Part 22 (1/2)

The seclusion of women even yields to this imperative law of the desert, and an Arab man and an Arab woman may be seen with their horses, tail to tail, and so the the news over their shoulders

I ae of news in the purest sense Soo, in the course of one of those brave atteean stable of municipal politics in San Francisco, the editor of the chief newspaper engaged in the can of purity was kidnapped in the streets of San Francisco He was hurried off in a motorcar and placed under restraint in a train at a suburban station, from which he was to be carried to a place soht sight of the editor's face in the reserved portion of the Pullraphed to a San Francisco evening paper that the well-known Mr So-and-So was ”on the ---- train, going North” The reporter had not the slightest notion of the roht he wasan iteues in the caainst corruption happened, however, to see this ite paper and at once realised what it meant He instantly telephoned to the proper authorities at a town halfway between San Francisco and the kidnappers'

destination; the train was stopped, and the kidnapped e on a warrant of Habeas Corpus, and promptly released No doubt mere publicity can occasionally serve the evildoers equally well, but here, at any rate, is an instance of its utility whichand trans news even of the h I hold that publicity is a function of very real utility to the State, it must not be supposed that I think it can be practised without lireat and many It has been said that honesty is not as easy as Blind Man's Buff

The sa may well be said of publicity The first and most obvious liiven to truth and not to error Here, however, we et that there are certain forot rid of by publicity, and, again, that it is often only possible to find out what is truth and what error by subed facts to the test of publicity What at first seems an incredible rumour turns out to be literally true, and therefore a failure to report it would actually have been a suppression of the truth The more one studies this question of publicity the more it appears that what is wanted in the public interest is a just and clear understanding of the way in which publicity is to be achieved The journalist's business is publicity, but it is also his business to see that this duty of publicity, though carried out to the full, is carried out in a hich shall do not harood If the uile, all is well If they have not these qualities, then publicityof all trades

Itto give a defence of the Yellow Press I fully realise its evils, only I desire that the Yellow Press should be condemned for its faults, and not merely for its virtues when carried to excess What the Yellow Press should be condemned for is its tendency to that supreme evil-- indifference to veracity of statement Another of its extreme evils, an evil made possible by publicity, is that of triviality It debauches the public mind, in arity or grossness Sensationalism and want of reticence will in the end cure therows by what it feeds on People get a habit of reading silly details about silly people, and the habit becomes an actual craze; they can no urades both him who reads and him rites

As to the public, indeed, I sometimes feel inclined to say with Ben Jonson in his famous Ode:

If they love lees and leave the lusty wine, Envy them not their palates with the swine

But it is a pitiful sight to see unfortunate h with insipid and unsavoury swill collected froo, I had a conversation in regard to this point with the reporters of two very Yellospapers, on an Atlantic liner outside the port of New York The _Lucania_ had run upon a sand-bank, and we had to wait all day in sight of that towered city, exposed to the full fury of the interviewer When I ventured to ask the two reporters in question whether they did not think it was perfectly absurd and ridiculous to print the chronicles of small beer, or, rather, of small slops, such as appeared in their colureed, but said in defence that they had to obey their editor's orders To ave no report of our conversation, for I had re A third reporter, however, to whoht it necessary to indicate as ”private and confidential” an enthusiastic remark drawn by the beauty of New York harbour in an autumn sunset, was not so sensitive ”This is more splendid,” I said, ”than even the approach to Venice There is nothing in the whole world like the sea- front of New York seen from the sea” This reporter honoured nificent triviality that I cannot refrain fro it: ”_Editor Strachey says New York skins Venice!_”--a contribution to the illilish provincial paper: ”_Vestryman choked by a whelk!_”

Publicity, when it is honest publicity, is as i as the collection and presentation of evidence at a trial Without the evidence, of what avail would be advocacy or judgment? I have dealt with the problem of publicity, but publicity of course is not the whole of journalism Besides news there is co serious-ht of as news It is with that part of journalism, indeed, that the editor of a weekly newspaper has most to do The journalisitimate There is what I may term judicial journalism, and the journalism of advocacy In judicial journalism the writer attee than as a barrister, to sum up rather than make a speech for the prosecution or the defence This does not, of course, ive a decision He for it he admits the existence of the other side and does not try to carry the jury aith him by the arts of rhetoric Such journalisewords, so the journalist who endeavours to maintain the judicial attitudein his denunciation of what he holds to be weak, dangerous, or evil He, however, who is bold enough to essay this fore who professes to be judicial in tone, but who ends in being partial, is a worsepartisanshi+p by hypocrisy

Little need be said in defence of the advocate journalist Hethe cause of his party, and placing it in the best possible light It is not his business, but that of the opposition writer, to put the case for the other side, and if he occasionally pretends to an enthusias the innocent artifice of the counsel who tells the jury that he will be an unhappythelarious, bibulous, or bigamous, client to his best wife and family

It must not be supposed, however, that the advocate journalist is a cynic who realises that his own cause is a poor one, but calls it the best of causes because he is paid so to do That, as all ards the barrister, and it is still ards the journalist We should re career, declared that he had been singularly fortunate He had never been called upon to defend a guilty person or to argue a case where the ly on his side If this feeling grows up in the case of afrom prosecution to defence and from plaintiff to defendant, may often have to alter his point of view corow up in that of the advocate journalist who is always on the same side? Believeleaders against his own convictions is a pure figination No doubt an editor will sometily as he, the leader-writer, is known to feel it, but such reticence cannot surely be regarded as insincerity on the ethics of anonymity in journalism The public are apt to suppose that anonys, and I have often heard people declare that in their opinion every leader-writer should be forced to sign his name As I once heard it picturesquely expressed, ”The mask should be torn from the villain's face Why should a hbour in the dark!” As a matter of fact, I am convinced that anonymity makes, not for irresponsibility but for responsibility, and that there are h truculent, offensive, and personal when they write with the ”I,” will show a true sense of moderation and responsibility when they use the editorial ”we” Thesense of what is right and proper to be said in that particular organ, and he instinctively refuses to give way to personal feeling and personal ani, not in his own name, but in that of his newspaper

I have hated and distrusted So-and-So ever since I was at Cae with him I knohat a false-hearted creature he was then, and how vain and supercilious, and I should like to get my knife into him some day I feel, however, that the _Daily Coh my editor has told me that I o for hiinary soliloquy which, I as of plenty of leader-writers when confronted with a personal issue

Again, men rite anonymously, and in the name of their paper and not of themselves, are much less likely to yield to the foolish vanity of self-assertion When Zola visited England, I ree in which he expressed to an interviewer his astonishment at the anonymity of the British Press He wondered hoas that our writers refused theht obtain through signed articles Thank heaven, our writers prefer the dignity which can be reat journal to such ”delicious notoriety” The delicious notoriety of the individual is the ruin of the better journalisned article, however true and sound it h the personality of the writer ”A” may have written in perfect sincerity of a particular statesers are sure to say that the article in question is to be accounted for by the fact that a fortnight before the writer was stopping with the Cabinet Minister who has been well spoken of, or because the writer's wife is well known to be a friend of the statesood chairman of a committee should sink his individuality and speak for the coood leader- writer can with perfect honesty and sincerity sink his individuality and speak for his newspaper rather than hih I incline to anonymity as the rule of political journalism, I quite adned article is often to be preferred For the object hich the reader approaches a literary article is the desire for pleasure, and that pleasure is naturally heightened by knowing the naht be an a to the public if the play-bill on which the names of the characters appear had instead of the actors' names arbitrary letters, like X, Y, and Z They would probably not appreciate the task of guessing as concealed under the wig or the shadows painted on the face which converted Miss Jones' somewhat aquiline features into a _nez retrousse_ No one can doubt that the Parisian public liked to know that the _Causeries de Lundi_ were by Sainte- Beuve, just as they now like to see the signature of Mr J C Squire at the end of an article To push the point to extreian Anthology in which each poem had to be taken on its intrinsic merits? Even if the public could stand the test, I feel certain that the critics could not I have always had a good deal of sympathy for the dramatic critic in Mr Shaw's play when he declares that he can place a play with perfect certainty if he knohooing through a volu to hi to score off hi like Sassoon in order to drive the grocers to deliriuht, perhaps it is neither, but only soian Mind at Capetown or Melbourne, who has produced for his own use an a me so uncomfortable that I must hastily desist!

There is another point upon which I h very shortly

That is the ethics of newspaper proprietorshi+p People soreat land are, as a rule, owned by rich reat misfortune that a newspaper cannot be started by a poorthat as a rule a newspaper proprietor should be rich is the danger of newspapers being bought, or, at any rate, of their articles being bought, as too often happens in countries where newspapers are not great properties It is often said, for example, that a hundred pounds or so will procure the insertion of an article in ross libel on the best foreign newspapers, but it indicates a danger when newspapers are owned by men of sing in 50,000 or 60,000 a year it is obvious that even if we assume the newspaper proprietor to have no sense of public duty, it will not be worth his while to sell the influence of his paper He is not going to risk the destruction of a great property--destruction would surely ensue fro known--for a few hundred pounds To put it brutally, ”his figure” would be too high for any to pay--a quarter of a h it makes for soundness that newspaper proprietors should be personally independent, it is also most important that they should be men whose wealth is derived froreat newspaper in the hands of a man who does not look to make a profit but owns it for external reasons is a source of danger

Strange as it itimate profit in a newspaper is an antiseptic and prevents corruption One does not want to see a newspaper proprietor, with his ear to the ground, always thinking of his audience, but the desire to stand ith his readers is often a power in the direction of good

The proprietor who endeavours to be the honest servant of his readers will not go very far wrong When I say honest servant I h he will do hisis not positively immoral, at the same tiainst rash or base actions There is nothing corrupt in such honest service, when rendered either to a man or a nation, or even to a Party

To put it in another way, there are worse things than studying public opinion and endeavouring partly to interpret it honestly and partly to guide it in the right direction

I will end this chapter by asking the readers of a Journalist's Mes Firstly, to think better of journalists and their ht inclined to do Secondly, not to exaggerate the influence and power of the Press No doubt it has soreat powers, but those powers are much more lierated language in regard to the power of the Press, people increase the evil which they desire to diminish Dr Johnson said very truly that no man was ever written down except by himself Believe me, this is as true nohen Dr Johnson said it I do not believe in the power of the Press either to crush a good reat man, or to exalt a weak ht conceivably keep back a wise statesht for a time advertise into undue proht themselves The public have a very sound instinct in persons as well as in things, and when they recognise real worth in ahi him for some reason to have incurred the en to accoainst Sood in him, and may even run him as a whole-souled patriot! We are a contradictious trade

_Don't be afraid of the Press, but do it justice and keep it in its place, that is, the place of a useful servant, but not of a master_

This is the last word on the Press of a working journalist, one who, though he holds no high-falutin' illusions as to his profession, is at the same time intensely proud of that profession, and who believes that, taken as a whole, there is no callingpractised by an honourable man, and one ishes to serve his country