_Question_. What do you think of newspaper interviewing?
_Answer_. I believe that James Redpath claims to have invented
the "interview." This system opens all doors, does away with
political pretence, batters down the fortifications of dignity and
official importance, pulls masks from solemn faces, compels everybody
to show his hand. The interviewer seems to be omnipresent. He is
the next man after the accident. If a man should be blown up he
would likely fall on an interviewer. He is the universal interrogation
point. He asks questions for a living. If the interviewer is fair
and honest he is useful, if the other way, he is still interesting.
On the whole, I regard the interviewer as an exceedingly important
person. But whether he is good or bad, he has come to stay. He
will interview us until we die, and then ask the "friends" a few
questions just to round the subject off.
_Question_. What do you think of the tendency of newspapers is at
present?
_Answer_. The papers of the future, I think, will be "news" papers.
The editorial is getting shorter and shorter. The paragraphist is
taking the place of the heavy man. People rather form their own
opinions from the facts. Of course good articles will always find
readers, but the dreary, doleful, philosophical dissertation has
had its day. The magazines will fall heir to such articles; then
religious weeklies will take them up, and then they will cease
altogether.
_Question_. Do you think the people lead the newspapers, or do
the newspapers lead them?
_Answer_. The papers lead and are led. Most papers have for sale
what people want to buy. As a rule the people who buy determine
the character of the thing sold. The reading public grow more
discriminating every year, and, as a result, are less and less
"led." Violent papers--those that most freely attack private
character--are becoming less hurtful, because they are losing their
own reputations. Evil tends to correct itself. People do not
believe all they read, and there is a growing tendency to wait and
hear from the other side.
_Question_. Do newspapers to-day exercise as much influence as
they did twenty-five years ago?
_Answer_. More, by the facts published, and less, by editorials.
As we become more civilized we are governed less by persons and
more by principles--less by faith and more by fact. The best of
all leaders is the man who teaches people to lead themselves.
_Question_. What would you define public opinion to be?
_Answer_. First, in the widest sense, the opinion of the majority,
including all kinds of people. Second, in a narrower sense, the
opinion of the majority of the intellectual. Third, in actual
practice, the opinion of those who make the most noise. Fourth,
public opinion is generally a mistake, which history records and
posterity repeats.
_Question_. What do you regard as the result of your lectures?
_Answer_. In the last fifteen years I have delivered several
hundred lectures. The world is growing more and more liberal every
day. The man who is now considered orthodox, a few years ago would
have been denounced as an Infidel. People are thinking more and
believing less. The pulpit is losing influence. In the light of
modern discovery the creeds are growing laughable. A theologian
is an intellectual mummy, and excites attention only as a curiosity.
Supernatural religion has outlived its usefulness. The miracles
and wonders of the ancients will soon occupy the same tent. Jonah
and Jack the Giant Killer, Joshua and Red Riding Hood, Noah and
Neptune, will all go into the collection of the famous Mother
Hubbard.
--_The Morning Journal_, New York, July 3, 1883.