A journalist has said to me: "We, i.e. we journalists, are like mediums.
People go to a spiritist séance and hear what they want to hear. It is
the same with a leading article: we write so that the reader will find
what he wants to find."
That is the root of the matter; there is good journalism and bad
journalism, and journalism that "looks" like "literature" and literature
etc....
But the root of the difference is that in journalism the reader finds
what he is looking for, whereas in literature he must find at least _a
part of_ what the author intended.
That is why "the first impression of a work of genius" is "nearly always
disagreeable." The public loathe the violence done to their self-conceit
whenever any one conveys to them an idea that is his, not their own.
This difference is lasting and profound. Even in the vaguest of poetry,
or the vaguest music, where the receiver may, or must make half the
beauty he is to receive, there is always something of the author or
composer which must be transmitted.
In journalism or the "bad art," there is no such strain on the public.