as the importance of the individual voter has +diminished with every broadening of the +basis of the franchise, so has the nature of +the old influence of the Press on public affairs +declined with growth in circulations.</p> + +<p>“Government by newspaper” has been +denounced by politicians when the views expressed +by a journal have not happened to +coincide with theirs, but hitherto it is the endeavour +rather than the realisation which +has been criticised. A newspaper can and +does influence the Cabinet in relatively unimportant +matters, such as the propriety of +commercial advertising by post-mark; it no +longer succeeds in swaying the Administration +in the matter of a first-class legislative<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_52"></a>[52]</span> +measure, or in inducing it to sanction a reform +or a change desired by the majority of +electors; despite almost unanimous newspaper +criticism of the retention of certain +war-time regulations, such as those governing +the hours during which it is licit to sell +chocolate or cigarettes, the Home Secretary +is still able to say that he is so far unaware +of any widespread public demand for a relaxation +of these restrictions.<a id="FNanchor_9" href="#Footnote_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></p> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="noi"><a id="Footnote_9" href="#FNanchor_9" class="label">[9]</a> Since this has been written, a committee has been set +up to inquire into the regulations in question.</p> + +</div> + +<p>But against the decline in the direct political +influence of the Press there has to be set +the growth of its influence over the community. +The expansion both of circulations +and of the field of interests catered for by +the newspaper, already touched on in these +pages, has helped immensely to develop the +“newspaper habit.” It is a matter of elementary +psychology that the average man +and woman cannot help being influenced by +the day-to-day exposition of political and +other questions in the columns of their newspapers. +Let any journal adopt the consistent +policy of blackening the leaders of +Soviet Russia or belauding Mussolini, and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_53"></a>[53]</span> +the infamy of the Bolsheviks or the disinterestedness +and greatness of the Italian dictator +becomes a creed to hundreds of thousands. +Let the whole Press unite in the same +shout, and that is the tendency under its +present controllers, and the result is mass +suggestion of a nature and intensity which +causes the Press to mould the public opinion +of whole nations. So that although an individual +newspaper or a combination of newspapers +may be powerless directly to affect +the policy of a Cabinet, it is daily operating +to sway the minds of the people and thus, indirectly, +to sway Governments through the +ultimate effect of mass suggestion in action +during the period of a general election or a +political crisis.</p> + +<p>And this is the work of a handful of men +who—it is no reproach to them—are temperamentally +unfitted for the enormous responsibilities +which they have assumed so +light-heartedly, so casually—as casually as +though they were “cornering” chewing +gum.</p> + +<p>Newspaper proprietors assert that in fact, +their editors have a free hand, and attempt +to prove this contention by pointing to differences<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_54"></a>[54]</span> +in policy or treatment manifested by +newspapers under the same control. One is +at some difficulty in deciding whether this +argument is the fruit of ingenious or of +merely ingenuous minds. The <cite>Evening +Standard</cite>, for instance, may not see eye to +eye with the <cite>Daily Express</cite> in such matters +as the morality of modern dancing or the retention +of old churches in the City of +London, but a strike, a political crisis, a +general election, the issue of war or peace, +will witness a unanimity of editorial comment +which goes beyond the limits of sheer +coincidence. The <i lang="fr">mot d’ordre</i> has been +given.</p> + +<p>The Press of to-morrow will have to regard +wireless and the kinema as potential +rivals. Both occupy a position analogous to +the newspaper, inasmuch as their popularity +is largely due to the lack of mental resources +in the average man and woman, and their +active disinclination to read anything calling +for concentration or sustained effort. The +Popular Press, Broadcasting and the +“Movies” are alike variants of the “Daily +Dope.” Furthermore, the Press has itself +largely helped to popularise its potential<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_55"></a>[55]</span> +competitors through the immense publicity +which it accords them.</p> + +<p>In England, broadcasting has hitherto not +trenched on the province of the newspaper +because of the archaic restrictions imposed +on the transmission of news by wireless, +which is virtually limited to a brief re-hash +of the evening papers, together with weather +forecasts. But it is impossible that these restrictions +will be allowed to prevail indefinitely, +even if only for the reason that +“listeners-in” are able to compare the service +with that provided by Continental broadcasting +agencies, who are not fettered by the +Mandarins of the Post Office. As a matter +of fact, the new British Broadcasting Corporation, +which is a Government Department, +possesses powers to do almost anything +that can be done by a newspaper. Some +of those powers it will certainly use, and +there is nothing to prevent the Corporation +from adding to its functions that of purveyor +of propaganda for the Government of +the day. The transmission of official news, +and the development of an Inter-Empire +news service it will certainly undertake.</p> + +<p>But these are relatively minor matters.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_56"></a>[56]</span> +The real competitive possibilities of wireless +lie in the fact that it brings the outer world +into the homes of the millions at precisely +those hours between the publication of the +latest evening paper and the appearance of +the morning paper at the breakfast-table. As +the bulk of the contents of a morning paper +are printed well before midnight, wireless +transmission of news from seven o’clock in +the evening until eleven or twelve would skim +the cream off the next day’s papers. Whether +the Press should retaliate by establishing a +wireless service of its own (impossible in +England save by means of coöperation with +the British Broadcasting Corporation, which +possesses a double-riveted, State-enforced +monopoly) or by issuing later editions of +the evening papers than is now customary, +will become a matter for the consideration +of its conductors.</p> + +<p>For, insofar as concerns the dissemination +of news, the wireless can clearly do as well +as, if not better, than the newspaper. And +it can do it at smaller cost to the subscriber. +No one would, of course, seriously suggest +that wireless transmission of news will drive +the newspapers out of business, or even that<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_57"></a>[57]</span> +it will seriously affect their circulation or +revenue. But it is obvious that if broadcasting +compete with the Press in the publication +of news (and the Press will be powerless +to stop it in England and unable to do so +elsewhere unless wireless be brought within +the scope of Newspaper Trusts) then the +Press must strengthen its hold on the public +in those fields where wireless cannot compete, +or cannot compete so well. So it will enlarge +its field of comment. It will become more +and more of a miscellany. It will devote +more and more attention to crusades and +“uplift.” It will become more and more of +a pulpit, and a lecture theatre for the physician. +Above all, it will more and more strive +to mould public opinion.</p> + +<p>The rivalry of the Kinema will be of a +subtler and less direct nature. Both the +Popular Press and the “Pictures” appeal +largely to a class which is easier to reach +through the eye than through an appeal to +the intellect, which demands a little imagination. +The popular newspapers have lately +begun to break out in a pictorial eczema +throughout their pages. But the kinema, +with its extremely well-organised service for<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_58"></a>[58]</span> +recording and exhibiting events of the hour, +leaves the newspaper miles in the rear. An +evening paper can print photographs of the +Derby or the Boat Race within a few minutes +of their being taken. But it cannot show +the whole progress of the race within a +couple of hours after it has been run. Television, +already a scientific achievement, and +to-morrow a possible “commercial proposition,” +will also come to the aid both of the +Kinema and the Wireless. How does the +Press propose to meet the actualities of the +picture theatre and the possibilities of new +inventions for the photographic recording +and reproduction of events?</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_59"></a>[59]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="VI">VI<br> +<small><i>Poison Gas or Fresh Air</i></small></h2> +</div> + + +<p class="cap">The Trustification of the Press has gone +further in England than in America or +on the Continent, partly because of such specially +favourable conditions as the small size +of the country, the excellence of its communications, +and the presence of an exceptionally +large proportion of the population within a +radius of a score of miles from the centre of +the capital. But there is nothing to suggest +that other countries represent more favourable +soil for the continued propagation of an +Independent Press.</p> + +<p>As has been said, neither legislation nor +public opinion is competent to arrest the +progress of combination, or to operate +against Combines already in existence. Incidentally, +the awakening has come too late, +and although there is in this instance no lack<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_60"></a>[60]</span> +of wisdom after the event, the utmost that it +can effect is to instruct the community as to +the nature and control of its newspapers. +It is powerless to vary the nature of either. +There are, it is true, alternatives to the Trust +in the shape of Government control or +ownership on behalf of a political party or +group<a id="FNanchor_10" href="#Footnote_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a>, but these merely oppose one form of +dictatorship to another. Such control is +characterised by no real independence, which +obviously, cannot exist in the case of a +Government organ. Political or Governmental +control is, it is true, less objectionable +from many standpoints than control by a +Trust, while it also possesses the negative advantage +that identity of ownership is usually +less easy to camouflage. But such journals +are not and cannot be independent. In the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_61"></a>[61]</span> +long run, the same vices of partiality, suppression, +and distortion are present in a +newspaper whose aim is the support of a +political party or group as in one belonging +to a Trust, while a Government organ has +no other raison d’être than that of a vehicle +for thinly-disguised propaganda. Possibly, +the future may see more of Governments as +newspaper owners, even if only during +periods of national emergency, such as +strikes or wars.<a id="FNanchor_11" href="#Footnote_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a></p> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="noi"><a id="Footnote_10" href="#FNanchor_10" class="label">[10]</a> Last year, the <cite lang="fr">Journal des Débats</cite> was sold to a banker +and an ironmaster (the former is Baron Edouard de +Rothschild), both of whom hold strong views on the revalorisation +of the franc. The London <cite>Daily Chronicle</cite>, +in which the controlling interest had previously been held +by Mr. Lloyd George, passed at the end of 1926 into the +control of another Liberal group, and into the ownership +of a company of which Lord Reading is the chairman. +Some months earlier, the Government of the German +Reich acquired the <cite lang="de">Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung</cite>, which +had been acquired by the Prussian Government the +previous year.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"> + +<p class="noi"><a id="Footnote_11" href="#FNanchor_11" class="label">[11]</a> During the General Strike of 1926, the British Government +maintained a daily paper, which was conducted +under the personal supervision of Mr. Winston Churchill.</p> + +</div> + +<p>But if legislation and public opinion be +powerless to check the growth of Combines, +the more intelligent section of the public, +aided by those few influential journals that +have still eluded the tentacles of the Octopus, +is at last disturbed in its mind. Trustification +of the Press has come to be regarded +as a public danger, and as of still worse +omen for the future. It is conceived of as a +menace by the politician—always hostile to +and ready to impute sinister motives to any +journal which fails to praise him—who visualises +the possibilities of all the battalions<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_62"></a>[62]</span> +of the Press Czars suddenly being arrayed +against his party. Its dangers have been perceived +by the commercial community. Any +Government which fails to reckon with the +sudden conversion of a Press, yesterday +friendly but mobilised against it to-day as +the result of overnight change of ownership, +personal spite, or thwarted ambition, is +singularly unfit to govern, even in an age of +incapable and hand-to-mouth administrations.</p> + +<p>The malady has thus at least been diagnosed. +But the patient is not easily curable. +The Combines can be challenged only by +comparable weight of metal, and they are +entrenched too firmly to render attractive +any attempt at competition. It almost +seems, therefore, as though the community +must resign itself to Stentor, with his vulgarities, +his inanities, his subservience to the +whims and interests of his owners, and his +greed for profits and yet more profits.</p> + +<p>Given, however, a sufficiently aroused degree +of public opinion—and here we are +dealing with the incalculable and the unpredictable—and +a remedy is not entirely lacking. +One of the most characteristic and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_63"></a>[63]</span> +creditable features of the history of the +Press is the great influence that has been exercised +in the past by organs of small or relatively +small circulation and revenue, daily, +weekly, and monthly. Some of these still +exist, and although both their influence and +their independence have largely departed, +they yet stand as sign-posts on the road to +defeating the complete monopoly of the +Trust Press.</p> + +<p>Courage and public spirit are admittedly +required for a revival of independence in +journalism, but the prospect is not without +its promise of reasonable financial gain in +addition to that of less tangible rewards. +Intelligent men and women are daily becoming +more disgusted with a Press that sets +sensation before truth and has raised vulgarity +to the level of an exact science. Even if +the Dictators should realise the existence of +this attitude—and they have no criteria beyond +circulation and revenue—they would be +unable to meet it. You can do many things +to and with a newspaper, but you cannot +change its spirit overnight with the same +ease as one of our most widely-circulated +journals once swung round in twenty-four<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_64"></a>[64]</span> +hours from the advocacy of a Protective +tariff to the championship of Free Trade because +its earlier attitude was considered to +be unpopular among its patrons.</p> + +<p>Circulation and advertising revenue (the +advertiser provides the real profits) are the +twin gods of the Dictators, as the reduction +of expenditure is their prophet. Thinking +in terms of millions, they are temperamentally +incapable of realising the influence of journals +appealing only to thousands, just as they +conceive influence to be synonymous with circulation, +although some of the “best +sellers” among our daily and Sunday papers +are singularly destitute of any real influence +over the drugged minds of their readers. +So there is scope for the re-emergence of +the independent organ of the type which has +demonstrated in the past that great influence +may go hand in hand with small circulation +and an inconsiderable revenue from drapery +advertisements, provided that its conductors +are informed with sincerity, fearlessness, and +ideals, and refuse to regard the shibboleths +of the minute as divine revelations.</p> + +<p>And if such a Press do not emerge from +behind the smoke screen and the poison gas<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_65"></a>[65]</span> +ejected by Stentor, then Democracy will have +the newspapers it deserves.</p> + +<p>Let it be emphasised that the objections +on public grounds to the Trustification of +the Press are based even more on the future +than on present conditions. The Dictators +of to-day may be high-souled patriots, men +of vision, men alive to the measure of their +responsibilities. The Dictators of to-morrow +may be mercenary profit-seekers, reactionaries, +men who use their newspapers as +weapons in the fight against decent housing +or fair wages, or who bring up their +battalions in aid of campaigns to starve education +or foment war. There is nothing to +prevent the Press of this or any other country +from coming under the financial control +of armament makers, international traffickers +in drugs, or wealthy men who desire the +perpetuation of the slum. There is nothing +to prevent its domination by aliens or the +worst type of “market-rigging” financier.</p> + +<p>That is to say, there is nothing save public +opinion, which is itself hamstrung by the +passing of the Independent Press.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_66"></a>[66]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="APPENDIX"><i>APPENDIX</i></h2> +</div> + + +<p class="cap">The growth of the Newspaper Combine +has become so complex, with its interlocking +directorates and the holdings of one +company in another, that details would +weary the reader. But in order that he may +understand the process, the following is +given as a typical example.</p> + +<p>The Amalgamated Press, of which Sir +William Berry is chairman, was formed at +the end of last year to take over another +undertaking of the same name. This is one +of the Northcliffe ventures, which grew so +amazingly that it eventually owned over a +hundred weekly, fortnightly, monthly and +annual publications; ten libraries; the Waverly +Book Co. Ltd., which is concerned with +educational publications; the Radio Press, +Ltd.; two other publishing concerns; and +controlling interests in one of the largest +paper-making concerns in the country<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_67"></a>[67]</span> +and in a Canadian paper company owning +over a thousand square miles of timber +land. The new company also took over +a dozen publications from Cassell & Co. +Ltd.</p> + +<p>Sir William Berry is also the chairman of +Allied Newspapers, Ltd., which owns the +share capital in Allied Northern Newspapers, +Ltd., and owns or controls the London +<cite>Sunday Times</cite>, and a considerable number +of morning, evening and Sunday papers +in Manchester, Newcastle, Glasgow and elsewhere, +including the <cite>Daily Despatch</cite>, the +<cite>Sunday Chronicle</cite>, the <cite>Empire News</cite>, the +<cite>Daily Record</cite>, and the <cite>North Mail and Newcastle +Daily Chronicle</cite>. At the end of last +year, the company also agreed to buy all the +ordinary shares in the Daily Sketch and Sunday +Herald, Ltd.</p> + +<p>This list is far from giving a complete +record of Sir William Berry’s interests, +which also include the chairmanship of the +companies owning the <cite>Financial Times</cite> and +the <cite>Western Mail</cite>, the latter one of the leading +newspapers in the West of England. But +the details are sufficient to illustrate the process +whereby publications of the most varied<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_68"></a>[68]</span> +nature and influence, and appealing to specialised +local interests all over the country +as well as to the public as a whole, have been +and are being brought under a common control.</p> + + + + +<hr class="chap"> +<div class="tnote"> +<p class="noi tntitle">Transcriber’s Notes:</p> + +<p class="smfont">Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.</p> + +<p class="smfont">Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved.</p> +</div> + +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75303 ***</div> +</body> +</html> + diff --git a/75303-h/images/cover.jpg b/75303-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..63be389 --- /dev/null +++ b/75303-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/75303-h/images/cover_sm.jpg b/75303-h/images/cover_sm.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..2edacc1 --- /dev/null +++ b/75303-h/images/cover_sm.jpg diff --git a/75303-h/images/logo.jpg b/75303-h/images/logo.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..71d7f87 --- /dev/null +++ b/75303-h/images/logo.jpg |
