SOME ACCOUNT OF A REVOLUTION IN INTERNATIONAL JOURNALISM
I
Returning to New York in the early autumn of 1866 and spending the
winter in _The Tribune_ office, I was again sent abroad the following
year, this time under an agreement to remain till 1870. I was to go
as the exponent of a new theory of American journalism in Europe, a
theory based on the belief that the cable had altered all the
conditions of international news gathering and that a new system had
to be created. I had been long enough in London and on the Continent
to be convinced that London must become the distributing centre of
European news for America. I talked it over with Mr. Young on my
return. Mr. Young had a mind open to new ideas and he was unusually
quick in deciding. But this suggestion struck him at first as a
proposal to impair the authority of the managing editorship. He
thought, naturally, there ought to be but one executive head, and
that a European manager, no matter how strictly subordinated to {221}
his chief in New York, would, at such a distance, acquire too much
independence. The proposal, moreover, was far-reaching and had no
precedent; not that the want of a precedent troubled Mr. Young much.
He had spent much of his time as managing editor of _The Tribune_ in
disregarding precedents and laying down laws of his own. But this
scheme, he presently saw, would never have been thought of had not
submarine telegraphy taken a practicable shape, nor would such a
scheme have been of much practical use so long as news went by mail.
Nor could it be tried till a great many details had been thought out.
Under the old system, each _Tribune_ correspondent reported directly
to New York. Had that system remained unaltered, the triumphs of
American journalism in Europe would have been impossible. That all
the European representatives of this paper should report to London
instead of New York might seem no very great matter, but in truth it
was vital. When it had once been decided to establish a _Tribune_
office in London, a revolution had taken place. There was to be a
responsible agent in charge. He was to organize a new
administration. He was to appoint and dismiss other agents all over
the Continent. He was--subject, of course, to orders from New
York--to transmit news to New York.
He was to be the telephone between Europe and the managing editor in
New York. But he was to relieve the New York office of its
supervision over the European staff. What St. Petersburg {222} and
Vienna, Berlin and Paris, had to say to New York was to be said
through London. There would be an economy of time. Orders could be
sent from London and results received much more quickly than from New
York. In an emergency as was presently to be shown, the difference
was enormous. The notion of the centrality of London, of its unity
as a news bureau, was perfectly simple.
But it took years for that one simple notion to get itself completely
accepted and acted upon. I will give one illustration. When the
fatal days of July, 1870, were upon us I thought I saw a great
opportunity. _The Tribune_ alone had an organization in Europe
competent for the work of supplying war news. But as I did not know
how much news New York wanted, I cabled a question to the editor then
temporarily in charge. The answer came back that I was to go to
Berlin. It would have been a fatal step. I should have come under
German military rule, and cabling from Berlin at that time and much
later was a slow and uncertain business. Nor could the plans I had
in mind have been carried out from Berlin. There would have been a
censorship upon every dispatch, and censorship means not merely
mutilation to suit a bureaucratic ideal, but delay. Berlin,
moreover, was remote, while London is on the road to New York, and
spite of the cable the delay from that cause also would have been
injurious. In short, I disobeyed the New York order. I explained,
of course, but I pointed out that an {223} unfettered discretion was
essential to success, and I asked to be allowed a free hand or to be
relieved. I was given the free hand.
These methods have since become so familiar that there is little need
to explain them, but at that time they were not merely novel but were
derided by journalists of great experience. Mr. James Gordon Bennett
was one of those who scoffed at them, and presently was one of those
who followed them and made a large use of them, greatly to his own
profit and to that of the considerable news organization he
controlled. But at first he said nothing would induce him to set up
in London a rival office to New York. Now, every important journal
in the United States has offices in London, and subsidiary offices in
Paris and often in other European capitals. But the authority of New
York or Chicago remains what it was.
The idea once accepted, somebody had then to be appointed to London.
Mr. Young asked me to go. I declined. I liked leader-writing much
better than news-collecting. I thought the power of influencing
opinion through the editorial columns of _The Tribune_ the most
enviable of all powers. The London scheme, moreover, was an
experiment and I did not think I had had enough experience with news
to justify my undertaking so large a business. But Mr. Young pressed
it, saying it was my scheme and I ought to put it in operation. He
might, had he chosen, have issued an order and I should have had no
choice but to obey or resign; {224} but that was not his way. He
trusted to persuasion; he treated his subordinates as, for some
purposes, his equals, and he did not care for unwilling service. He
was a past master in the art of stating a case and in the use of
personal influence. In the end he convinced me not only that I ought
to go, but that I wanted to go, and I gave in, still with misgivings
but not without a certain enthusiasm at the prospect of doing a new
thing in journalism. It was like Young to say, as he did at parting:
"Remember, I don't care about methods. You will use your own
methods. What I want is results."
The incredulity with which _The Tribune_ experiment was first
received gave way slowly, but it gave way. I suppose it was the news
service of _The Tribune_ in the Franco-German War in 1870 which
finally convinced the most sceptical. So I will pass to that,
stopping only to explain one other matter.
It was in 1870 also that the first international newspaper alliance
was formed. The papers which formed it were _The Tribune_ of New
York and _The Daily News_ of London. I saw at the beginning that it
was desirable to be in a position to know what news would go to New
York through Reuter and The Associated Press. That knowledge was
only to be had inside of a London newspaper office, and it was with
that view chiefly that I first made a proposal to _The Daily News_.
I suppose I chose that paper because I knew its editor and manager.
I did not think it likely {225} that _The Daily News_ service from
the battlefields would, at first, add much to our own; nor did it.
But I went to Mr.--afterward Sir John--Robinson with an offer to
exchange news, whether by telegraph or mail, on equal terms; we to
give them everything we had and they to do the like by us. The offer
was very coldly received. Mr. Robinson could see no advantage to his
paper from such an agreement. I told him what we were doing and
intending to do. Still he was incredulous and he finally said No. I
told him I did not mean that either paper should narrow its
operations at the seat of war in expectation of help from the other,
nor that either should credit the other with its news. It was to be
a war partnership and each would put all its forces in the field.
But he would not have it.
It was Mr. Frank Hill, then editor of _The Daily News_, who came to
the rescue. The news department was none of his but he had an
all-embracing intelligence, and when he heard what the offer was he
pressed it upon his colleague and finally secured its acceptance.
The credit for whatever benefit inured to _The Daily News_ from this
partnership was therefore due originally to Mr. Frank Hill and not to
Mr. Robinson.
It remains true that Mr. Robinson was a very distinguished journalist
and that his work at a later period of the war was of a high order.
If he had done nothing but secure the services of Mr. Archibald
Forbes he would have earned a lasting renown as manager. But before
Forbes's {226} work had begun to tell, _The Daily News_, receiving
and publishing _The Tribune_ dispatches as its own--as it had an
absolute right to do under our agreement--had won a great reputation
for its war news. Sir John Robinson is dead but I published a
statement on this subject while he was living, which was brought to
his attention. I said then, as I say now, that _The Daily News_ owed
to _The Tribune_ almost the whole of the war news by which its
reputation was at first acquired. This period lasted down to the
surrender of Metz; perhaps later. My statement was never disputed.
It may still be found in _Harper's Magazine_, where the facts are set
forth much more fully than here, and it was this article in
_Harper's_ which Sir John Robinson read. We had ceased to be on good
terms. I forget why. He grumbled a little at the publication of the
story, though without reason, but he attempted no denial and no
denial was possible.
The matter was much discussed at the time in the American Press and
there were many criticisms, based on an absolute ignorance of the
real arrangement between the two papers. Further confusion grew out
of the fact that one of _The Tribune's_ war correspondents had a
contract with _The Pall Mall Gazette_, then owned by Mr. George Smith
and edited by Mr. Frederick Greenwood, one of the great journalists
of his time. This contract left him free to deal with us but not
with any London paper. It followed, therefore, that some of _The
Tribune_ dispatches appeared in _The Daily {227} News_ and some in
_The Pall Mall Gazette_. Our New York friends could not understand
this tri-partite agreement; but then it was not necessary they
should; and their comments were much more amusing than they would
have been if they had known the truth. The mind moves with great
freedom when unhampered by facts.
II
"American methods," said certain English journalists, seeking to
account for _The Tribune's_ successes in the Franco-German War. The
phrase, whether meant as eulogy or criticism, was, at any rate,
explanatory, for we had had four years of Civil War experience, from
1861 to 1865, while the English, unless we reckon the Indian Mutiny,
had to go back to the Crimean War in 1854 for precedents in war
correspondence. Moreover, the one great triumph of English
journalism in the Crimea was not a triumph of method. It was a
triumph due to the genius and courage of one man, Dr. Russell, who
exposed through _The Times_ the murderous mistakes of army
organization and army administration, and so forced the War Office
and the Horse Guards to set their houses in order. It was a great
public service; perhaps the greatest which any journalist in the
field ever performed. But it was not exactly journalism. It had
little or nothing to do with that speed and accuracy in the
collection and transmission of news which, after all, must be the
{228} chief business of a correspondent. It has never been imitated.
It never will be till another Russell appears to rescue another
British army in another Crimea. That great exploit was not primarily
journalistic but personal.
I do not suppose it occurred to any of the many able newspaper
managers in London that in dealing with a European war they would
find a rival in an American journal. They knew there was an Atlantic
cable but probably thought, if they thought about it at all, that the
cable tolls would be prohibitive, for, as we shall see in a moment,
they had not yet grasped the idea that the telegraph is only a
quicker post. Putting the question of cost aside, it does not matter
how a piece of news or a dispatch or a letter is transmitted; whether
by rail or by steamship or by wire. What matters is that it should
get there. To-day this is a truism. Forty years ago it was a
paradox; in Europe if not in America. There had been great
achievements in the transmission of news long before the telegraph
was invented. It may be doubted whether they were not, some of them,
greater than those due to the telegraph. But so far as the use of
the telegraph is concerned we are dealing with the beginnings. The
year 1870 is a year of transition if not of revolution. I think we
are entitled to remember with satisfaction that in telegraphic news
enterprise, even in Europe, it was an American journal which led the
way, and that _The Tribune_ was that journal.
In forming their war plans the managers of {229} English journals, as
I was saying, left American journals out of account. Perhaps they
knew, in a dim kind of way, that _The Tribune_ had an office in
London. But the office had been there for three years and no other
American journal had yet followed _The Tribune's_ example. Important
dispatches had been sent from this London office to the New York
office by cable, but the London managers, if aware of the existence
of the cable and of _The Tribune_ office in London, had not
co-ordinated these two pieces of knowledge. The area of all possible
competition in war was news confined, in their view, to Fleet Street
and Printing House Square.
They sat content, true Britons as they were, in their belief in their
own supremacy; a supremacy often challenged, never overthrown. _The
Times_ was still _The Times_. _The Morning Post_ was still a
threepenny paper. _The Daily Telegraph_ was still the organ of the
small shopkeeper. _The Daily News_ was the mouthpiece of
Nonconformist Liberalism, with no great pretensions to any other sort
of authority. The evening journalism was not supposed to be eager
for news, except news of that peculiar description which offers its
readers an afternoon sensation and is unaccountably omitted from the
next morning's papers. The news journalism was yet to be born. _The
Daily Mail_ had never been heard of. Lord Northcliffe, the man who
has done more than all others of his time toward the creation of a
new journalism in England, and who is almost more a statesman {230}
than a journalist, was then just two years old.
Moreover, the outbreak of war was unexpected. Lord Granville was
then Foreign Secretary and of an unshaken optimism. Lord Hammond,
Permanent Under Secretary of the Foreign Office, had announced a
fortnight before that never since he had held a place in that office
had the sky been so free from clouds. M. Émile Ollivier has lately
retold with skill in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_ how the war was
brought on, but there is nothing in his elaborate special pleading to
show that any reasonable man ought to have expected the French
Emperor, or even M. Ollivier himself, to follow the unreasonable,
mad, arrogant policy they did follow. Nor can Downing Street or
Fleet Street or Printing House Square be blamed for not being aware
that the conduct of affairs in France was in the control of men who
would play into Bismarck's hands. For, let M. Ollivier say what he
will, Bismarck's opportunity would not have come had not France,
after Prussia had withdrawn Prince Leopold's candidature for the
throne of Spain, demanded a guarantee that it should never be renewed
or never be supported by Prussia. Never had events moved so quickly.
Prince Leopold was first heard of July 4th, 1870. On the 12th he
renounced his claim. On the 13th Benedetti laid before the King of
Prussia at Ems the demand of France for guarantees. On the 14th Earl
Granville woke from his deep dream of peace and strove to bring
France and Prussia to terms. On the {231} 15th the Emperor declared
war; the Chamber approving by an overwhelming majority.
There are in journalism two ways of dealing with a war crisis of this
kind. One way is to send into the field everybody you can lay hands
on to cover, _tant bien que mal_, as many points as possible, and so
take your chance of what may turn up. The other is to choose the
best two men available and send one to the headquarters of each army.
I preferred the latter, perhaps because there was a difficulty in
finding good men, and there were but two from whom I expected much
good. These were Mr. Holt White, an Englishman, and M. Méjanel, a
Frenchman. Mr. White was ordered to join the Prussians and M.
Méjanel to accompany his own countrymen. The same instructions were
given to both; very simple but I believe at that time quite novel in
England. Each was to find his way to the front, or wherever a battle
was most likely to be fought. They were to telegraph to London as
fully as possible all accounts of preliminary engagements. If they
had the good luck to witness an important battle they were not to
telegraph, but, unless for some very peremptory reason, to start at
once for London, writing their accounts on the way or on arrival. If
they could telegraph a summary first, so much the better; but there
must be no delay. The essential thing was to arrive in London at the
earliest moment. They were to provide beforehand for a substitute,
or more than one, who would take up their work during their absence.
{232}
These instructions were based on the improbability that any single
correspondent could anticipate any very important news which
Governments, the news agencies, and the Rothschilds would all three
endeavour to send first. I reverse the order in which a Minister
once said to me news of war or of high politics usually arrived.
Such news, he said, comes to the Rothschilds first, next to the
Press, and to the Government last of all. Besides, the mere fact
never contents the public. It wants the full story. There was never
much chance of sending the full story by wire from the battlefield or
from any town hard by; nor, indeed, from any capital; even from a
neutral capital. Only when once in London was a correspondent master
of the situation.
Mr. Holt White carried out his instructions with an energy, a
courage, an intelligence to which no tribute can be too high. In the
first instance he witnessed the battle--not an important one except
that it was the first--of Spicheren, and wired a column or so to
London. It was I believe, the first battle story of any length ever
sent by wire from the Continent to London. English journalism, as I
said above, had not yet regarded the telegraph as anything but a
means of transmitting results. The full account was to come by mail.
I had told Mr. Robinson I meant to use the telegraph in this new way,
but he was not ready to believe it could be done. So when I carried
Mr. White's account to _The Daily News_ office, after cabling a
rewritten copy to New York, {233} I took with me the original
telegraph forms as well as the second copy. The dispatch as
telegraphed by Mr. White was slightly condensed, had been carelessly
handled, and was not in good shape for the printers. I handed my
copy to Mr. Robinson. He looked at it with undisguised suspicion.
"It is your handwriting," he said.
I admitted that.
"And the battle was fought only yesterday."
"Yes."
"It could not have come by post."
"No."
"Well, how then?"
"By wire."
"A dispatch of that length! It is unheard of."
But I thought this had gone far enough and showed him the telegraph
forms. Still he said:
"Do you expect me to print this to-morrow in _The Daily News_?"
"Print it or not as you choose. It will certainly appear in _The
Tribune_. I have done as I agreed in bringing you the dispatch.
You, of course, will do as you think best about publishing it."
I repeat this because it indicates better than I could otherwise the
journalistic state of mind at that time in respect of Continental
telegrams. Mr. Robinson was at the head of his profession, yet this
was his reception of this piece of news. In the end Mr. Frank Hill,
the editor, was called into consultation. He had no hesitation and,
as before, finally brought his colleague to reason. {234} The
telegram duly appeared next morning in _The Daily News_, heralded by
a leading article in which the telegram was rewritten, its importance
pointed out, the celerity of its dispatch and arrival dwelt on, and
so the readers of _The Daily News_ had every opportunity to admire
the enterprise of that journal.
This was very far from being Mr. Holt White's most brilliant exploit,
but it was his first. He had not the luck to see the battle of
Worth, the earliest of the grave disasters of the French. No
journalist had. That great engagement and the defeat of Marshal
MacMahon were foreseen by nobody, the Germans themselves excepted,
and there exists no account of the battle in the newspapers of the
day, save such as came by hearsay; or, much later, the official
reports. But when the bare facts were known they were thought
prophetic, and the military critics of Pall Mall and Whitehall said
gravely: "This is the beginning of the end."
{235}