stores by some utterance it made about the tariff, and they withdrew
their advertising. The "Evening Post," instead of quietly backing down,
started in to fight single-handed, calling on the public for aid. The
personal friends of the editor, Mr. Godkin, and a few loyal readers
rallied to its support, and threatened to boycott the stores. But the
public as a whole and all the "Post's" esteemed contemporaries, as
might have been anticipated, enjoyed the conflict from a safe distance
and minded their own business. The department stores not only refused
to make terms, but in some instances carried the war into the enemy's
territory by stopping the credit accounts of those customers who took
the "Post's" side. It was only after a very great financial loss and
many years of estrangement, that most of the stores came back to the
"Post," and it was long before the old relations of cordiality were
entirely reestablished.
The department stores are seldom or never referred to unfavorably by
the New York papers. When an elevator falls down in an office-building
and somebody is injured, the headlines ring to heaven. A similar
catastrophe in a department store is considered of hardly sufficient
human interest to publish. The name and shame of a woman caught
shoplifting in a department store can seldom be kept out of the papers.
A department store caught overworking and underpaying its
sales-girls--well, that is of no public concern. One of the most
striking articles I ever printed recounted the experiences of a
sales-girl in one of New York's department stores, yet it was unnoticed
by the New York papers, which are quick enough to republish and comment
on such articles when we print them, as "Graft in Panama," "Peonage in
Georgia," or "Race-Prejudice in California."
Four years ago, in our annual vacation number, we advised our readers
to go back to their boyhood village, buy the old homestead, and take a
vacation on the farm, abjuring the summer hotels with their temptations
to spend money, their vapidities and artificialities, manufactured
lovers' lanes, and old cats on the piazza. This so offended a few
hotels that they have never since advertised in "The Independent." I
will not tell you their names, but you can find out by noticing what
hotels are not represented in our advertising pages.
Three years ago I printed the life-story of a girl then on strike in a
factory. It was a simple, straightforward autobiography, giving the
employes' side of the case. Although we printed subsequently--as we are
always glad to do--a statement from the company giving their side of
the controversy, we must still be on their "We Don't Patronize" list,
judging by the amount of advertising with which they have since favored
us. Other papers have suffered still more, I understand, from the same
factory.
The great book-publishing firms are about the only class of advertisers
I know of who do not directly or indirectly seem to object to have
their wares damned in the editorial pages. Whether they have attained
more than other men to the Christian ideal of turning the other cheek;
whether they think that nobody pays any attention to a scathing
book-review, or whether they hold that the "best seller" is the
offspring of hostile criticism, I do not know. But again and again we
denounce books in our literary department that the publishers pay good
money to praise in the advertising pages of the same issue. I know of
only one prominent publishing firm which is an exception to this rule
in that it sometimes attempts to influence the reviews of its books by
means of its patronage.
But with the small book-houses this happy relationship does not always
exist. It would surprise you to know how many of them badger and
threaten us. Some, I understand, have a rule not to advertise where
their books are not indiscriminately puffed. It is a poor Maxim,
however, that won't shoot both ways; for I am sorry to report that some
papers adopt the equally bad rule of not reviewing the books of these
firms who do not keep an advertising account with them.
I once dined at a public banquet where the guests were both whites and
negroes, and made some harmless and well-meaning remarks. A
Philadelphia advertiser subsequently said he would never do business
with a paper that employed such an editor.
Last year an insurance company withdrew its advertising from the
columns of a great weekly because it repeated a disagreeable truth
about one of its directors.
Recently San Francisco has gone through one of the most important
struggles for civic betterment ever waged in an American city. The
whole nation stood at attention. The issue was clear and unequivocal.
The story of how San Francisco was redeeming her fair name, as every
newspaper man knows, was sensational enough to be featured day by day
on the front pages of every great paper in the land. The Eastern
dailies started in bravely enough, but soon cut down their reports
until they became so meagre and inadequate as to cause people in the
East to surmise that some influence hostile to the prosecution had
poisoned the sources of their information.
The Archbold letters, given to the press by Mr. Hearst in the late
campaign, are further examples of commercialism in journalism. How the
Standard Oil Company sent its certificates of deposit and giant
subscriptions to sundry editors and public-opinion promoters, and how a
member of Congress from the great state of Pennsylvania actually
suggested to Mr. Archbold that it might be a good plan to obtain "a
permanent and healthy control" of that very fountain-head of
publicity,--the Associated Press,--these sinister transactions and
suggestions have been so fully discussed as to need no further comment
from me.
From the standpoint of journalistic ethics, the only thing more
reprehensible than selling your opinions is offering them for sale.
This is editorial prostitution. The mere getting out of winter-resort
numbers, automobile numbers, financial numbers, and Alaska-Yukon-Pacific
Exposition numbers is not at all to be condemned, though the motive may
be commercial, as the swollen advertising pages in such special numbers
attest.
But what shall we suspect when a paper which claims a million readers
devotes a long editorial to praising a poor play, and then in a
subsequent issue there appears a full-page advertisement of that play?
What does it mean when not a single Denver paper publishes a line about
three nefarious telephone bills before the Colorado Legislature? And
what shall we think of a certain daily whose editor recently told me
that there was on his desk a list three feet long of names of prominent
people who were not to be mentioned in his paper either favorably or
unfavorably?
But direct bribe-giving and bribe-taking are, as I have said, very
rare. Such a procedure is too crude. If you should get up some palpable
advertisement disguised as news, and send it around to the leading
papers asking them to put it in as reading matter, and send you the
bill, expecting them to swallow the bait, you would be disappointed. It
is more likely to be done in another way. A financier invites an editor
to go with him on a cruise in his private yacht to the West Indies, or
offers to let him in on the ground floor in some commercial
undertaking. Then, after the editor is under obligations, favors are
asked and the editor is enmeshed.
Although I have said much about the sordid side of journalism, and the
temptations that we editors have to meet in one form or another, I do
not want you to think that the profession or trade of journalism offers
no scope for the highest moral and intellectual attainments. I have
dwelt thus long on the seamy side of our profession because there is a
seamy side, and I believe it does good occasionally to discuss it with
frankness. The first step in correcting an evil is to acknowledge its
existence. Were the title of this lecture "Journalism and Progress," or
"The Leadership of the Press," I could have told a far different and
rosier, though a no less true story.
But, as I approach my conclusion, let me give you some more pleasing
examples of the better side of "Commercialism and Journalism."
George Jones, the late owner of the New York "Times," when that paper
made its historic fight against the Tweed Ring, was offered five million
dollars by "Slippery Dick" Connolly, one of the gang, and an officer of
the city government, if he would sell the "Times," which was then not
worth over a million. Mr. Jones said afterwards, "The devil will never
make a higher bid for me than that." Yet he declined the bribe without a
tremor. A certain religious weekly lost a hundred thousand dollars for
refusing to take patent-medicine advertisements--probably ten times what
the paper was worth. "Everybody's Magazine," and many others of its
class, refuse every kind of questionable advertising.
Many editors and publishers scrupulously eschew politics, lest
obligations be incurred that might limit their opportunities for public
service. Some will not even accept dinner invitations when the motive
is known to be the expectation of a _quid pro quo_.
Perhaps one of the few disagreeable things a conscientious editor
cannot hope to avoid is the necessity of denouncing his personal
friends. Yet this must be done again and again. Indeed, there are
thousands of editors to-day who will not hesitate a moment to espouse
the unpopular cause, though they know it will endanger their
advertising receipts and subscription list.
"The Independent," for instance, could undoubtedly build up a great
circulation in the South among white people if we could only cease
expressing our disapproval of the way they mistreat their colored
brothers. But we consider it a duty to champion a race, who, through no
fault of their own, have been placed among us, and whom few papers,
statesmen, or philanthropists feel called upon to treat as friends.
There is a limit, of course, to the length to which a paper can go in
defying its constituency, whether advertisers or subscribers.
Manifestly a paper cannot be published without their support. But there
are times when an editor must defy them, even if it spells ruin to
himself and bankruptcy to the paper. It is rarely necessary, however,
to go to such an extremity as suicide. The rule would seem to be--and I
think it can be defended on all ethical grounds--that under no
circumstances should an editor tell what he knows to be false, or urge
measures he believes to be harmful. This is a far different thing from
telling all the truth all of the time, or urging all the measures he
regards as good for mankind in season and out. That is the attitude of
the irreconcilable, and the irreconcilable is as ineffectual in
journalism as he is in church or state. Thus "The Ladies' Home Journal"
has not as yet taken any part in furthering the great woman's suffrage
movement which is sweeping over the world, and which ought to, but
nevertheless does not, interest most American women. From Mr. Bok's
point of view this policy of silence is quite right, and the only one
doubtless consistent with the great circulation of his magazine. A
periodical which wants a million readers must adhere strictly to the
conventions if it would keep up its reputation as a safe guide for the
multitude. This may not be the ideal form of leadership, but it is
common sense, which is, perhaps, more to be desired. "Ed" Howe, the
editor of "The Atchison Globe," the paper which gets closer to the
people than any other in America, evidently admires this theory of
editing, for he confesses, "When perplexities beset me and troubles
thicken, I stop and ask myself what would Edward Bok have me do, and
then all my difficulties dissolve."
Despite the sinister influences that tend to limit the freedom of
editors and taint the news, the efficiency, accuracy, and ability of
the American press were never on such a high plane of excellence as
they are to-day. The celerity with which news is gathered, written,
transmitted, edited, published, and served on millions of
breakfast-tables every morning in the year is one of the wonders of the
age. When great events happen, especially of a dramatic nature, we see
newspapers at their best. Witness the recent wreck of the steamship
Republic. Only a few wireless dispatches were sent out by the heroic
Binns during the first few hours, and yet every paper the next morning
had columns about the disaster, all written without padding,
inaccuracy, or disproportion. Also recall the way the press handled the
recent Witla kidnaping case. Within twenty-four hours every newspaper
reader in the United States was apprised of the crime in all its
details, and in most cases the photograph of the little boy was
reproduced.
It is the gathering of the less important news of the day, however,
where reporting has deteriorated, and yellow journalism is largely
responsible for this. Yellow journalism is a matter of typography and
theatrics. The most sensational, and often the most unimportant, news
is featured with big type, colored inks, diagrams, and illustrations.
"A laugh or tear in every line" is the motto above the desk of the copy
editor. The dotted line showing the route taken by the beautiful
housemaid as she falls out of the tenth-story window to the street
below adds a thrill of the yellow "write up." The two prime requisites
for an ideal yellow newspaper, as that prince of yellow editors, Arthur
Brisbane, once told me, are sport for the men and love for the women;
and as the Hearst papers have secured their great circulation by
putting in practice this discovery, we find the other papers are
consciously or unconsciously copying them. A typographical revolution
has thus been brought about, as well as a general deterioration of
reporting. Even in papers of the highest character an over-indulgence
in headlines is coming into vogue, while the reporter is allowed too
often to treat the unimportant and most personal events in a
picturesque or facetious way without regard to truthfulness. On a
lecture trip West last winter, a reporter of one of the most
respectable and influential papers in the country asked if I was going
to attack anybody in my speech, or say anything that would "stir up the
mud." When I said I hoped not, he replied that it would not be
necessary for him to attend the lecture. "Just give me the title, and
the first and last sentences," said he, "and I'll write up an account
of it at my desk in the office."
Sometimes, by this method of reporting, a serious injury is done to the
individual. A reporter on the New York "Times" wrote up last winter a
sensational account of the marriage of the head worker of the
University Settlement on the East Side to a young leader of one of the
girls' classes. The marriage was performed by one of the officers of
the Society of Ethical Culture, who are expressly authorized by the New
York legislature to officiate on such occasions. And yet the reporter
called the marriage an "ethical" one, putting the word "ethical" in
quotation marks and also the word "Mrs.," to which the bride was
morally and legally entitled, implying that the marriage was irregular,
and indicated a tendency towards free love. Though many letters of
protest were written to the "Times" about this, the "Times" made no
editorial apology for a breach of journalistic ethics, which should
have cost the reporter who wrote the article and probably the managing
editor who passed it their positions.
It is this lack of sense of the fitness of things that would make the
average reporter scribble away for dear life, if, when the President's
message on the tariff was being read in Congress, a large black cat had
happened to walk up the aisle of the House and jumped on the back of
Speaker Cannon. Such an occurrence, I venture to say, would have
commanded more space in the next morning's papers than any pearls cast
before Congress by the President in his message.
The yellows, however, despite their "night special" editions issued
before nine o'clock in the morning, their fake pictures and fake
sensations, have come to stay. They serve yellow people. Formerly the
masses had to choose between such papers as "The Atlantic Monthly,"
"The Nation," the New York "Tribune," and nothing. No wonder they chose
nothing. In the yellow press they now have their own champion,--a press
that serves them, represents them, leads them, and exploits them, as
Tammany Hall does its constituency. Of course they give it their
suffrage. The hopeful thing is that yellow readers don't stay yellow
always. When a man begins to read he is apt to think. When he begins to
think there is no telling where he will end,--maybe by reading the
London "Times" or the "Edinburgh Review." In New York the yellow
papers, while they still have an enormous circulation, are losing their
influence as a political and moral force. Evidently as soon as yellow
people begin to use their wits they first apply them to the yellow
journals.
The daily newspapers, however, both yellow and white, like natural
monopolies, are public necessities. The people must have the news, and
therefore, the predatory interests, whether political or financial,
have been quick to get control of the people's necessity. "Read the
comments on the Payne Tariff Bill," says the "Philadelphia North
American" in its issue of March 20, "and every sane, well-informed
American discounts the comment of the Boston papers regarding raw and
unfinished materials that affect the factories of New England. Most of
the Philadelphia criticism counts for no more than what New Orleans
says of sugar, or Pittsburg of steel, or San Francisco of fruits, or
Chicago of packing-house products. And it is common knowledge that what
almost every big New York paper says is an echo of Wall Street."
The weeklies and monthlies, however, are not, like the dailies,
necessities. They have to attract by their merits alone. They must at
all hazards therefore retain the people's confidence in their
integrity, enterprise, and leadership. Whether this be the true
explanation or not, there is at least no doubt that the moral power of
the American periodical press has been transferred from the dailies to
the monthlies and weeklies. The monthlies and weeklies have also the
advantage of being national in circulation instead of local, and
therefore less subject to local and personal influence. They are also
preserved, bound or unbound, and not thrown away on the day of
publication like the daily paper. At all events, the weeklies and
monthlies have been the pioneers and prime movers in the great moral
renaissance now dawning in America. Moral strife always brings out
moral leaders. Where will you find in the daily press to-day twenty
editors to compare with Richard Watson Gilder and Robert Underwood
Johnson, of "The Century," Henry M. Alden and George Harvey, of
"Harper's," Ray Stannard Baker and Ida M. Tarbell, of "The American,"
Lyman Abbott and Theodore Roosevelt, of "The Outlook," Walter Page, of
"The World's Work," Albert Shaw, of the "Review of Reviews," Paul E.
More, of "The Nation," S. S. McClure, of "McClure's," Erman Ridgway, of
"Everybody's," Bliss Perry, of "The Atlantic Monthly," Norman Hapgood,
of "Collier's," Edward Bok, of "The Ladies' Home Journal," George H.
Lorimer, of the "Saturday Evening Post," Robert M. La Follette, of "La
Follette's," William J. Bryan, of "The Commoner," or Shailer Matthews,
of "The World To-day"? These are the men--and there are more, too, I
might name--who came forward with their touch upon the pulse of the
nation when the day of the daily newspaper as a leader of enlightened
public opinion had waned. As a Philadelphia daily has admitted, "A
vacuum had been created. They filled it."
Let me quote from a recent editorial,[3] which seems to sum up this
transformation most clearly:--
"The modern American magazines have now fallen heir to the power
exerted formerly by pulpit, lyceum, parliamentary debates, and
daily newspapers in the moulding of public opinion, the development
of new issues, and dissemination of information bearing on current
questions. The newspapers, while they have become more efficient as
newspapers, that is, more timely, more comprehensive, more
even-handed, more detailed, and, on the whole, more accurate, have
relinquished, or at least subordinated, the purpose of their
founders, which was generally to make people think with the editor
and do what he wanted them to do. The editorials, once the most
important feature of a daily paper, are rarely so now. They have
become in many cases mere casual comment, in some have been
altogether eliminated, in others so neutralized and inoffensive
that a man who had bought a certain daily for a year might be
puzzled if you asked him its political, religious, and sociological
views. He would not be in doubt if asked what his favorite magazine
was trying to accomplish in the world. Unless it is a mere
periodical of amusement it is likely to have a definite purpose,
even though it be nothing more than opposition to some other
magazine. If a magazine attacks Mrs. Eddy, another gallantly rushes
to her defense. If one gets to seeing things at night, the other
becomes anti-spirituous. If the first acquires the muck-raking
habit, the complementary organ publishes an 'Uplift Number' that
oozes optimism from every paragraph. The modern editor does not sit
in his easy-chair, writing essays and sorting over the manuscripts
that are sent in by his contributors. He goes hunting for things.
The magazine staff is coming to be a group of specialists of
similar views, but diverse talents, who are assigned to work up a
particular subject, perhaps a year or two before anything is
published, and who spend that time in travel and research among the
printed and living sources of information."
[3] _The Independent_, Oct. 1, 1908.
Now my conclusion of the whole question under discussion is this: While
commercialism is at present the greatest menace to the freedom of the
press, just as it is to the freedom of the Church and the University,
yet commercialism as it develops carries within itself the germ of its
own destruction. For no sooner is its blighting influence felt and
recognized than all the moral forces in the community are put in motion
to accomplish its overthrow, and as the monthlies and weeklies have
thrived by fighting commercialism, so it is reasonable to suppose that
the dailies will regain their editorial influence when they adopt the
same attitude.
I know of only four ways to hasten the time when commercialism will
cease to be a reproach to our papers.
First. The papers can devote themselves to getting so extensive a
circulation that they can ignore the clamor of the advertisers. But
this implies a certain truckling to popularity, and the best editors
will chafe under such restrictions.
Second. The papers can become endowed. That others have thought of this
before, Mr. Andrew Carnegie can doubtless testify. There would be many
advantages, however, of having several great endowed papers in the
country. The same arguments that favor endowed theatres or universities
apply equally to papers. We need some papers that can say what ought to
be said irrespective of anybody and everybody, and which can serve as
examples to other papers not so fortunately circumstanced. But
manifestly the periodical industry as a whole is much too large to be
endowed, and the few papers that may be endowed by private capital, or
by the Government, would have only a limited influence on the industry
as a whole. Our government now publishes a weekly paper in Panama,
which takes no advertisements, and is furnished free to every
government employee on the Isthmus. It is a model paper in many
respects, but manifestly its example is not apt to be followed
extensively before the dawn of the Cooeperative Commonwealth. It may be
that the practice newspapers conducted by the schools of journalism
connected with our great universities will raise the standard by making
their chief object the publication of accurate and reliable news.