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diff --git a/75303-0.txt b/75303-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d4fd589 --- /dev/null +++ b/75303-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1201 @@ + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75303 *** + + + + + + STENTOR + + + + +“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.” + + +“The insolent pretensions of newspaper owners to reduce Downing Street +to the position of an annexe of Fleet Street.” + + ――_Certain People of Importance_, by A. G. GARDINER. + + +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.” + + ――_The Earth_, by J. B. FAGAN. + + + + + STENTOR + + OR + + THE PRESS OF TO-DAY + AND TO-MORROW + + BY + DAVID OCKHAM + + “The abstract and brief chronicle of the time.” + + + [Illustration] + + + E. P. DUTTON & CO., INC. : NEW YORK + + + + + STENTOR, COPYRIGHT, 1928 + BY E. P. DUTTON & CO., INC. + ALL RIGHTS RESERVED :: PRINTED IN U.S.A. + + + First Edition + + + + + CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER PAGE + I THE BIRTH OF STENTOR 9 + II THE NATURE OF STENTOR 13 + III THE DICTATORS 25 + IV THE MANNERISMS OF STENTOR 40 + V THE NEWSPAPER OF TO-MORROW 48 + VI POISON GAS OR FRESH AIR 59 + APPENDIX 66 + + + + + STENTOR + + + + + I + + _The Birth of Stentor_ + + +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. + +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 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. + +So may our grandchildren condense their Outline of History. + +Historically considered, the Newspaper is an upstart, although its +germs existed in the Roman Empire in the shape of _Acta Diurna_ and +_Acta Publica_, Government publications which contained registers of +births and deaths, and particulars of the corn supply and of payments +into the Treasury. The _Acta_ even embodied so modern a feature as the +Court Circular. + +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 least one copy of a +contemporary account of Columbus’ voyages to America recorded while his +journeyings still represented the latest news. + +The sixteenth century saw the _Gazzetta_, an Italian production in +manuscript, to be read on payment of a _gazzetta_, 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 _Weekly News from Italy, Germany, +etc._, 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 _Daily Courant_; the _Morning Post_ dates back to +1772; and the _Times_, originally established as the _Daily Universal +Register_, followed in 1785. + +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 _Daily +Courant_ and the _Morning Post_, 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? + + + + + II + + _The Nature of Stentor_ + + +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. + +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. + +Then there is a page of pictures, gathered 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. + +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. + +There are also articles in which women are instructed how to dress, +cook, arrange a luncheon table, plan schemes of interior decoration, +pack their trunks for a holiday, economise in the household, and retain +the affection of their husbands. + +The residue is news. + +But not all of it. + +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. + +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. + +Add a crossword puzzle, and you have a newspaper. Democracy’s Mentor. + +New inventions and institutions achieve popularity in accordance with +the readiness 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. + +When compulsory schooling led to an immense and sudden increase in +the number of people able to read without difficulty, well-meaning +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. + +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, the robberies, the assaults, the divorces, and the more +unsavoury police court cases of the week. Journals of international +repute, such as the _Times_, the _Daily Telegraph_, the _Neue Freie +Presse_, the _Journal des Débats_, sold fewer copies in a week than the +popular organs now dispose of in a day. + +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, 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. + +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 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. + +“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. + +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 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. + +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 +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. + +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 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. + +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 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.[1] + + [1] 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. + + + + + III + + _The Dictators_ + + +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.[2] + + [2] 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. + +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. + +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 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. + +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, _The Globe_. 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 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. + +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.e._, +getting 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. + +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. + +Since the armistice, the process of Trustification has undergone a +remarkable acceleration. 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.[3] + + [3] See Appendix. + +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. + +The world has never known anything comparable. 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. + +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? + +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 profits, are among the common methods +adopted in order to set up a _de facto_ 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. + +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. + +A special factor which has received very 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, _inter alia_, 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. + +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 been bought only that they might be “killed”;[4] and in +part because the results of acquiring share-holdings at fancy prices +have yet to materialise. + + [4] “_The Yorkshire Evening Argus_ having been amalgamated with + the _Bradford Daily Telegraph_, 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 + _Times_, December 15, 1926. + +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 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. + +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 _Times_ 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. +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. + +To-day, with negligible exceptions which are unlikely to be perpetuated, +editors are merely hired servants. A. C. P. Scott is an exception.[5] +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. + + [5] Editor of the _Manchester Guardian_, and controller of its + editorial policy. + +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 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.[6] + + [6] “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. + +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 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. + +To quote Mr. St. John Ervine: + + “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.” + +Mr. Ervine, it may be added, made these remarks at a meeting convened +by the Institute of Journalists on December 11, 1926, under the +chairmanship of Sir Robert Bruce, editor of the _Glasgow Herald_. His +remarks were, of course, boycotted by the leading organs of the Press +Trust. + + + + + IV + + _The Mannerisms of Stentor_ + + +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.[7] + + [7] 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. + +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. + +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 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. + +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. + +Do you think I have been unfair? Then read this characteristic +paragraph from an evening paper, headed “Earnest Young Women”: + + “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 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.” + +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. + +“The famous Campbell soups company.” “Famous” is the sub-editor’s +favourite word,[8] 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, 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. + + [8] “Amazing,” “mystery,” “thrilling,” and “dramatic” are also + hot favourites in the Stock Phrase Stakes. + +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? + +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. + +News can be, and is, habitually manipulated both by distortion and +suppression. The first procedure is, on the whole, less objectionable, +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. + +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 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. + +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. + +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 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 _are_ concerned with +the results of those motives. + + + + + V + + _The Newspaper of To-Morrow_ + + +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. + +One figures the popular “dailies” of the next decade, with their +signed articles by 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.) + +The leading articles will remain, partly 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. + +It is pertinent at this point to refer to one 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 _Times_ 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. + +“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 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.[9] + + [9] Since this has been written, a committee has been set up to + inquire into the regulations in question. + +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 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. + +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. + +Newspaper proprietors assert that in fact, their editors have a +free hand, and attempt to prove this contention by pointing to +differences 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 +_Evening Standard_, for instance, may not see eye to eye with the +_Daily Express_ 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 _mot d’ordre_ has been given. + +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 competitors through the immense publicity +which it accords them. + +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. + +But these are relatively minor matters. 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. + +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 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. + +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 +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? + + + + + VI + + _Poison Gas or Fresh Air_ + + +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. + +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 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[10], 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 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.[11] + + [10] Last year, the _Journal des Débats_ 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 _Daily Chronicle_, 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 _Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung_, + which had been acquired by the Prussian Government the + previous year. + + [11] During the General Strike of 1926, the British Government + maintained a daily paper, which was conducted under the + personal supervision of Mr. Winston Churchill. + +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 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. + +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. + +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 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. + +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 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. + +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. + +And if such a Press do not emerge from behind the smoke screen and the +poison gas ejected by Stentor, then Democracy will have the newspapers +it deserves. + +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. + +That is to say, there is nothing save public opinion, which is itself +hamstrung by the passing of the Independent Press. + + + + + _APPENDIX_ + + +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. + +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 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. + +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 _Sunday Times_, and a considerable number +of morning, evening and Sunday papers in Manchester, Newcastle, Glasgow +and elsewhere, including the _Daily Despatch_, the _Sunday Chronicle_, +the _Empire News_, the _Daily Record_, and the _North Mail and +Newcastle Daily Chronicle_. At the end of last year, the company also +agreed to buy all the ordinary shares in the Daily Sketch and Sunday +Herald, Ltd. + +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 _Financial Times_ and the _Western Mail_, 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 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. + + + * * * * * + + + Transcriber’s Notes: + + ――Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_). + + ――Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved. + + ――Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved. + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75303 *** |