NEWSPAPER INFLUENCE--WAYS OF PERSUADING THE PUBLIC--SERVICE TO THE
GOVERNMENT
The editor of experience appreciates that in attempting to influence
the public he is addressing many men of many minds. An argument
intended to convince a scholar or a well informed man would be lost
on an ignorant man, while an appeal written down to the understanding
of the ignorant man must provoke mirth from the wise. Nevertheless,
all persons frequently are influenced by mere suggestion, especially
when they have not studied the subject. Frequently they may reverse
a judgment on a mere hint in a newspaper. Not all men have time, in
these busy days, to think out the problems of the hour, have not
the facilities at hand for research, haven’t been taught to think.
Intelligent thinking is a result of education--the education that
teaches to think. Mental improvement is the result of thought. Progress
comes from mental application. What we call “experience” is the result
of constant thought in one direction or toward a single purpose.
Lincoln was fourfold the man in 1865 that he was in 1860. Any observer
could see Woodrow Wilson leap forward in mental strength from the
instant of his appearance in public life.
The editor literally thinks for his readers. He acquires a habit of
thought not cultivated or sought or possessed by his readers. He is
trained to a mental analysis of the causes of great events, to an
expert understanding of their present importance, to a clear insight
into their future influence. If he has studied, he knows the great
influences that for centuries have governed human conduct.
In the big cities the editor knows the quality of mind he is addressing
better than does the writer in smaller communities. In New York, for
instance, every sheet has a different sort of clientele. Everybody
knows which newspaper, by reason of its scholarly editorial articles,
its criticisms, its reviews and non-sensational news appeals to the
highest intelligence. And every one knows the ones that appeal to the
non-thinking public.
But in smaller towns the newspaper goes to the wise and the unwise
alike. The task of pleasing everybody requires study, and here
editorial writing becomes an art, indeed. The scholar may sneer at
the article that pleases the man of toil and both may despise the
suggestion that convinces the man of medium intelligence.
The editor of scholarly instincts naturally wants to please the highest
intelligence among his readers; but the readers who really think in
a scholarly way are few. The great proportion of readers care little
for so-called polite literature, neither do they care for profound
instruction. They want the simpler sort of editorial comment and are
better pleased with that which explains than with that which argues.
They want their news adorned with breath-catching headlines in big type.
In the large cities many professional and business men read several
daily newspapers, but their number is small compared with the millions
who read one paper only. In smaller cities and in the villages and on
the farms it is quite the exception when more than one daily newspaper
enters the household. In very many instances this one sheet is all
the reading matter the members of the household have. Their entire
conception of public affairs is had from this publication. It is quite
impossible to suppose that they are not influenced by it. They let the
editor think for them and they accept his conclusions.
It has been argued, with much reason, that the newspaper is
indispensable to a republican or representative form of government
embracing vast territory, like our own. Even the founders of this
nation did not anticipate that the government could extend its
jurisdiction far beyond the Alleghenies, much less to the Pacific
coast. The plea for states rights was founded on the belief that it
must be impossible to bring so large an area as the original thirteen
states under a single form of government. Without the telegraph,
without railroads, in the early history of the American nation there
was no way of keeping the mass of the people in close touch with the
government, of supplying quick information on current events without
which the people are incapable of forming correct opinions. To-day, the
newspapers, with their simultaneous publication all over the continent,
their fast printing and quick delivery, keep all the people instantly
informed. They are able immediately to reflect public opinion, thus
making themselves indispensable to the government. Vast though our
distances may be, we have the healthiest kind of public spirit and
response. The sentiment of the nation is at the government’s disposal
in a jiffy.
This was strikingly illustrated after one of President Wilson’s
intimations to Germany that unconditional surrender must be a
condition of armistice. The same edition of a New York newspaper that
contained the President’s declaration also contained comments on that
declaration made by more than two hundred different publications from
Maine to California, and every one of them insisted on “unconditional
surrender.” The President knew instantly that the people were with him.
For very many years it has been the practice of governments (and
yet more persistently the practice of political leaders) to put out
“feelers” through the press. A new policy, a questionable nomination,
a new plan of taxation, may be contemplated. The government seeks to
“feel the pulse of the people” on its desirability. Hints are given to
the correspondents that the policy or the plan has been suggested and
is under consideration and the correspondents pass it along to their
newspapers, well fortified with those stale old prefixes, “it is said
that” or “rumor has it that” or “a person high in authority who does
not wish to be quoted hints that”--and so on--giving an outline of the
proposed action.
This is followed by another “feeler” passing out a little more
information saddled on some other mysterious persons. On any
important question the public flashes a quick response. The proposal
in Washington, for instance, to double the tax on theater tickets
and admissions to places of amusement drew a howl of disapproval
that defeated the plan. The people didn’t want their pleasures taxed
additionally.
The government or the political party that deliberately defies public
sentiment as expressed in the newspapers is put out of business usually
at the following election.
Throughout the World War the newspapers were of the utmost usefulness
to the government. They stood between the government and the people.
They made and reflected public sentiment as never before. Government
announcements were read in every city in the nation and in most of the
villages within six hours of their release. The government spoke to the
people in almost instantaneous speech.
The newspapers urged and sustained and stimulated the bond sales,
the thrift stamp drives, the activities of the Young Men’s Christian
Association, and like organizations, the merciful ministrations of the
Red Cross, the vast collection of money for the relief of stricken
peoples, the food campaigns, the conservation of heat and light and
a host of other material things. It would require pages of print to
tell the half of it. It would require hours of constant thought to
appreciate it. Recall, if you will, what your own favorite paper did,
and then be assured that thousands of other daily sheets did the same
thing!
Newspaper influence had perhaps its finest recognition in the various
propaganda of the war. All governments used the press lavishly with
intent to guide, to conceal, to accomplish. They “felt the pulse of the
people” constantly and subtly. Proposed policies were tested out. Often
they were suggested to direct attention from the real policy or to take
the sting from it.
The French press under the immediate inspiration and control of the
government held the people in compact unity. It stimulated the morale
and intensified the purpose of the soldiers, for it was possible
to strew the trenches with newspapers within two hours after they
were printed. This was of inestimable patriotic service. Not any
other government used the newspapers with such skill or with greater
beneficial results.
Newspaper influence was sought in the process of the censorship. The
object of censorship was not alone to prevent information from reaching
the enemy but also to influence public opinion. All warring nations
seek the good opinion of the neutrals--seek to have neutral nations
convinced of the ultimate success of their armies--hence the impulse
to suppress the news of defeat and to exalt victory. Early in the war
this was the pronounced attitude of Germany and Great Britain toward
America, much to the annoyance of the American newspapers.
Germany’s efforts to influence the American public through our
newspapers were so constant, so vociferous, so transparent, that
everybody recognized the purpose. Yet she continued to spend great sums
of money on propaganda to the very end of the war. Germany worked the
press of every country. It was a part of her war plan just as much as
was the making of bullets or asphyxiating gas. It was thought out and
arranged for and practiced before the war broke. It was depended on to
create sympathy and to establish justification; and it was exceedingly
efficacious in the early periods and influenced greatly to postpone our
entrance into the conflict.
Despite the censorship the war was very well reported by American
newspapers. Our journals were read with an interest approaching to
anxiety, and the public came to believe that the news was truthfully
presented. News reading was raised to a high plane of importance. The
war gave the public greater confidence in the newspapers.
In olden times, despotic times, in Greece and Italy let us say, before
newspapers existed, the people gathered in public places to listen to
government proclamations and whatever news the rulers were pleased to
give out. The information was proclaimed by heralds or was placarded
on market walls. The usual policy was to keep the people in ignorance
of what was going on. No public opinion existed, for the public had no
information on which to form conclusions. Many governments prevented
gatherings of the people knowing the power of the people to create
sentiment and rebellion. Not for weeks or months did remote regions get
important news that the government wished to conceal. No means of quick
communication existed. The concealment of news and the suppression of
public sentiment helped to strengthen despotic government. The rulers
might circulate false news as well as the truth, and frequently did so.
Our present-day censorship is an hereditary relic of this ancient-day
concealment.
The newspaper’s greatest influence is not in persuading persons who
have learned to think for themselves. It is exercised on that great
mass of our population that has no other source of information than the
newspapers. In thousands of families not more than two or three books
are purchased in an entire year, and these are likely to be books of
fiction. Yet few families are without a daily newspaper. Usually one
paper only is taken, and how could it happen otherwise than that the
household should come to the editor’s way of thinking when no other
thought than his comes to their attention? This condition applies to
people in moderate circumstances, employees, helpers, those who live
by physical toil or who do the simplest kind of clerical work. These
people are easily influenced because they have not been trained to
think or analyze for themselves. They depend on the newspaper for
information, explanation, suggestion. They have little inclination or
time to study with diligence the great questions of the day and have
few or no facilities for doing so in any event. They are not interested
in profound argument but they accept conclusions readily. If the editor
be wise he will seek to know what proportion of his readers are of this
type.
The average newspaper reader does not think overmuch of what he is
reading but he is highly receptive. His conclusion is likely to be
affirmative. It is his nature to believe rather than to distrust. He
is easily led by artful groupings of fact, rather more easily led
thus than by argument requiring much thought. There is not time in
these strenuous days for the old-fashioned kind of thinking. Quick
conclusions are the vogue and they are not the result of profound
thought. Rather are they the result of hasty thought. This is attested
by the rush from one party to another by the so-called independent
voter, or the sudden dethronement of a public idol, or the restoration
of a discarded hero to public popularity.
These quick changes in public sentiment have enlivened the history of
all times. The poet Byron, in the beginning of his literary career,
was praised by men and petted by women until the entire British nation
was chanting adorations. Then, with the suddenness of a whirlwind,
it turned against him and with furious persecution drove him into
exile. The American hero of Manila Bay was escorted up Broadway by
shouting thousands of admirers. Within a year he was no longer a hero.
We resisted woman suffrage for scores of years and suddenly accepted
it. This nation drank rum from its earliest beginnings and then with
comparative suddenness changed the practice of centuries by declaring
for prohibition.
The newspaper’s unconscious influence over the casual reader must be
recognized. It is an instructive influence, usually, of wide scope,
covering a multitude of topics that do not come to the reader’s
attention in any other way than through the newspapers. Information
does not get into the magazines or books until weeks or months after
the event but the newspapers print it on the instant. The casual
newspaper reader, for instance, reads that the new Roentgen ray has
been discovered, by means of which the interior of an ordinarily opaque
substance may be disclosed in photograph. He reads enough to establish
that fact, but as soon as the description begins to become technical
the casual reader abandons the article. Nevertheless he has absorbed
the fact and a crude notion of the discovery and has added just so much
to his fund of information. He may study it out if he chooses.
Again, there is no other quick source of information on new
developments in politics, in finance, in the fluctuations of the
commercial market prices.
Almost all of us feel that we must know about the artists, the singers,
the actors, and we love to talk about them, yet what we say we almost
surely have read in some newspaper. You get an intelligent idea at
your breakfast table of the new opera that did not end until midnight,
of the new play produced on the night preceding, of the speeches and
the spirit of the banquet that did not end until after you were in
sleep, of the conflagration that destroyed some well-known building
during the night, of the railroad accident that destroyed scores of
lives. And these are the things that you talk about during the day.
They unconsciously influence your thoughts and your actions even when
read casually.
The busy man is rather easily led along or into the editor’s way of
thinking especially when the topic is new to him. He is not a trained
or analytical thinker at best, hasn’t time to reflect much on the
subject, cannot invent a new line of thought in opposition to the
editor’s because of unfamiliarity with the subject, has no quick way
of getting additional information. Maybe he instinctively balks at the
editorial conclusion, but probably the editor is right, he reasons, and
he passes to something more interesting.
The next article may be a continuation of comment on a subject
written about two days before. It becomes a bit more familiar. He
half recognizes the argument. He half accepts it now as his own, has
“thought of that before,” so he approves. Reiteration has influenced
him; a third presentation clinches him. Reiteration is a most subtle
means of influencing public opinion. The man who reads the same thought
a few times in different diction comes to accept it as his own thought.
It is an unconscious influence.
It is little consolation to the editor that his articles are hastily
read; so much the more reason, on the contrary, for making them
striking and for making their meaning the more easily understood.
People like to see their own beliefs reflected in their newspaper;
regard the editorial utterance as a confirmation of it; welcome a new
argument in its favor; like to read it to a neighbor; come to look on
the sheet as a personal champion.
All newspapers have great influence one way or another. They reach
the people to an extent not reached by any other influence, for
everybody of any account reads them. Consider for a moment. Rarely
does a clergyman find himself addressing a congregation of more than
five hundred persons; rarely, indeed, does the public lecturer speak
to a thousand persons; and seldom, in the heat of a campaign, does
the political orator find five thousand persons within the reach of
his voice. Yet a little editorial paragraph, placed conspicuously on
the editorial page of the New York _Times_, will be read by more than
six hundred thousand persons. A million and a half newspapers are
printed in New York city every morning, and nearly two millions every
afternoon, not counting those printed in other languages than the
English language of which there are nearly a million more. About the
same proportion of newspapers to population prevails throughout the
chief cities of the United States.
“I never read the editorials” we all have heard many a newspaper reader
say. “I simply scan the editorials,” we hear others remark. Almost all
editorial articles are hastily read, and so is the entire sheet for
that matter. You have only to watch the process to be convinced. The
busy man opens his newspaper to the editorial page as he would open a
book, holds it open and high, one page grasped by the left hand and
the other by the right. He scans the leading article, reads the first
two or three sentences and if attention is not instantly attracted
flashes his eye down to the beginning of the next paragraph, and so
on. The greater the number of paragraphs in the article the more quick
attention it gets. The sensational sheet editors know this and they
make many paragraphs in every article.
The profound heavy articles with three or four paragraphs only to the
column get scant attention except from readers especially interested
in the topic. They are looked at for an instant only. In that instant
the reader decides whether he is interested in the topic. Usually he
is not. His eye skims along to the next article with same result. Then
he may encounter something that he wants to know more about. But it is
half a column long. “I’ll read it when I get time,” he says to himself,
as his eye jumps over to the opposite page--a news page--and he begins
to absorb the headlines. These he treats in the same hasty manner and
in about three minutes he has finished the two pages and has turned
over to the next two.
He reads all in the same way. He may pause over a particular article
but usually the reading is of short duration. He has absorbed perhaps
the spirit of the headings and maybe the few lines of introduction to
the articles that have had his attention. He is ready with an opinion,
but that opinion is the opinion of the man who wrote the caption or the
introduction. The hasty reader has given the subject not the slightest
original thought. Nevertheless he is influenced by it. It is recognized
that almost everything we read has its direct or its unconscious
influence.
Very many busy men confine their morning newspaper reading to the
breakfast table, others “get through” their newspaper while on their
way to business. Very little newspaper reading has their attention
after reaching the office. Evening newspapers are read more thoroughly.
There is more time after dinner. The comfortable chair, the shaded
lamp, the family near to join in the comment--all help to make the
reading more enjoyable. But even then the average reader does not read
with intent attention.
It is incontestably true that the great mass of the people who read the
newspapers in this hasty glancing fashion do not think deeply. This
mental attitude has had the attention of observers for many years.
Hawthorne speaks of “the wild babble of the town--indicating a low
tone of feeling and shallow thought.” Macaulay said of Tillotson: “His
reasoning was just sufficiently profound and sufficiently refined to be
followed by a popular audience with that slight degree of intellectual
exertion which is a pleasure.” Lafcadio Hearn speaks of the masses as
people of uncultured taste to whom the higher zones of emotion are out
of reach. Dr. Samuel Johnson remarked: “The greatest part of mankind
have no other reason for their opinions than that they are in fashion.”
And one of the conspicuous British essayists commented: “It serves to
show in what a slovenly way most people are content to think.”
Henry Ward Beecher ever was impressed with the influence of newspapers.
He said:
Do you ever stop to think that millions have no literature, no
school and almost no pulpit but the press? Not one man in ten
reads books, but every one of us, except the very helpless poor,
satiates himself every day with the newspaper. It is the parent,
school, college, theatre, pulpit, example, counsellor, all in
one. Every drop in our blood is colored by it.
Some one has said of newspaper influence: “Let me write the headlines
and you may write the rest,” which was another way of saying:
“Let me handle the news and you may write the editorial articles,
the criticisms and the other things, and I will have the greater
influence.” It always has been a debatable question.
Northcliffe, the conspicuous figure in journalism during the great war,
has said:
It is true that an intelligently conducted newspaper can inform
and guide public opinion but this is done more through publishing
the news than by the dictum of the editorial. “Ye shall know the
truth and the truth shall make you free” must be the underlying
principle of journalism in a democracy.
In an appeal to editors to help spread the war spirit, a writer in
the Columbia University War Papers wrote:
Editorials, repeated editorials, are both desirable and
necessary. But to one reader who is influenced by a given
editorial many hundreds are influenced day by day by the
headlines of the paper and by the wording and form of
presentation of the news. It is therefore to a considered
and continuous policy of news presentation that we must look
primarily for help.
Of newspaper influence Arthur Brisbane has said:
There never was a corrupt official who could hear without dread
the growling of a hundred thousand human voices outside his door.
There does not live a corrupt official, however hardened, who
hears without alarm the opinions of a million men voiced through
a newspaper which they trust.
Thackeray’s famous paragraph with reference to newspaper activities
is often quoted as illustrating the power of the press through her
writers. Pendennis and Warrington are passing a brilliantly lighted
newspaper building. Reporters were coming out or were dashing up in
cabs, and Warrington says:
Look at that, Pen. There she is--the great engine, she never
sleeps. She has ambassadors in every quarter of the world--her
couriers upon every road. Her officers march along with armies
and her envoys walk into statesmen’s cabinets. They are
ubiquitous. Yonder journal has an agent at this minute giving
bribes in Madrid; and another inspecting the price of potatoes
at Covent Garden. Look, here comes the foreign express galloping
in. They will be able to give news to Downing street tomorrow;
funds will rise or fall, fortunes be made or lost; Lord B will
get up, and holding the paper in his hand and seeing the noble
Marquis in his place, will make a great speech; and Mr. Doolan
will be called away from his supper at the back kitchen; for he
is sub-editor and sees the mail on the newspaper sheet before he
goes to his own.
It may be said of present-day news column influence that never have the
news columns been so free from personal feeling, so fair to foe. The
public has never had greater confidence in them. Almost all editors are
honest in desire to print both sides of an important controversy. They
have come to know it is best policy. The speeches of rival partisans,
their communications, their activities, have well-nigh as conspicuous
places in the sheet as do the utterances of their own champions. This
helps to aid unbiased conclusion.
Public questions never have had such elaborate publicity as in recent
years, never have been so intelligently understood; and public
sentiment has not hitherto been so active or so influential.
Indeed, the spirit of independent fairness has become so acute that
not infrequently the small minority gets a prominence that it does not
deserve, with resulting danger that its activities may be mistaken for
genuine public sentiment.
This spirit of fairness does not exist of course in all publications,
but almost all newspapers are honest in their news columns. The sheets
that deliberately falsify become fewer every year. The influence of the
news columns has increased vastly.
For individual power and influence Lord Northcliffe stood supreme
among editors. His personal triumphs during the war were decisive and
far reaching. He destroyed one British cabinet and built another.
He forced the reorganization of departments. He compelled changes
of military policy and action and he flabbergasted pretty nearly
everybody who opposed. One of his distinguished opponents lamented
that Northcliffe was the most powerful man in England’s affairs since
Cromwell.
His editorial voice reached all kinds of people through the score or
more of daily, weekly, and monthly publications owned or controlled by
him all over the British empire. He owned the _Times_ that for more
than one hundred years had endeared itself to the British well-to-do
and upper classes for its trustworthy news reports, its superior
editorial comment and its fearless political criticism. He owned the
_Evening Mail_ that scattered a million copies daily among the common
people. He talked every day to millions of people, who, while not
thinking profoundly were willing to be led by intellectual excellence.
Northcliffe’s methods were of entrancing interest to those who observe
and study newspaper influence. He admits that in the beginning he was
fascinated by the American sensational press, by its ways of doing
things, by the enormous circulations of some of our editions. Nothing
of the sort existed in England twenty years ago and Northcliffe was
the first to introduce American methods there. He visited us more than
once to study our lurid journalism. He took several American newspaper
men to help him in London. He was impressed with Mr. Pulitzer’s thought
that our newspapers were too high toned, were written over the heads
of the masses; that the masses were ignorant of what was going on
because they could not understand the newspapers, and that a sheet
written in simple language and sold for a cent must be popular. He
would bring his sheet down to the comprehension of any man who could
read.
Northcliffe added acute sensationalism to this general plan, and his
daily newspapers in London, Manchester, Leeds, Glasgow, and elsewhere
jumped to big circulations. He did not much disturb the conservative
news policy of the _Times_, but its editorial page became livid. Of him
it was said:
Sensationalism is his gospel. Every day must have its thrill;
every paragraph must be an electric shock. Politics are nothing;
parties are nothing; principles are nothing; all that matters
is that the great public shall be kept humming with excitement.
He believes that power and political influence are in the hands
of the multitude and that the newspaper having the ear of the
multitude will control the tides of national thought.
Northcliffe’s unprecedented attacks on the Asquith government made
the world gasp. Friends of the cabinet and some newspapers urged
the suspension of his publications and his arrest for treason. His
attacks continued. The government did not notice them. His unlicensed
freedom of opinion was permitted. The idiocy of the Gallipoli
campaign was exposed. The punishment of its authors was demanded. The
inefficiency of the munitions department was made a public scandal
and reorganization was compelled. Northcliffe insisted on a small
war cabinet and on many other changes. Asquith’s indecision and
exasperating deliberation, at the moment when quick thought and quick
deeds were vital, filled Northcliffe with rage. The Asquith ministry
fell and Northcliffe named the succession. The world has rarely seen
such an exhibition of newspaper power.
The editor’s enemies endeavored to minimize the incident. They
contended that Asquith’s fall was inevitable after the failure of the
British advance on the Somme and the disaster in Roumania; that it was
another instance of Northcliffe’s newspaper smartness in anticipating
a coming event, urging its enactment and then taking credit for
compelling it.
This, I am sorry to say, is a venerable editorial device for making
newspaper reputation--learn what is contemplated by the government
or some one else and then start in the newspaper a raging demand
for it and when the end is accomplished take all the credit for it.
Northcliffe was an adept at this sort of thing. Indeed his enemies
accused him of giving the impression of forcing the government against
its will. Be that as it may, he was easily the commanding figure in the
journalism of the world during the war.