JOURNALISM AND JOURNALISTS
In the narrow sense it might be said that journalism could hardly exist
before journals, but that would be essentially inaccurate. Journalism
is the art of writing for immediate practical effect, just as rhetoric
was the art of speaking for the same purpose. In ancient times public
speaking had an immeasurably greater influence than now owing to the
existence of small city states, where the governing assembly could
remain within the reach of one voice. With the growth of the Roman
empire and the decay of the power of the Roman Senate the current power
of the written word began to grow at the expense of the spoken one and
it certainly dominated opinion under the aristocratic governments of
the middle ages. But it was the art of printing, which made periodical
publication possible, and turned the tables on political speaking to
such an extent, that public orations are not now primarily directed to
the ears of those, who hear them, but to the eyes and understanding of
those, who read them next morning.
But there was journalism before Gutenberg. Something of the spirit of
it is present in the oldest script in the world, written perhaps 2000
years before Christ and preserved in the Prisse MSS. in the national
library in Paris. There we find an old priest recording his regrets,
that the world was not as it was when he was young, that the golden age
was over and that modern times were degenerate. _Conservative papers
please copy._ Julius Cæsar had the essence of it in his _Veni, vidi,
vici_ and the whole of his _De Bello Gallico_ was nothing more than
the most admirable special and war correspondence, intended to keep
his name before the Roman people and to induce them to contrast the
sacrifices he was making for the glory of the empire with the corrupt
luxury of the senatorial party at home.
The capacity to weigh exactly the practical effect of words in
despatches, which is strictly akin to journalistic talent, has been an
invaluable one to many a general who had to rely on popular support.
Napoleon was a master of it, Frederick the Great, being an autocratic
sovereign, could afford to despise it. But the best instance of this
quality exhibited on a striking occasion in history was the way, in
which Bismarck sub-edited the famous Ems telegram, which brought on the
Franco-Prussian war. He cynically tells the story in his “Table Talk.”
Bismarck had gone to Berlin to discuss the coming war with Moltke and
Roon. The conversation was gloomy, because at that moment it appeared
that the difficulties with France would be adjusted, which did not
suit the views of the war party. While they were sitting at dinner,
Bismarck received from the Emperor a telegram describing a firm but
not unfriendly reception of Benedetti, the French ambassador, leaving
it to his Chancellor to publish the whole or part of his despatch, as
he pleased. Bismarck turned to Moltke and asked, if he was assured
of success. He was told yes. “‘Well then,’ said I to both, ‘you can
now calmly go on with your dinner!’ Thereupon I sat down at the round
marble table, standing near the dining one, perused the King’s despatch
once more with great attention, took a pencil and erased the sentence
referring to Benedetti’s request for another audience, leaving only the
head and tail. And now the telegram read somewhat differently. My two
guests exclaimed, ‘Splendid! That will do!’ and now we continued our
meal with the best of appetites. I gave directions for the telegram
in its altered form to be communicated as quickly as possible to the
semi-official newsagency (Wolff’s bureau), to all the newspapers and
all our embassies abroad.... I never had cause to regret the way in
which it was edited.” That night Paris was led to believe that the
French ambassador had been insulted and war broke out next day. Could
we have a better instance of the thorough comprehension of the weakness
of the public addressed and of the way newspapers can be used to
manipulate opinion and sway the course of events in great issues?
Such supreme opportunities do not come to ordinary journalists. Under
the same circumstances they might possibly behave better. But at all
times of public excitement something of this power is in the hands
of every editor. It is, as a rule, for him to say the last word in
the method of presenting news of a sensational description, either
to modify the bitterness of an unpleasant announcement or to add to
its provocative character. But the presentation of obvious news is
but part of the functions of journalism, its selection is another
and the selection also of accompanying details and corroborative
and explanatory information. It is this side of journalism, which
is entirely modern, which may in fact be said to have been, if not
invented, yet for the first time consistently done and supremely well
done by the father of English journalism.
Defoe is the master of circumstantial detail. The reader can find no
modern instance, which will excel or equal in this respect his _True
Relation of the Apparition of Mrs. Veal_. He first employed this art of
inducing credibility for his central tale, whether fact or fiction, by
so surrounding it with petty and commonplace exactitude, that criticism
is diverted and put to sleep and conviction is insensibly compelled.
He was also master of an equally modern art, intimately allied to the
other, of selecting subjects of topical interest and treating them in a
realistic way. In this respect I venture to quote from Professor Minto
who shows how some of Defoe’s most celebrated works had an entirely
opportunistic origin.
“Defoe was essentially a journalist. He wrote for the day and for the
greatest interest of the greatest number of the day. He always had
some ship sailing with the passing breeze and laden with a useful
cargo for the coast upon which the wind chanced to be blowing. If the
Tichborne trial had happened in his time, we should certainly have had
from him an exact history of the boyhood and surprising adventures
of Thomas Castro, commonly known as Sir Roger, which would have come
down to us as a true record, taken, perhaps by the chaplain of Portland
prison from the convict’s own lips. It would have had such an air of
authenticity and would have been corroborated by such an array of
trustworthy witnesses, that nobody in later times could have doubted
its truth. Defoe always wrote what a large number of people were in a
mood to read. All his writings, with so few exceptions that they may
reasonably be supposed to fall within the category, were _pieces de
circonstance_. Whenever any distinguished person died or otherwise
engaged popular attention, no matter how distinguished, whether as a
politician, a criminal, or a divine, Defoe lost no time in bringing
out a biography. It was in such emergencies that he produced his
memoirs of Charles XII., Peter the Great, Count Patkul, the Duke of
Shrewsbury, Baron de Goertz, the Rev. Daniel Williams, Captain Avery
the king of the Pirates, Dominique Cartouche, Rob Roy, Jonathan Wild,
Jack Sheppard, Duncan Campbell. When the day had been fixed for the
Earl of Oxford’s trial for high treason, Defoe issued the fictitious
_Minutes of the Secret Negotiations of Mons. Mesnager_ at the English
Court during his ministry. We owe the _Journal of the Plague in 1665_
to a visitation, which fell upon France in 1721 and caused much
apprehension in England. The germ which in his fertile mind grew into
_Robinson Crusoe_ fell from the real adventures of Alexander Selkirk,
whose solitary residence of four years on the island of Juan Fernandez
was a nine days’ wonder in the reign of Queen Anne. Defoe was too busy
with his politics at the moment to turn it to account; it was recalled
to him later on, in the year 1719, when the exploits of famous pirates
had given a vivid interest to the chances of adventurers in far away
islands on the American and African coasts. _The Life, Adventures and
Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton_, who was set on shore in
Madagascar, traversed the continent of Africa from east to west past
the sources of the Nile, and went roving again in the company of the
famous Captain Avery, was produced to satisfy the same demand.”
A more questionable venture in semi-journalism was made by Defoe in
_The Shortest Way with the Dissenters_, which is still a matter of
controversy. It was an outrageous pamphlet, so skilfully couched in
language current at the time in the mouths of extreme Highchurchmen
that the whole country was deceived, in which it was proposed to put a
short term to Nonconformity by hanging every preacher in a conventicle
and banishing the congregations. It met with all the paradoxical
success that its author could have wished because it was accepted by
the dominant Tory party with acclamation that was turned into fury,
when the author was discovered to be a Dissenter, who had published it
in mockery of the excesses of his opponents. Defoe had to stand in the
pillory for three days and was fined and imprisoned.
It may be questioned whether such a prank can be considered to be
irony, when the key to the inverted point is not contained in the work
itself but in some outside circumstance. True irony is an appeal in one
form of words to two grades of intelligence, one of which accepts the
literal and the other the concealed meaning. A much more indisputable
instance of journalistic irony in our times was Henri Rochefort’s
eulogy of Napoleon II., equally effective with Defoe’s as a practical
weapon and as a literary masterpiece of concealed invective for ever to
be unexcelled. The validity of this irony consisted in facts that were
known to all his readers, while the statement of them was inverted for
reasons not of caprice nor cleverness but for a practical purpose for
which there was every excuse. It is so short that the gist of it is
worth quoting. It was in the second number of the notorious _Lanterne_,
the first issue of which had been sold to the extent of 125,000 copies,
that Rochefort complained that his political attitude had never
been understood and that he was in fact an out and out Bonapartist.
“Nevertheless,” he added, “I may be allowed to choose my own hero in
the dynasty. Amongst the legitimists some prefer Louis XVIII., others
Louis XVI., others on the contrary place all their sympathy on the
head of Charles X. As a Bonapartist, I prefer Napoleon II.; I have a
right to do so. In my mind he represents the ideal of a sovereign. No
one will deny that he has occupied the throne, because his successor
calls himself Napoleon III. What a reign, my friends, what a reign! Not
a tax; no useless wars, with the ravages they involve; none of those
distant expeditions in which six hundred millions are spent to recover
fifteen francs; no devouring civil lists; no ministers accumulating
five or six posts at a hundred thousand francs each; that is the
monarchy, as I understand it. Oh yes! Napoleon II., I love and admire
you without reserve.... Who then will dare maintain that I am not a
sincere Bonapartist?” Within a few weeks the _Lanterne_ was suppressed
and Rochefort was flying over the Belgian frontier. But his articles
had prepared the Commune and eventually made France a Republic.
Returning to England it is impossible, in mentioning Defoe, to refrain
from opposing to him, not only politically but in a journalistic sense,
his far more brilliant Tory opponents, Swift and Bolingbroke. It is
true that their weapons were more effective at the time, because they
were more aristocratic, but for that reason they are outside the stream
of progress. Journalism is necessarily democratic. Bolingbroke with his
_Dissertation on Parties_ and the _Patriot King_ anticipated Disraeli’s
novels and the _Saturday Review_. Swift in his _Drapier’s Letters_ made
one counter-move to the Whig government of his time, which showed that,
if he had sufficiently valued the weapon of an ephemeral pen, there is
no one living or dead, who could have beaten him either in literary
style or in practical effectiveness. After Swift comes Junius, with
his newly-discovered advertisement of anonymity, a long way behind,
a kind of ostentatious but safely sheltered temerity colouring his
natural tendency to seclusion and his disinclination to take the
responsibility of parrying counter-attacks.
Since the time of Junius there has been little literary matter in
the press equally brilliant as well as ferocious. The battles of
journalistic independence were fought more with the special message
and the telegram than with the pen. Cobbett, Joseph Cowen and W. T.
Stead may be held to be the best known names among what may be termed
the aggressive school. Southey, Coleridge, Leigh Hunt, Hazlitt, R. H.
Hutton, Meredith Townsend, W. T. Arnold and Andrew Lang may be quoted
as the best representatives of the academic school. George Borrow,
Lawrence Oliphant, W. E. Henley and G. W. Steevens may better be
described as free lances owing obedience to no tradition. If we may
single out one typical journalist, little known in London, who may
stand forward as the representative writer of the century in England,
just as Alexander Russel was beyond the Tweed, I should name Dr.
Dunckley, at one time editor of the _Manchester Examiner_, who wrote
for the daily press articles which came to take their place as some
of the constitutional documents of this country. Writing under the
name of “Verax” in a series of articles for his own paper, afterwards
republished, he attracted widespread attention and was attacked with
some bitterness in the _Quarterly Review_. Dunckley was at pains to
warn the country against a threatened constitutional experiment similar
to the unfortunate mistake of George III., whereby the direct influence
of the Crown was to be reasserted for the benefit of one party in
the State. He defended himself against the _Quarterly_ with dignity
and effect. “When I began writing I never thought of challenging the
verdict of so wide an audience. In the discharge of a semi-imposed
and pleasant duty I merely wrote for my accustomed readers in these
northern districts. I never dreamed that the country mouse would visit
town. The reviewer says, I appear to pose as a tame Junius! If I had
thought of posing at all, it would have been as Junius rampant. As a
matter of posing one would have been just as easy as the other and of
the two I should have preferred the renowned original. But the reviewer
does me too much honour. I thought no more of Junius than of Tancred or
Mungo Park.”
It is impossible to close this brief review of journalism without some
reflections on that branch of it, which consists not in writing but in
controlling and directing the writing of others. There is more than
a distinction between the two functions, there is to some extent an
opposition. Sheer brilliancy with the pen is not the best quality for
an editor. If he has it, he must be sparing in its use; otherwise he
will write every one else of considerable ability off his own paper and
find himself, like Defoe, having to do alone and unaided everything of
any special importance. That is not a possible position for any one to
take up in a daily newspaper in modern times. A race of editors has
thus grown up, who write hardly at all themselves and pass their lives
as the perpetual directors and critics of others. In this respect our
typical example is undoubtedly Delane, of whom we have fortunately much
published information.
By way of understanding the great step taken by the new tradition of
an editor’s calling established by Delane we may recall Leigh Hunt’s
confessions or views of his editorial work. The Hunts, father and son,
when running the (London) _Examiner_, long since dead, made it a rule
to isolate themselves from the world, to refuse dinner invitations
and all personal intercourse with party leaders. They remained at
home or at the office polishing paragraphs and evolving verses. “I
galloped,” said Leigh Hunt “through my editorial duties, took a world
of superfluous pains in the writing, sat up very late at night and
was a very trying person to compositors and newsmen.” Delane on the
other hand hardly ever took pen in hand, dined out every night in the
season and went back to his house in Serjeant’s Inn, about 5 a.m. only
after he had seen the final proofs of everything which he considered
important. It is said that in his thirty-seven years of editing Delane
saw more sun-rises than any man in London.
In keeping himself as the chief link of his paper with the world and
confining himself at the office only to duties of guidance Delane
remained always the best and finest judge of the course to be taken
at the moment. This is speaking journalistically, because Delane’s
acuteness of judgment as to the psychology of London society was far
from being consonant with the verdict of history or with special gifts
of prophecy. To use Lord Salisbury’s phrase Delane often “put his money
on the wrong horse,” notably in backing up the South against the North
in the American civil war and in expecting an easy win for the French
against the Prussians in 1870.[10]
[10] Although the _Times_ soon saw that the Germans
were gaining the upper hand, Delane originally wrote
to Russell, “I would lay my last shilling on Casquette
against Pumpernickel.”
However that might be there was no revolting in the office against
him. Henry Reeve, a writer on foreign politics in the _Times_ from
1840 to 1855, at one period tried to take an independent line against
the views of his editor and relying upon influential official support
rebelled against various alterations in his articles. He was soon
suppressed and on a repetition of the trouble was encouraged to resign.
Another incident, illustrating quite admirably the skill with which
Delane handled one of the banes of an editor’s life, the foreign
correspondent who lives in his own set abroad and reflects only their
opinions without regard to the views of the paper at home, occurred
before the Crimean war, when events in Constantinople were drawing
Europe’s eyes towards the circle round Lord Stratford de Redcliffe.
In September, 1853, we find Delane writing, rather savagely, to the
_Times_ correspondent there--“The tone, which you have recently taken,
compels me to address you, for it is impossible for you to continue to
be our correspondent if you persist in taking a line so diametrically
opposed to the interests of this country. As it would seem that you
never take the trouble of reading the opinions of the paper with which
you correspond, I must begin by informing you that whatever concern
it may have in the well-being of Turkey, it owes a higher duty to the
people of the United Kingdom, who are willing to support Turkey so
far as they conceive it to be for their interest, but acknowledge no
obligation, either by treaty or by implication, to shed their blood or
spend their money in its behalf. You seem to imagine that England can
desire nothing better than to sacrifice all its greatest interests and
its most cherished objects to support barbarism against civilization,
the Moslem against the Christian, slavery against liberty, to exchange
peace for war--all to oblige the Turk. Pray undeceive yourself.” That
is strong writing, but for all that events a few months later pulled
the way of the correspondent and not of the paper.
An instance of Delane’s forcible common-sense and grasp of essentials
is given in a letter written to Russell at Versailles, pointing out the
right line to be taken in dealing with the victorious but unpopular
Germans. “Now I by no means believe that Bismarck has wings under his
white coat, but I think that those who live in his camp are bound not
to see cloven hoofs in his boots and there has been a tendency in all
the correspondents to make such a discovery lately, to exaggerate the
dangers of a position, which has no doubt been critical and to welcome
any news, however false, of French success. Under such circumstances
and remembering that the Germans have been sorely disappointed in the
resistance of Paris and are suffering greatly and not so much at ease
as to their prospects as before, I am by no means surprised that they
should be sulky and should regard all correspondents with disfavour and
should make you, as the representative of the whole body, the butt of
their ill-humour.”
When we come to war correspondence, we touch upon what many people
regard as the culminating romance of journalism. To us, who are inside
the circle, it does not always appear in the same light. There are
greater triumphs than securing the first news of a battle but none
whose results are so immediate. For the correspondent himself the
situation is dangerous without romance, responsible often with little
credit. His chief enemies are dirt, ill-humour and neglect. He has
the rough edge of most tempers and must professionally regard with
suspicion any advances that may appear too friendly. Men whose business
is killing and who are paid to be killed cannot be _aux petits soins_
with a profession generally looked upon in military circles, as an
evil, which only the vehement and detestable curiosity of the public
now makes necessary, which they hope some day to make harmless by
isolation if it cannot be abolished altogether. Yet these are only the
preliminary difficulties. Mr. J. B. Atkins in his life of W. H. Russell
(afterwards Sir William), himself a war-correspondent, who has gone
through several wars, remarks that Russell with all his experience
did not cease to be troubled by the overwhelming question, which will
always perplex correspondents, as to the best position from which to
see a battle. It is a question which becomes increasingly difficult as
the range of fire increases. “To-day,” says Mr. Atkins, “no man, who
applies himself to get what people call a ‘realistic’ impression of
fighting can hope to have an accurate or even a coherent idea of the
tactical handling of troops along a wide front. In modern warfare the
employment of many correspondents is necessary to enable a newspaper to
produce a connected account of a single battle. The only correspondent
who can acquaint himself with the general issue, is he who stays in
the rear, where the field telegraph and telephone wires converge upon
headquarters.”
“Billy” Russell, as he was familiarly called, had a varied and
successful career, which will probably never be equalled, now that
the future of the profession must become a more composite one. He saw
the Danish campaign of 1850, the Crimean war, the Indian Mutiny, the
famous rout at Bull Run, the battles of Sadowa and Sedan besides many
minor conflicts and the siege of Paris. He lived to predict to a friend
during “Black Week” in 1899 that, even as in the American war the early
reverses of the North only acted upon the Transatlantic branch of the
race as reverses have always acted upon this, to encourage them to more
persistent sacrifices, so the Boers must be ultimately worn out by
attrition as had happened to the forces of the South.
Russell’s achievements in the Crimean war have passed into history. We
can see now that the greatness of his success was due to the apparent
obstacles, which were placed in his way by ignorance, contempt and
deliberate repression. Such discouragements are an incentive to a man
of courage and perseverance and especially so to an Irishman. The fact
that Russell was everywhere cold-shouldered, left without rations or
quarters, excluded from all important information and even at one
time expelled from the shelter he had procured for himself, rendered
him free from those embarrassing obligations which accompany favours
conferred and left him a stark spectator of one of the greatest
tragedies of inept military administration. A smaller man might have
been embittered and goaded to retaliatory criticism, but Russell
was above this weakness. The weapon he used, as few have had the
opportunity to use it, was the terrible one of the mere truth, what
Lord Morley has called, “the irony of literal statement.” It was used
effectively and brought down the government at home and altered the
conduct of the war.
One can understand how the old generals trained in Peninsular
principles, were quite unaware of the new power that had grown up to
overshadow ministers and even to give lessons to the Crown. It is more
surprising that Russell, who had been a journalist for a dozen years,
should himself be quite unconscious of all the attributes, with which
he was invested. He knew that his position was an independent and
responsible one but the realization of how much influence he had on the
future of the men, who helped or bullied him daily, only came to him
later. In his own words, “I did not then grasp the fact that I had it
in my power to give a halo of glory to some unknown warrior by putting
his name in type. Indeed, for many a month I never understood that
particular attribute of my unfortunate position, and I may say now in
all sincerity and truth, I never knowingly made use of it.”
The same qualities of unbending resistance to all the arts of
browbeating were required by Russell in his American campaign. Here he
had to face not only the unpopularity honestly earned by himself for
his unvarnished tale of the panic of the Federals after the battle of
Bull Run--unfortunately for himself he never saw the whole battle--but
he had to bear by proxy the natural resentment of a whole nation to
the line of policy pursued by the _Times_. For this he was in no way
responsible; in fact he would have altered it if he could, for ever
since his visit to the South before the outbreak of war he could never
forgive what he saw of the grosser aspects of slavery.
Russell’s correspondence during the Franco-Prussian war is interesting
because we find him competing for the first time on equal terms with
a new star and a new method. The successes of each were honourable
to both, as, although frequently beaten at first through the lavish
use of the telegraph by Archibald Forbes and the _Daily News_, he
regained his ascendency in the end by the advantages of his old
prestige and his command of the best information. This new star was
to some extent a star of his own making for it was at one of Russell’s
lectures on his campaigns that Forbes’s heart took fire with military
zeal and drove him into the dragoons and later to become a journalist
and his inspirer’s successful rival. In the early part of the war
Forbes’s repeated anticipations of the _Times_ became the cause of
much heartburning in Printing House Square and Russell for years did
not understand how he was beaten. Many years later Forbes wrote him
a friendly letter explaining his method, which relied a good deal on
chance, perhaps more so than the _Times_ would have permitted. Being
attached to the staff of the Crown Prince of Saxony, where discipline
was less strict than with the Prussians, Forbes would transmit
beforehand information of the proposed attack, of the number, calibre,
and position of the guns and of various details of the coming clockwork
battle. As the Germans were usually successful in their combination
Forbes had only to wire a brief confirmation or alteration in order to
have a very fairly accurate account appearing in his paper. One can
imagine, however, that a correspondent reporting Marengo or Waterloo in
that fashion would get into trouble with his manager.
There is one story of Forbes’s personal vicissitudes in the Commune,
which must stand on the summit of all the hairbreadth dangers of
a correspondent. On a morning when the Versaillais troops were
fighting their way into Paris and breaking down the barricades of the
Communards, Forbes, who was safely behind the line of the civilized
combatants in one street, happening to cross along a side street into
a parallel main boulevard, found himself to his dismay behind one of
the untaken barricades. The rush of the assailants was about to take
place. The Communard officer saw Forbes, seized him before he could
retreat and ordered him into the firing line. In vain Forbes protested
his nationality. At that time and place they were of no moment and
as he refused to use the chassepot, which was put into his hand, he
was put up against the wall to be shot. At that instant the regular
troops carried the barricade, seized the much bewildered Forbes with
the weapon in his hands and put him again in his old place to be shot
as a combatant. Forbes’s protests were very nearly set aside but it
occurred to the officer in charge to ask to see his hands, because the
chassepot always threw back a spit of black powder on the hand from the
breech for every shot that was fired. Forbes’s hands were clean, so he
was free; but, if he had fired one shot to save his life on the first
occasion, he would have lost it on the second.
To conclude this halting review of groups of journalists, we must
not omit to mention the occasional writer who may have fleeting and
simultaneous fidelities to many journals. Of this type, not to mention
living names, Andrew Lang was the best known British representative,
a cultivated gentleman with a touch of the academician and of the
spiritualist in his composition. But the type does not flourish in
England, where personal and continued attachment to an organ is a rest
for the wits and a prophylactic against bailiffs. On the Continent
also it is almost never a permanent career. The successful journalist
passes on to the drama, or to politics, or to finance. In America the
best opportunity is offered for his talents through the medium of the
syndicated press. Immense sums are paid to ready pens, who have the
knack of appealing to a wide range of tastes, such as no single journal
can offer, however rich it may be. These popular heroes are of all
kinds; some, men of genius. I may mention Mr. Dunne, the well-known
writer of the Dooley articles, publicist and wit, equally at home with
English life, politics and manners as with the failures of his own
government and the successes of his own politicians. He has a colleague
on his peculiar platform of general satirist, less well-known but not
less witty; if not so genial, yet more trenchant. Mr. George Ade has
limited the circle of the appreciators of his brilliancy by writing in
what is perpetually a new language, American slang. Those, who can leap
over the bars of an unapproachable faculty of _fin de siècle_ language
laden with some bitterness and inveterate criticism, will recognize in
him the keenest intellect, that has been engaged in journalism since
Swift. He deals with things familiar in his own country and sometimes
met in ours; the blue-stocking, who had an intellect, which made a
noise like a dynamo; the negro head-waiter with a corporation and a
dress-suit, that fit him too soon; the father of a family, trying to
raise three children with one hand and a mortgage with the other; or
the young commercial gentleman, who in his own line of conversation was
as neat and easy-running as a red buggy, but when any one talked about
Chopin and Beethoven would sit back so quiet, that often he got numb
below the hips. It is a pity that the barrier of language shuts him off
from most of us.
On the other hand there are some things of the same intention, that
we do not miss much. Probably about the largest circle of readers
in the world, some 10,000,000 a day, is reached at this moment by a
journalist familiarly known in the Middle West as “Uncle Walt,” whose
speciality is “lineless rhymes,” of which the following is a specimen:
“Charles the First, with stately walk, made the journey to the block.
As he paced the street along, silence fell upon the throng; from that
throng there burst a sigh, for a king was come to die! Charles upon the
scaffold stood, in his veins no craven blood; calm, serene, he viewed
the crowd, while the headsman said, aloud: ‘Cheer up, Charlie! Smile
and sing! Death’s a most delightful thing! I will cure your hacking
cough, when I chop your headpiece off! Headache, toothache--they’re
a bore! You will never have them more! Cheer up, Charlie, dance and
yell! Here’s the axe, and all is well! I, though but a humble dub,
represent the Sunshine Club, and our motto is worth while: “Do not
worry--Sing and Smile!” Therefore let us both be gay, as we do our
stunt to-day; I to swing the shining axe, you to take a few swift
whacks. Lumpty-doodle, lumpty-ding, do not worry, smile and sing!’”
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Strictly speaking there can be no bibliography of such a subject as
“newspapers.” There have been occasional works on journalism, but after
a few years they become out of date and useless. For the history of
newspapers in general, with a slight sketch of the foreign press the
article in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ on “Newspapers,” gives the
facts admirably in small compass. The same may be said of an article on
“Advertising” in _Chambers’ Encyclopædia_. On the press for pressmen I
only know of one good book, Mr. Given’s, _The Making of a Newspaper_.
On English journalism and the gossip of the calling a very full book is
Mr. T. H. S. Escott’s _Masters of Journalism_, but it is not guiltless
of inaccuracies. The best supply of valuable material on this subject
is undoubtedly contained in various biographies, such as those of
Defoe, Swift, etc., and in modern times the _Life of Delane_, by Sir
George Dasent; the _Life of Sir W. H. Russell_ by Mr. J. B. Atkins,
very good with often a better glimpse of Delane than in the official
life; the _Life of E. Godkin_ by Mr. R. Ogden. Memoirs are useful
but not so reliable; such as the _Memoirs of Horace Greeley_, of _De
Blowitz_, and the highly-coloured _Memoirs of Henri Rochefort_. The
published works of Russell, Archibald Forbes and G. W. Steevens have
very considerable value in this connection. I may conclude with one
or two recent novels on journalistic life, which throw a good deal of
side light on the subject; _A Hind let Loose_ by C. E. Montague; the
_Street of Adventure_ by Philip Gibbs; _Mightier than the Sword_ by
Alphonse Courlander; _The Way of the World_ by Mr. D. C. Murray; and
_When a Man’s Young_ by Mr. J. M. Barrie. Mr. Rudyard Kipling and Sir
Conan Doyle have written some good journalistic stories, chiefly about
war correspondence. An excellent history of printing appeared in the
_Times_ Supplement of Sept. 10, 1912.
In this connection I must render a special tribute to the merits of
the technical organ of the English press, the _Newspaper Owner_, which
furnishes a vast amount of special information, for those who know how
to use it. It is owned and edited by Mr. Charles Baker, and for much of
the information on current topics, which has appeared in these former
pages, I am indebted to his columns.
INDEX
Addison, J., 164
Ade, 250
Advertising, 115-131
Anonymity, 102-4
_Answers_, 200
_Associated Press_, 75
Atkins, J. B., 243
Autoplate machine, 149
“Beats,” 54-7, 67
_Birmingham Daily Post_, 209
Bismarck, 228-9
_British Weekly_, 191
Cæsar, Julius, 227
Cobbett, 166, 195, 236
Composition, 141-3
_Daily Chronicle_, 54, 69, 135, 176-7
_Daily Courant_, 163
_Daily Express_, 69, 182, 202
_Daily Mail_, 69, 134, 135, 151, 180-2, 202
_Daily Mirror_, 186, 202
_Daily News_, 69, 135, 177-9, 246
_Daily Telegraph_, 54, 68, 124, 173
De Blowitz, 68, 172
Defoe, 163, 230-3
Delane, 169, 170, 172, 238-242
Demand and supply, 118
Dunckley, 236-7
Dunne, 249
_Field_, 189
Forbes, 247-8
Foreign Correspondence, 65-9
“Fudge,” 83, 211
_Glasgow Herald_, 212
_Guardian_, 192
Hunt, Leigh, 238
Inking apparatus, 155
Interviewing, 62
_Irish Times_, 211
Junius, 165, 235
_Lancet_, 194-6
Lang, Andrew, 236, 249
Libels, 57-58, 171
Linotype machine, 142
_Liverpool Daily Post_, 210
_Lloyd’s Weekly News_, 199
_Manchester Evening News_, 211
_Manchester Guardian_, 55, 78, 101, 133, 135, 207-9
Marquis of Salisbury, 190
Morley, Lord, 183, 245
_Morning Post_, 68, 124, 175, 176
_Nation_, 190
_New York American_, 55, 221
_New York Evening Post_, 223-4
_New York Herald_, 54, 129, 221-2
_New York Sun_, 31, 67, 77, 223
_New York Times_, 55, 223
_New York Tribune_, 223
_New York World_, 52, 77, 221
_News of the World_, 199
_Pall Mall Gazette_, 183
_Pearson’s Weekly_, 201
_Press Association_, 75-9
Press, American, 26-48, 90, 221-5
” Australian, 214
” Austrian, 219
” Canadian, 214
” French, 91, 216-8
” German, 93-5, 130, 219-221
” Illustrated, 187
” Indian, 215
” Italian, 91, 218
” London, 173-203
” Labour, 185
” Provincial, 205-214
” South African, 215
” Technical, 196-7
” Woman’s, 203
” History of British, 163-185
” Revolution in British, 201-2
Printing-press, 147-154
Prysse MSS, 227
Publication, 158-161
_Punch_, 198
_Reuter’s_, 75, 79
_Review_, 163
Rochefort, 218, 234
Russell, Sir William, 57, 101, 170, 243-7
_Saturday Review_, 190
_Scotsman_, 205-6
_Spectator_, 164, 198
_Standard_, 174, 183
Steele, 164
Stereotyping, 145-7
_Sunday Chronicle_, 199
Swift, 164, 235
_Tablet_, 192
Taylor, John Edward, 78, 100, 208
Telegraphs, 65-7
Telephones, 138
_Times_, 57, 65, 67, 68, 99, 107, 166-173, 240, 246-7
_Tit-bits_, 200-1
Tubular plate press, 153
Walter I., John, 167, 173, 181
” II., John, 101, 168-9
” A. F., 170
War Correspondence, 69-71, 243-8
_War Cry_, 193
_Westminster Gazette_, 184, 202
Weeklies, Literary, 189-191
” General, 198-201
” Religious, 191-3
_Yorkshire Post_, 209
THE LONDON AND NORWICH PRESS, LIMITED LONDON AND NORWICH
Transcriber’s Note:
The cover was created by the transcriber using elements from the
original publication.
Punctuation has been standardised; hyphenation and spelling variations
retained as published in the original publication except as follows:
Page 137
after the Titantic disaster _changed to_
after the Titanic disaster
Page 187
are the pioneer of this class _changed to_
are the pioneers of this class
Page 226
CHAPTER IX JOURNALISM AND JOURNALISTS_changed to_
CHAPTER X JOURNALISM AND JOURNALISTS
Page 244
those embarassing obligations _changed to_
those embarrassing obligations