THE AMERICAN NEWSPAPER

By Charles Dudley Warner

Our theme for the hour is the American Newspaper. It is a subject inwhich everybody is interested, and about which it is not polite to saythat anybody is not well informed; for, although there are scatteredthrough the land many persons, I am sorry to say, unable to pay for anewspaper, I have never yet heard of anybody unable to edit one. 

The topic has many points of view, and invites various study and comment. In our limited time we must select one only. We have heard a great dealabout the power, the opportunity, the duty, the "mission, " of the press. The time has come for a more philosophical treatment of it, for aninquiry into its relations to our complex civilization, for some ethicalaccount of it as one of the developments of our day, and for somediscussion of the effect it is producing, and likely to produce, on theeducation of the people. Has the time come, or is it near at hand, whenwe can point to a person who is alert, superficial, ready and shallow, self-confident and half-informed, and say, "There is a product of theAmerican newspaper"? The newspaper is not a willful creation, nor anisolated phenomenon, but the legitimate outcome of our age, as much asour system of popular education. And I trust that some competent observerwill make, perhaps for this association, a philosophical study of it. Mytask here is a much humbler one. I have thought that it may not beunprofitable to treat the newspaper from a practical and even somewhatmechanical point of view. 

The newspaper is a private enterprise. Its object is to make money forits owner. Whatever motive may be given out for starting a newspaper, expectation of profit by it is the real one, whether the newspaper isreligious, political, scientific, or literary. The exceptional cases ofnewspapers devoted to ideas or "causes" without regard to profit are sofew as not to affect the rule. Commonly, the cause, the sect, the party, the trade, the delusion, the idea, gets its newspaper, its organ, itsadvocate, only when some individual thinks he can see a pecuniary returnin establishing it. 

This motive is not lower than that which leads people into any otheroccupation or profession. To make a living, and to have a career, is theoriginal incentive in all cases. Even in purely philanthropicalenterprises the driving-wheel that keeps them in motion for any length oftime is the salary paid the working members. So powerful is thisincentive that sometimes the wheel will continue to turn round when thereis no grist to grind. It sometimes happens that the friction of thephilanthropic machinery is so great that but very little power istransmitted to the object for which the machinery was made. I knew adevoted agent of the American Colonization Society, who, for severalyears, collected in Connecticut just enough, for the cause, to buy hisclothes, and pay his board at a good hotel. 

It is scarcely necessary to say, except to prevent a possiblemisapprehension, that the editor who has no high ideals, no intention ofbenefiting his fellow-men by his newspaper, and uses it unscrupulously asa means of money-making only, sinks to the level of the physician and thelawyer who have no higher conception of their callings than that theyoffer opportunities for getting money by appeals to credulity, and byassisting in evasions of the law. 

If the excellence of a newspaper is not always measured by itsprofitableness, it is generally true that, if it does not pay its owner, it is valueless to the public. Not all newspapers which make money aregood, for some succeed by catering to the lowest tastes of respectablepeople, and to the prejudice, ignorance, and passion of the lowest class;but, as a rule, the successful journal pecuniarily is the best journal. The reasons for this are on the surface. The impecunious newspaper cannotgive its readers promptly the news, nor able discussion of the news, and, still worse, it cannot be independent. The political journal that reliesfor support upon drippings of party favor or patronage, the generalnewspaper that finds it necessary to existence to manipulate stockreports, the religious weekly that draws precarious support from puffingdoubtful enterprises, the literary paper that depends upon the approvalof publishers, are poor affairs, and, in the long run or short run, cometo grief. Some newspapers do succeed by sensationalism, as some preachersdo; by a kind of quackery, as some doctors do; by trimming and shiftingto any momentary popular prejudice, as some politicians do; by becomingthe paid advocate of a personal ambition or a corporate enterprise, assome lawyers do: but the newspaper only becomes a real power when it isable, on the basis of pecuniary independence, to free itself from allsuch entanglements. An editor who stands with hat in hand has the respectaccorded to any other beggar. 

The recognition of the fact that the newspaper is a private and purelybusiness enterprise will help to define the mutual relations of theeditor and the public. His claim upon the public is exactly that of anymanufacturer or dealer. It is that of the man who makes cloth, or thegrocer who opens a shop--neither has a right to complain if the publicdoes not buy of him. If the buyer does not like a cloth half shoddy, orcoffee half-chicory, he will go elsewhere. If the subscriber does notlike one newspaper, he takes another, or none. The appeal for newspapersupport on the ground that such a journal ought to be sustained by anenlightened community, or on any other ground than that it is a goodarticle that people want, --or would want if they knew its value, --ispurely childish in this age of the world. If any person wants to start aperiodical devoted to decorated teapots, with the noble view of inducingthe people to live up to his idea of a teapot, very good; but he has noright to complain if he fails. 

On the other hand, the public has no rights in the newspaper except whatit pays for; even the "old subscriber" has none, except to drop the paperif it ceases to please him. The notion that the subscriber has a right tointerfere in the conduct of the paper, or the reader to direct itsopinions, is based on a misconception of what the newspaper is. The claimof the public to have its communications printed in the paper is equallybaseless. Whether they shall be printed or not rests in the discretion ofthe editor, having reference to his own private interest, and to hisapprehension of the public good. Nor is he bound to give any reason forhis refusal. It is purely in his discretion whether he will admit a replyto any thing that has appeared in his columns. No one has a right todemand it. Courtesy and policy may grant it; but the right to it does notexist. If any one is injured, he may seek his remedy at law; and I shouldlike to see the law of libel such and so administered that any personinjured by a libel in the newspaper, as well as by slander out of it, could be sure of prompt redress. While the subscribes acquires no rightto dictate to the newspaper, we can imagine an extreme case when heshould have his money back which had been paid in advance, if thenewspaper totally changed its character. If he had contracted with adealer to supply him with hard coal during the winter, he might have aremedy if the dealer delivered only charcoal in the coldest weather; andso if he paid for a Roman Catholic journal which suddenly became an organof the spiritists. 

The advertiser acquires no more rights in the newspaper than thesubscriber. He is entitled to use the space for which he pays by theinsertion of such material as is approved by the editor. He gains nointerest in any other part of the paper, and has no more claim to anyspace in the editorial columns, than any other one of the public. To givehim such space would be unbusiness-like, and the extension of apreference which would be unjust to the rest of the public. Nothing morequickly destroys the character of a journal, begets distrust of it, andso reduces its value, than the well-founded suspicion that its editorialcolumns are the property of advertisers. Even a religious journal will, after a while, be injured by this. 

Yet it must be confessed that here is one of the greatest difficulties ofmodern journalism. The newspaper must be cheap. It is, considering theimmense cost to produce it, the cheapest product ever offered to man. Most newspapers cost more than they sell for; they could not live bysubscriptions; for any profits, they certainly depend uponadvertisements. The advertisements depend upon the circulation; thecirculation is likely to dwindle if too much space is occupied byadvertisements, or if it is evident that the paper belongs to its favoredadvertisers. The counting-room desires to conciliate the advertisers; theeditor looks to making a paper satisfactory to his readers. Between thissee-saw of the necessary subscriber and the necessary advertiser, a goodmany newspapers go down. This difficulty would be measurably removed bythe admission of the truth that the newspaper is a strictly businessenterprise, depending for success upon a 'quid pro quo' between allparties connected with it, and upon integrity in its management. 

Akin to the false notion that the newspaper is a sort of open channelthat the public may use as it chooses, is the conception of it as acharitable institution. The newspaper, which is the property of a privateperson as much as a drug-shop is, is expected to perform for nothingservices which would be asked of no other private person. There isscarcely a charitable enterprise to which it is not asked to contributeof its space, which is money, ten times more than other persons in thecommunity, who are ten times as able as the owner of the newspaper, contribute. The journal is considered "mean" if it will not surrender itscolumns freely to notices and announcements of this sort. If a managerhas a new hen-coop or a new singer he wishes to introduce to the public, he comes to the newspaper, expecting to have his enterprise extolled fornothing, and probably never thinks that it would be just as proper forhim to go to one of the regular advertisers in the paper and ask him togive up his space. Anything, from a church picnic to a brass-band concertfor the benefit of the widow of the triangles, asks the newspaper tocontribute. The party in politics, whose principles the editor advocates, has no doubt of its rightful claim upon him, not only upon the editorialcolumns, but upon the whole newspaper. It asks without hesitation thatthe newspaper should take up its valuable space by printing hundreds andoften thousands of dollars' worth of political announcements in thecourse of a protracted campaign, when it never would think of getting itshalls, its speakers, and its brass bands, free of expense. Churches, aswell as parties, expect this sort of charity. I have known rich churches, to whose members it was a convenience to have their Sunday and otherservices announced, withdraw the announcements when the editor declinedany longer to contribute a weekly fifty-cents' worth of space. No privatepersons contribute so much to charity, in proportion to ability, as thenewspaper. Perhaps it will get credit for this in the next world: itcertainly never does in this. 

The chief function of the newspaper is to collect and print the news. Upon the kind of news that should be gathered and published, we shallremark farther on. The second function is to elucidate the news, andcomment on it, and show its relations. A third function is to furnishreading-matter to the general public. 

Nothing is so difficult for the manager as to know what news is: theinstinct for it is a sort of sixth sense. To discern out of the mass ofmaterials collected not only what is most likely to interest the public, but what phase and aspect of it will attract most attention, and therelative importance of it; to tell the day before or at midnight what theworld will be talking about in the morning, and what it will want thefullest details of, and to meet that want in advance, --requires apeculiar talent. There is always some topic on which the public wantsinstant information. It is easy enough when the news is developed, andeverybody is discussing it, for the editor to fall in; but the success ofthe news printed depends upon a pre-apprehension of all this. Somepapers, which nevertheless print all the news, are always a day behind, do not appreciate the popular drift till it has gone to something else, and err as much by clinging to a subject after it is dead as by nottaking it up before it was fairly born. The public craves eagerly foronly one thing at a time, and soon wearies of that; and it is to thenewspaper's profit to seize the exact point of a debate, the thrillingmoment of an accident, the pith of an important discourse; to throwitself into it as if life depended on it, and for the hour to flood thepopular curiosity with it as an engine deluges a fire. 

Scarcely less important than promptly seizing and printing the news isthe attractive arrangement of it, its effective presentation to the eye. Two papers may have exactly the same important intelligence, identicallythe same despatches: the one will be called bright, attractive, "newsy";the other, dull and stupid. 

We have said nothing yet about that, which, to most people, is the mostimportant aspect of the newspaper, --the editor's responsibility to thepublic for its contents. It is sufficient briefly to say here, that it isexactly the responsibility of every other person in society, --the fullresponsibility of his opportunity. He has voluntarily taken a position inwhich he can do a great deal of good or a great deal of evil, and he, should be held and judged by his opportunity: it is greater than that ofthe preacher, the teacher, the congressman, the physician. He occupiesthe loftiest pulpit; he is in his teacher's desk seven days in the week;his voice can be heard farther than that of the most lusty fog-hornpolitician; and often, I am sorry to say, his columns outshine theshelves of the druggist in display of proprietary medicines. Nothing elseever invented has the public attention as the newspaper has, or is aninfluence so constant and universal. It is this large opportunity thathas given the impression that the newspaper is a public rather than aprivate enterprise. 

It was a nebulous but suggestive remark that the newspaper occupies theborderland between literature and common sense. Literature it certainlyis not, and in the popular apprehension it seems often too erratic andvariable to be credited with the balance-wheel of sense; but it must havesomething of the charm of the one, and the steadiness and sagacity of theother, or it will fail to please. The model editor, I believe, has yet toappear. Notwithstanding the traditional reputation of certain editors inthe past, they could not be called great editors by our standards; forthe elements of modern journalism did not exist in their time. The oldnewspaper was a broadside of stale news, with a moral essay attached. Perhaps Benjamin Franklin, with our facilities, would have been very nearthe ideal editor. There was nothing he did not wish to know; and no oneexcelled him in the ability to communicate what he found out to theaverage mind. He came as near as anybody ever did to marrying commonsense to literature: he had it in him to make it sufficient forjournalistic purposes. He was what somebody said Carlyle was, and whatthe American editor ought to be, --a vernacular man. 

The assertion has been made recently, publicly, and with evidenceadduced, that the American newspaper is the best in the world. It is likethe assertion that the American government is the best in the world; nodoubt it is, for the American people. 

Judged by broad standards, it may safely be admitted that the Americannewspaper is susceptible of some improvement, and that it has somethingto learn from the journals of other nations. We shall be better employedin correcting its weaknesses than in complacently contemplating itsexcellences. 

Let us examine it in its three departments already named, --its news, editorials, and miscellaneous reading-matter. 

In particularity and comprehensiveness of news-collecting, it may beadmitted that the American newspapers for a time led the world. I mean inthe picking-up of local intelligence, and the use of the telegraph tomake it general. And with this arose the odd notion that news is madeimportant by the mere fact of its rapid transmission over the wire. TheEnglish journals followed, speedily overtook, and some of the wealthierones perhaps surpassed, the American in the use of the telegraph, and inthe presentation of some sorts of local news; not of casualties, andsmall city and neighborhood events, and social gossip (until veryrecently), but certainly in the business of the law courts, and thecrimes and mishaps that come within police and legal supervision. Theleading papers of the German press, though strong in correspondence andin discussion of affairs, are far less comprehensive in their news thanthe American or the English. The French journals, we are accustomed tosay, are not newspapers at all. And this is true as we use the word. Until recently, nothing has been of importance to the Frenchman excepthimself; and what happened outside of France, not directly affecting hisglory, his profit, or his pleasure, did not interest him: hence, onecould nowhere so securely intrench himself against the news of the worldas behind the barricade of the Paris journals. But let us not make amistake in this matter. We may have more to learn from the Paris journalsthan from any others. If they do not give what we call news--local news, events, casualties, the happenings of the day, --they do give ideas, opinions; they do discuss politics, the social drift; they give theintellectual ferment of Paris; they supply the material that Paris likesto talk over, the badinage of the boulevard, the wit of the salon, thesensation of the stage, the new movement in literature and in politics. This may be important, or it may be trivial: it is commonly moreinteresting than much of that which we call news. 

Our very facility and enterprise in news-gathering have overwhelmed ournewspapers, and it may be remarked that editorial discrimination has notkept pace with the facilities. We are overpowered with a mass ofundigested intelligence, collected for the mast part without regard tovalue. The force of the newspaper is expended in extending thesefacilities, with little regard to discriminating selection. The burden isalready too heavy for the newspaper, and wearisome to the public. 

The publication of the news is the most important function of the paper. How is it gathered? We must confess that it is gathered very much bychance. A drag-net is thrown out, and whatever comes is taken. Anexamination into the process of collecting shows what sort of news we arelikely to get, and that nine-tenths of that printed is collected withoutmuch intelligence exercised in selection. The alliance of the associatedpress with the telegraph company is a fruitful source of news of aninferior quality. Of course, it is for the interest of the telegraphcompany to swell the volume to be transmitted. It is impossible for theassociated press to have an agent in every place to which the telegraphpenetrates: therefore the telegraphic operators often act as itspurveyors. It is for their interest to send something; and their judgmentof what is important is not only biased, but is formed by purely localstandards. Our news, therefore, is largely set in motion by telegraphicoperators, by agents trained to regard only the accidental, thestartling, the abnormal, as news; it is picked up by sharp prowlers abouttown, whose pay depends upon finding something, who are looking forsomething spicy and sensational, or which may be dressed up andexaggerated to satisfy an appetite for novelty and high flavor, and whoregard casualties as the chief news. Our newspapers every day are loadedwith accidents, casualties, and crimes concerning people of whom we neverheard before and never shall hear again, the reading of which is of noearthly use to any human being. 

What is news? What is it that an intelligent public should care to hearof and talk about? Run your eye down the columns of your journal. Therewas a drunken squabble last night in a New York groggery; there is apetty but carefully elaborated village scandal about a foolish girl; awoman accidentally dropped her baby out of a fourth-story window inMaine; in Connecticut, a wife, by mistake, got into the same railwaytrain with another woman's husband; a child fell into a well in NewJersey; there is a column about a peripatetic horse-race, which exhibits, like a circus, from city to city; a laborer in a remote town inPennsylvania had a sunstroke; there is an edifying dying speech of amurderer, the love-letter of a suicide, the set-to of a couple ofcongressmen; and there are columns about a gigantic war of half a dozenpoliticians over the appointment of a sugar-gauger. Granted that thispabulum is desired by the reader, why not save the expense oftransmission by having several columns of it stereotyped, to bereproduced at proper intervals? With the date changed, it would always, have its original value, and perfectly satisfy the demand, if a demandexists, for this sort of news. 

This is not, as you see, a description of your journal: it is adescription of only one portion of it. It is a complex and wonderfulcreation. Every morning it is a mirror of the world, more or lessdistorted and imperfect, but such a mirror as it never had held up to itbefore. But consider how much space is taken up with mere trivialitiesand vulgarities under the name of news. And this evil is likely tocontinue and increase until news-gatherers learn that more important thanthe reports of accidents and casualties is the intelligence of opinionsand thoughts, the moral and intellectual movements of modern life. Ahorrible assassination in India is instantly telegraphed; but theprogress of such a vast movement as that of the Wahabee revival in Islam, which may change the destiny of great provinces, never gets itself putupon the wires. We hear promptly of a landslide in Switzerland, but onlyvery slowly of a political agitation that is changing the constitution ofthe republic. It should be said, however, that the daily newspaper is notalone responsible for this: it is what the age and the community where itis published make it. So far as I have observed, the majority of thereaders in America peruses eagerly three columns about a mill between anEnglish and a naturalized American prize-fighter, but will only glance ata column report of a debate in the English parliament which involves aradical change in the whole policy of England; and devours a page aboutthe Chantilly races, while it ignores a paragraph concerning thesuppression of the Jesuit schools. 

Our newspapers are overwhelmed with material that is of no importance. The obvious remedy for this would be more intelligent direction in thecollection of news, and more careful sifting and supervision of it whengathered. It becomes every day more apparent to every manager that suchdiscrimination is more necessary. There is no limit to the variousintelligence and gossip that our complex life offers--no paper is bigenough to contain it; no reader has time enough to read it. And thejournal must cease to be a sort of waste-basket at the end of a telegraphwire, into which any reporter, telegraph operator, or gossip-monger candump whatever he pleases. We must get rid of the superstition that valueis given to an unimportant "item" by sending it a thousand miles over awire. 

Perhaps the most striking feature of the American newspaper, especiallyof the country weekly, is its enormous development of local andneighborhood news. It is of recent date. Horace Greeley used to advisethe country editors to give small space to the general news of the world, but to cultivate assiduously the home field, to glean every possibledetail of private life in the circuit of the county, and print it. Theadvice was shrewd for a metropolitan editor, and it was not without itsprofit to the country editor. It was founded on a deep knowledge of humannature; namely, upon the fact that people read most eagerly that whichthey already know, if it is about themselves or their neighbors, if it isa report of something they have been concerned in, a lecture they haveheard, a fair, or festival, or wedding, or funeral, or barn-raising theyhave attended. The result is column after column of short paragraphs ofgossip and trivialities, chips, chips, chips. Mr. Sales is contemplatingerecting a new counter in his store; his rival opposite has a new sign;Miss Bumps of Gath is visiting her cousin, Miss Smith of Bozrah; thesheriff has painted his fence; Farmer Brown has lost his cow; the eminentmember from Neopolis has put an ell on one end of his mansion, and amortgage on the other. 

On the face of it nothing is so vapid and profitless as column aftercolumn of this reading. These "items" have very little interest, exceptto those who already know the facts; but those concerned like to see themin print, and take the newspaper on that account. This sort of inanitytakes the place of reading-matter that might be of benefit, and itseffect must be to belittle and contract the mind. But this is not themost serious objection to the publication of these worthless details. Itcultivates self-consciousness in the community, and love of notoriety; itdevelops vanity and self-importance, and elevates the trivial in lifeabove the essential. 

And this brings me to speak of the mania in this age, and especially inAmerica, for notoriety in social life as well as in politics. Thenewspapers are the vehicle of it, sometimes the occasion, but not thecause. The newspaper may have fostered--it has not created--this hungerfor publicity. Almost everybody talks about the violation of decency andthe sanctity of private life by the newspaper in the publication ofpersonalities and the gossip of society; and the very people who makethese strictures are often those who regard the paper as withoutenterprise and dull, if it does not report in detail their weddings, their balls and parties, the distinguished persons present, the dress ofthe ladies, the sumptuousness of the entertainment, if it does notcelebrate their church services and festivities, their social meetings, their new house, their distinguished arrivals at this or thatwatering-place. I believe every newspaper manager will bear me out insaying that there is a constant pressure on him to print much more ofsuch private matter than his judgment and taste permit or approve, andthat the gossip which is brought to his notice, with the hope that hewill violate the sensitiveness of social life by printing it, is far awaylarger in amount than all that he publishes. 

To return for a moment to the subject of general news. The characteristicof our modern civilization is sensitiveness, or, as the doctors say, nervousness. Perhaps the philanthropist would term it sympathy. No doubtan exciting cause of it is the adaptation of electricity to thetransmission of facts and ideas. The telegraph, we say, has put us insympathy with all the world. And we reckon this enlargement of nervecontact somehow a gain. Our bared nerves are played upon by a thousandwires. Nature, no doubt, has a method of hardening or deadening them tothese shocks; but nevertheless, every person who reads is a focus for theexcitements, the ills, the troubles, of all the world. In addition to hislocal pleasures and annoyances, he is in a manner compelled to be asharer in the universal uneasiness. It might be worth while to inquirewhat effect this exciting accumulation of the news of the world upon anindividual or a community has upon happiness and upon character. Is theNew England man any better able to bear or deal with his extraordinaryclimate by the daily knowledge of the weather all over the globe? Is aman happier, or improved in character, by the woful tale of a world'sdistress and apprehension that greets him every morning at breakfast?Knowledge, we know, increases sorrow; but I suppose the offset to thatis, that strength only comes through suffering. But this is a digression. 

Not second in importance to any department of the journal is thereporting; that is, the special reporting as distinguished from the moregeneral news-gathering. I mean the reports of proceedings in Congress, inconventions, assemblies, and conferences, public conversations, lectures, sermons, investigations, law trials, and occurrences of all sorts thatrise into general importance. These reports are the basis of ourknowledge and opinions. If they are false or exaggerated, we are ignorantof what is taking place, and misled. It is of infinitely more importancethat they should be absolutely trustworthy than that the editorialcomments should be sound and wise. If the reports on affairs can bedepended on, the public can form its own opinion, and act intelligently. And; if the public has a right to demand anything of a newspaper, it isthat its reports of what occurs shall be faithfully accurate, unprejudiced, and colorless. They ought not, to be editorials, or thevehicles of personal opinion and feeling. The interpretation of, thefacts they give should be left to the editor and the public. There shouldbe a sharp line drawn between the report and the editorial. 

I am inclined to think that the reporting department is the weakest inthe American newspaper, and that there is just ground for the admittedpublic distrust of it. Too often, if a person would know what has takenplace in a given case, he must read the reports in half a dozen journals, then strike a general average of probabilities, allowing for the personalequation, and then--suspend his judgment. Of course, there is muchexcellent reporting, and there are many able men engaged in it whoreflect the highest honor upon their occupation. And the press of noother country shows more occasional brilliant feats in reporting thanours: these are on occasions when the newspapers make special efforts. Take the last two national party conventions. The fullness, the accuracy, the vividness, with which their proceedings were reported in the leadingjournals, were marvelous triumphs of knowledge, skill, and expense. Theconventions were so photographed by hundreds of pens, that the publicoutside saw them almost as distinctly as the crowd in attendance. Thisresult was attained because the editors determined that it should be, sent able men to report, and demanded the best work. But take an oppositeand a daily illustration of reporting, that of the debates andproceedings in Congress. I do not refer to the specials of variousjournals which are good, bad, or indifferent, as the case may be, andcommonly colored by partisan considerations, but the regular synopsissent to the country at large. Now, for some years it has been inadequate, frequently unintelligible, often grossly misleading, failing wholly togive the real spirit and meaning of the most important discussions; andit is as dry as chips besides. To be both stupid and inaccurate is theunpardonable sin in journalism. Contrast these reports with the livelyand faithful pictures of the French Assembly which are served to theParis papers. 

Before speaking of the reasons for the public distrust in reports, it isproper to put in one qualification. The public itself, and not thenewspapers, is the great factory of baseless rumors and untruths. Although the newspaper unavoidably gives currency to some of these, it isthe great corrector of popular rumors. Concerning any event, a hundreddifferent versions and conflicting accounts are instantly set afloat. These would run on, and become settled but unfounded beliefs, as privatewhispered scandals do run, if the newspaper did not intervene. It is thebusiness of the newspaper, on every occurrence of moment, to chase downthe rumors, and to find out the facts and print them, and set the publicmind at rest. The newspaper publishes them under a sense ofresponsibility for its statements. It is not by any means always correct;but I know that it is the aim of most newspapers to discharge thisimportant public function faithfully. When this country had fewnewspapers it was ten times more the prey of false reports and delusionsthan it is now. 

Reporting requires as high ability as editorial writing; perhaps of adifferent kind, though in the history of American journalism the bestreporters have often become the best editors. Talent of this kind must beadequately paid; and it happens that in America the reporting field is sovast that few journals can afford to make the reporting departmentcorrespond in ability to the editorial, and I doubt if the importance ofdoing so is yet fully realized. An intelligent and representativesynopsis of a lecture or other public performance is rare. The ability tograsp a speaker's meaning, or to follow a long discourse, and reproduceeither in spirit, and fairly, in a short space, is not common. When thepublic which has been present reads the inaccurate report, it losesconfidence in the newspaper. 

Its confidence is again undermined when it learns that an "interview"which it has read with interest was manufactured; that the report of themovements and sayings of a distinguished stranger was a pure piece ofingenious invention; that a thrilling adventure alongshore, or in aballoon, or in a horse-car, was what is called a sensational article, concocted by some brilliant genius, and spun out by the yard according tohis necessities. These reports are entertaining, and often more readablethan anything else in the newspaper; and, if they were put into adepartment with an appropriate heading, the public would be lesssuspicious that all the news in the journal was colored and heightened bya lively imagination. 

Intelligent and honest reporting of whatever interests the public is thesound basis of all journalism. And yet so careless have editors been ofall this that a reporter has been sent to attend the sessions of aphilological convention who had not the least linguistic knowledge, having always been employed on marine disasters. Another reporter, whowas assigned to inform the public of the results of a difficultarcheological investigation, frankly confessed his inability tounderstand what was going on; for his ordinary business, he said, wascattle. A story is told of a metropolitan journal, which illustratesanother difficulty the public has in keeping up its confidence innewspaper infallibility. It may not be true for history, but answers foran illustration. The annual November meteors were expected on a certainnight. The journal prepared an elaborate article, several columns inlength, on meteoric displays in general, and on the display of that nightin particular, giving in detail the appearance of the heavens from themetropolitan roofs in various parts of the city, the shooting of themeteors amid the blazing constellations, the size and times of flight ofthe fiery bodies; in short, a most vivid and scientific account of thelofty fireworks. Unfortunately the night was cloudy. The article was intype and ready; but the clouds would not break. The last moment for goingto press arrived: there was a probability that the clouds would liftbefore daylight and the manager took the risk. The article that appearedwas very interesting; but its scientific value was impaired by the factthat the heavens were obscured the whole night, and the meteors, if anyarrived, were invisible. The reasonable excuse of the editor would bethat he could not control the elements. 

If the reporting department needs strengthening and reduction to order inthe American journal, we may also query whether the department ofcorrespondence sustains the boast that the American, newspaper is thebest in the world. We have a good deal of excellent correspondence, bothforeign and domestic; and our "specials" have won distinction, at leastfor liveliness and enterprise. I cannot dwell upon this feature; but Isuggest a comparison with the correspondence of some of the German, andwith that especially of the London journals, from the various capitals ofEurope, and from the occasional seats of war. How surpassing able much ofit is!

How full of information, of philosophic observation, of accurateknowledge! It appears to be written by men of trained intellect and ofexperience, --educated men of the world, who, by reason of their positionand character, have access to the highest sources of information. 

The editorials of our journals seem to me better than formerly, improvedin tone, in courtesy, in self-respect, --though you may not have to go faror search long for the provincial note and the easy grace of thefrontier, --and they are better written. This is because the newspaper hasbecome more profitable, and is able to pay for talent, and has attractedto it educated young men. There is a sort of editorial ability, offacility, of force, that can only be acquired by practice and in thenewspaper office: no school can ever teach it; but the young editor whohas a broad basis of general education, of information in history, political economy, the classics, and polite literature, has an immenseadvantage over the man who has merely practical experience. For theeditorial, if it is to hold its place, must be more and more the productof information, culture, and reflection, as well as of sagacity andalertness. Ignorance of foreign affairs, and of economic science, theAmerican people have in times past winked at; but they will not alwayswink at it. 

It is the belief of some shrewd observers that editorials, the longeditorials, are not much read, except by editors themselves. A cynic saysthat, if you have a secret you are very anxious to keep from the femaleportion of the population, the safest place to put it is in an editorial. It seems to me that editorials are not conned as attentively as they oncewere; and I am sure they have not so much influence as formerly. Peopleare not so easily or so visibly led; that is to say, the editorialinfluence is not so dogmatic and direct. The editor does not expect toform public opinion so much by arguments and appeals as by the news hepresents and his manner of presenting it, by the iteration of an ideauntil it becomes familiar, by the reading-matter selected, and by thequotations of opinions as news, and not professedly to influence thereader. And this influence is all the more potent because it is indirect, and not perceived-by the reader. 

There is an editorial tradition--it might almost be termed asuperstition--which I think will have to be abandoned. It is that acertain space in the journal must be filled with editorial, and that someof the editorials must be long, without any reference to the news or thenecessity of comment on it, or the capacity of the editor at the momentto fill the space with original matter that is readable. There is thesacred space, and it must be filled. The London journals are perfecttypes of this custom. The result is often a wearisome page of words andrhetoric. It may be good rhetoric; but life is too short for so much ofit. The necessity of filling this space causes the writer, instead ofstating his idea in the shortest compass in which it can be madeperspicuous and telling, to beat it out thin, and make it cover as muchground as possible. This, also, is vanity. In the economy of room, whichour journals will more and more be compelled to cultivate, I venture tosay that this tradition will be set aside. I think that we may fairlyclaim a superiority in our journals over the English dailies in our habitof making brief, pointed editorial paragraphs. They are the life of theeditorial page. A cultivation of these until they are as finished andpregnant as the paragraphs of "The London Spectator" and "The New-YorkNation, " the printing of long editorials only when the elucidation of asubject demands length, and the use of the space thus saved for moreinteresting reading, is probably the line of our editorial evolution. 

To continue the comparison of our journals as a class, with the Englishas a class, ours are more lively, also more flippant, and less restrainedby a sense of responsibility or by the laws of libel. We furnish, now andagain, as good editorial writing for its purpose; but it commonly lacksthe dignity, the thoroughness, the wide sweep and knowledge, thatcharacterizes the best English discussion of political and social topics. 

The third department of the newspaper is that of miscellaneousreading-matter. Whether this is the survival of the period when the papercontained little else except "selections, " and other printed matter wasscarce, or whether it is only the beginning of a development that shallsupply the public nearly all its literature, I do not know. Far as ournewspapers have already gone in this direction, I am inclined to thinkthat in their evolution they must drop this adjunct, and print simply thenews of the day. Some of the leading journals of the world already dothis. 

In America I am sure the papers are printing too much miscellaneousreading. The perusal of this smattering of everything, these scraps ofinformation and snatches of literature, this infinite variety and medley, in which no subject is adequately treated, is distracting anddebilitating to the mind. It prevents the reading of anything in full, and its satisfactory assimilation. It is said that the majority ofAmericans read nothing except the paper. If they read that thoroughly, they have time for nothing else. What is its reader to do when hisjournal thrusts upon him every day the amount contained in a fair-sizedduodecimo volume, and on Sundays the amount of two of them? Granted thatthis miscellaneous hodge-podge is the cream of current literature, is itprofitable to the reader? Is it a means of anything but superficialculture and fragmentary information? Besides, it stimulates an unnaturalappetite, a liking for the striking, the brilliant, the sensational only;for our selections from current literature are, usually the "plums"; andplums are not a wholesome-diet for anybody. A person accustomed to thisfinds it difficult to sit down patiently to the mastery of a book or asubject, to the study of history, the perusal of extended biography, orto acquire that intellectual development and strength which comes fromthorough reading and reflection. 

The subject has another aspect. Nobody chooses his own reading; and awhole community perusing substantially the same material tends to amental uniformity. The editor has the more than royal power of selectingthe intellectual food of a large public. It is a responsibilityinfinitely greater than that of the compiler of schoolbooks, great asthat is. The taste of the editor, or of some assistant who uses thescissors, is in a manner forced upon thousands of people, who see littleother printed matter than that which he gives them. Suppose his tasteruns to murders and abnormal crimes, and to the sensational inliterature: what will be the moral effect upon a community of readingthis year after year?

If this excess of daily miscellany is deleterious to the public, I doubtif it will be, in the long run, profitable to the newspaper, which has afield broad enough in reporting and commenting upon the movement of theworld, without attempting to absorb the whole reading field. 

I should like to say a word, if time permitted, upon the form of thejournal, and about advertisements. I look to see advertisements shorter, printed with less display, and more numerous. In addition to the use nowmade of the newspaper by the classes called "advertisers, " I expect it tobecome the handy medium of the entire public, the means of readycommunication in regard to all wants and exchanges. 

Several years ago, the attention of the publishers of American newspaperswas called to the convenient form of certain daily journals in SouthGermany, which were made up in small pages, the number of which variedfrom day to day, according to the pressure of news or of advertisements. The suggestion as to form has been adopted bit many of our religious, literary, and special weeklies, to the great convenience of the readers, and I doubt not of the publishers also. Nothing is more unwieldy than ourbig blanket-sheets: they are awkward to handle, inconvenient to read, unhandy to bind and preserve. It is difficult to classify matter in them. In dull seasons they are too large; in times of brisk advertising, and inthe sudden access of important news, they are too small. To enlarge themfor the occasion, resort is had to a troublesome fly-sheet, or, if theyare doubled, there is more space to be filled than is needed. It seems tome that the inevitable remedy is a newspaper of small pages or forms, indefinite in number, that can at any hour be increased or diminishedaccording to necessity, to be folded, stitched, and cut by machinery. 

We have thus rapidly run over a prolific field, touching only upon someof the relations of the newspaper to our civilization, and omitting manyof the more important and grave. The truth is that the development of themodern journal has been so sudden and marvelous that its conductors findthemselves in possession of a machine that they scarcely know how tomanage or direct. The change in the newspaper caused by the telegraph, the cable, and by a public demand for news created by wars, bydiscoveries, and by a new outburst of the spirit of doubt and inquiry, isenormous. The public mind is confused about it, and alternatelyoverestimates and underestimates the press, failing to see how integraland representative a part it is of modern life. 

"The power of the press, " as something to be feared or admired, is afavorite theme of dinner-table orators and clergymen. One would think itwas some compactly wielded energy, like that of an organized religiousorder, with a possible danger in it to the public welfare. Discriminationis not made between the power of the printed word--which islimitless--and the influence that a newspaper, as such, exerts. The powerof the press is in its facility for making public opinions and events. Ishould say it is a medium of force rather than force itself. I confessthat I am oftener impressed with the powerlessness of the press thanotherwise, its slight influence in bringing about any reform, or ininducing the public to do what is for its own good and what it isdisinclined to do. Talk about the power of the press, say, in alegislature, when once the members are suspicious that somebody is tryingto influence them, and see how the press will retire, with what grace itcan, before an invincible and virtuous lobby. The fear of the combinationof the press for any improper purpose, or long for any proper purpose, ischimerical. Whomever the newspapers agree with, they do not agree witheach other. The public itself never takes so many conflicting views ofany topic or event as the ingenious rival journals are certain todiscover. It is impossible, in their nature, for them to combine. Ishould as soon expect agreement among doctors in their empiricalprofession. And there is scarcely ever a cause, or an opinion, or a man, that does not get somewhere in the press a hearer and a defender. We willdrop the subject with one remark for the benefit of whom it may concern. With all its faults, I believe the moral tone of the American newspaperis higher, as a rule, than that of the community in which it ispublished.