THE NEWSPAPER

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UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY
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MODERN KNOWLEDGE

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NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

THE BRITISH TAXES ON KNOWLEDGE

The Newspaper Duty Stamps.

THE
NEWSPAPER

BY
G. BINNEY DIBBLEE, M.A.
Late Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford

LONDON
WILLIAMS AND NORGATE

PRINTED BY
THE LONDON AND NORWICH PRESS, LIMITED
LONDON AND NORWICH

CONTENTS

THE NEWSPAPER

CHAPTER I
THE FUNCTION OF A NEWSPAPER

So common an object as a newspaper is seldom the subject of serious reflection. If any one of us should stop to consider what it is and why it is made, it is odds that he would think chiefly of one aspect of it to the general exclusion of the others. The curious man might reflect in surprise on the vast amount of mere reading matter turned out regularly every morning with perhaps only half a dozen literal mistakes, on the variety of typesetting and the amount of printing, often more than sufficient to make a large sized book. The manufacturer would direct his imagination to the efficient machinery necessary to produce perhaps 3,000 copies a minute or to the practised organization, able to distribute them, as fast as they are printed. The business man would think chiefly of a newspaper, as a vehicle for prices and a10 medium for advertising. Cooks, butlers, clerks and governesses look upon it as a daily registry office. The solicitor sells houses and lands through it. Housewives through it sometimes buy their soaps and more often their hats. Actors, singers, authors, artists and musicians each read their special column and wonder when the editor intends to engage some one really acquainted with the only subject worth reading. The politician will read its leading articles with smirking assent or explosive repudiation. Last of all comes the general reader and he asks nothing more of his newspaper than all the news of everywhere, collected at great cost, transcribed with finished skill and presented to him in just the way which pleases and flatters him most. All of them have on their lips the daily threat of giving up the paper, if they are not scrupulously satisfied.

In writing about “the newspaper” it seems to me most useful to the greatest number of readers to dwell much less on those sides of a newspaper, which are most familiar to all of us, however interesting in itself everything connected with the editorial conduct of a paper may be, than on the central entity behind them, which makes the public functions possible and actual. In other words I shall11 write chiefly of what most people seldom or never see and but little of all those aspects of any newspaper, which every reader is accustomed to judge for himself. To do otherwise would require an encyclopædia to hold the mere bulk of material and would also bring oneself flat against the serried ranks of fixed opinions. Every one is quite sure that he knows “what he wants” and “what he wants” is always “the best” for him. To lay down the law therefore on matters which are the subject of common opinion is a danger to be evaded whenever possible and I propose only to deal very slightly with what is generally known as “the press” and for the larger part of my space shall try to explain the mechanism, which industriously collects, enshrines in print and tirelessly circulates all the material, whether news or literary, to every attainable corner of the country and also the organism, which by serving the business needs of its community, acquires the immense revenues, which alone make the continued existence of the other possible.

A newspaper is of all modern private institutions the most comprehensive in function and complicated in principle. Perhaps the only thing at all comparable to it in these12 respects is a ship. A ship, engaged on a voyage, almost equals the triple life of a newspaper, because it is for the time being a place of residence, a means of travel and a conveyor of traffic. But voyages are short and discontinuous with one another, while the existence of a newspaper is organically continuous from the issue of the first number to bankruptcy and very often even afterwards. In every case, the newspaper is a vehicle for the satisfaction of human wants and that in three diverse ways; but the odd thing is that none of these ways, although they actually in practice overlap, are essentially related to one another. The newspaper is primarily a collector and distributor of news and in this function has long ago beaten every possible rival out of the field. Secondarily it is a vehicle of opinion and in virtue of this capacity it often becomes the prey of the mighty or the victim of the long purse; but still it continues to draw from its other functions and powers a capacity for resistance to outside pressure, which guarantees to it more independence than sometimes appears on the surface. Lastly it serves as the great introducer of business from one trader to another. It has been estimated, that the annual amount spent on advertising in general13 is not less than £600,000,000 in civilized countries and it would be safe to say, that probably something like one half of this amount passes into the treasuries of journals and other periodicals, all or nearly all of which fulfil in one way or another the functions of a newspaper for their special circles of readers. It is the existence of this colossal revenue, more than double the annual budget of the United Kingdom, which makes possible the costly task of collecting and transmitting the news of the world from all places to all other places at once. It is a commonplace that the small amount paid by each reader for the purchase of his paper, whatever it may be, would be very far from defraying the expenses of providing him with all that he will find in it.

Let us examine these functions of a newspaper separately. By far the most important and exacting task, which falls to its lot, is the provision of a daily—or weekly as the case may be—supply of news and that not of any news nor of enough news but of all the news. The distinction is of immense practical importance because it trebles the difficulty imposed on the conductors of a newspaper. The outsider, who as a general rule consults only a small part of the reading matter provided for him, sometimes14 finds in any issue very little that immediately interests him and a vast deal that does not. He therefore commonly receives the impression of a large amount of space regularly wasted. Very few readers are aware of the simple truth that, of what may be called pure news matter, almost every issue has had at least as much “copy” provided for it and rejected as appears in the paper. The practical task of the editors and sub-editors in making up their daily issues consists not in scraping together material for the printer but in rejecting it. Of an evening paper with its successive editions this is even more true, many a report or “story” appearing in the early morning and being cut down or “killed” before nightfall. The great responsibility assumed by all editors, to which they are very seldom unfaithful, is the provision of all news, everything printable that has happened close to rail or wire or not kept secret by governments or private parties. There is only one excuse for leaving out any item of news and that is that more important news has claimed precedence of it and crowded it out.

It is evident therefore that the collection of news is strictly speaking extra-editorial or, to be more precise, it is under the general but not the immediate direction of the editor. It15 is an elaborate and almost automatic system, consisting partly of a world-wide organization for general news, which works for the common benefit of a large number of papers, and partly of a particular corps attached to each individual newspaper. It is the special function of this private organization to secure, if possible, exclusive news for its own paper and at any rate to emphasize and pay particular attention to that class of news, which each paper considers its own strong point. Yet while it is true that this duplicate and to some extent self-overlapping system fulfils the fundamental duty of every paper, which can be called in any sense a newspaper, it is not that side of newspaper life, which arouses the greatest amount of attention from outside, at any rate in this country, nor does it absorb the greatest amount of energy and talent within. The sensational part of journalism is the control of opinion.

It is usual in speaking of the editorial side of a paper for nearly everyone, who is not within the narrow ring of professionals, to mean the latter function of the paper and not the mere collection and reproduction of news. This is true not only of periodicals and weeklies but also of the great morning dailies, which are by far the most influential part of that institution,16 which we casually refer to as “the press.” Here is where power is presumed to reside. Whether it be politics or art or finance, everyone, who wants anything important done to influence the general public, feels that it is here that the first and most valiant effort must be made. The press must be got at and persuaded or bullied into taking what is the only possible point of view, as each individual sees it for himself. And as there are always dozens and perhaps hundreds struggling more or less successfully to get to the one central point, where opinion is supposed to be controlled, the illusion is set up that here is where events are being guided, whereas they are only being agitated. The efforts and influences generally balance themselves so evenly that the net result is generally independent of any single personality. What governs all these efforts in the end is the interest, which the general reader will take in the particular matter in question and by the general reader, I mean in this connection, those particular readers, who habitually look out for any special news or discussion on any named subject. The power, which a newspaper has of taking a subject from one plane of interest to another and thus widening the number of those to whom a special matter will appeal, is nearly always17 determined by an editorial estimate of the amount of interest it will arouse, which is not strictly speaking an analysis of its real importance but a prevision of the psychology of the majority of readers, who will judge it next day.

Although to many of us the power of the press presents itself, perhaps mistakenly, as largely an illusion, it cannot be denied that here lies the romantic interest of the newspaper world to nine men out of ten. Those, who, like musical or dramatic artists, habitually come before the public, are apt to be obsessed by the importance of what is said or done by the press; authors, politicians and prominent citizens are not above actively canvassing it; even royalty and the state government are careful to give it whatever guidance will be tolerated. Dear to the imagination also of the occasional visitor to a newspaper office are the inconceivable complications of one subject tumbling over another at the last moment in competition, to find out which of the two should be crowded out. Let me quote in illustration of this tossed and wayward charm of self-important confusion a brilliant description of an editorial room at the last moment from a recent work of fiction.[1]

“Brumby’s editorial room was fit to visit18 the dreams of a dramatist. Used as a scene, whole ranges of characters could have popped in and out of it all night, and nobody run into any one else till the good of the play required. For its walls were mainly door; for dooring’s sake Wellington, Canning, Dizzy himself (after Millais) were skied; doors to right of him, doors to left of him, at one hand a row of bell-buttons, close as on a page’s bosom, at the other a serried squad of mouths of speaking-tubes, Brumby sat like a brain centre in a nervous system—the simile is his; at least he borrowed it first—feeling at all the threads and living along each line.

“All the evening all the forces of the press, now centripetal and now centrifugal, drew in upon this core to take direction or were sped outwards from it, aimed and animated. To and from the central, octagonal, skylighted room were sucked in or radiated forth each by his proper door, along the spoke-like corridors, the office messengers with ‘copy,’ proofs, letters and telegrams; the foreman shirt-sleeved from the composing-room, asking the size of to-morrow’s paper; the publisher, not yet perspiring, to know how much per cent. Lord Allbury’s speech, the thing of to-night, should add on to the parcels for the19 outer towns; sub-editors doubting how much to make of some not very well-born rumour of a row inside the Cabinet, or if it might be libel, though it were true, to say a borough treasurer had turned invisible since Thursday; the porter from the lift bringing in callers’ cards—the Manager, Theatre Royal—would not detain the editor one instant; writer of a letter—turnstiles needed on trams—would the editor see him, simply for five minutes—reform vital; small deputation from Hospital Friday Committee—had not liked to give him the trouble beforehand to make an appointment; bankrupt of some hours’ standing—just two words about to-morrow’s report—could nothing be done about the judge’s conduct—method of choosing official receivers, too, thoroughly faulty. Thence would the war correspondent post, at Brumby’s bidding, over land and ocean without rest, bent to sweeten the sacred home life of the Warden’s readers with all the heroic pleasures of war, unalloyed by groin wounds or enteric. To this call at the heart of the hive the reporter, home from some delicate quest, would come to lay up in the charge of the queen-bee that most perfect flavoured news, which you could never put in the paper.”

There is no word here which is not true20 description, both in letter and in spirit, capable of being annually multiplied by the number of week-days in the year, except Christmas Day in some offices. Of all this our presumed visitor might see one quarter and understand but the half of that; yet it is all Fleet Street to a cup of coffee at 1 a.m., that what he did see and understand would dazzle and intoxicate him. He would not know, that for every one professionally concerned in the furious hive all this bustle had long ago become mere routine, that everything had its method of being tested and that while almost nothing was left to chance, intelligence had not often very much more to say in the matter. Every kind of difficulty had occurred a hundred times before; every decision given was an old one, that had been taken before the oldest compositor was born; there was only one thing that changed and kept changing and remained the perpetual preoccupation of workers, little and big—he himself, the visitor, the reader, the representative of the general public.

As far as the public is concerned, there is very little distinction made between the function of newspapers as newsgatherers and their duties as purveyors of opinion. This arises from a very simple cause. While news21 is nominally an impersonal thing, as a matter of practice it is far from being so. In obtaining it the faculty of selection is required in the highest degree by the newsgatherer or “story-writer.” Selection again is strenuously required in determining the competition between one item of news and another. Finally the presentation of news in words and paragraphs leaves a wide opening for individual preferences and inclinations. Thus it comes about, naturally enough, that the same series of habits, which govern the conduct of avowed opinion in a newspaper, habits summed up briefly in the term, the policy of the paper, express themselves, not so consciously but even more effectively, in its news columns. Readers, who are on their guard against the intention of the editor in that part of the paper, which is avowedly the vehicle of opinion, retaining a certain critical faculty, wherever they have reason to believe that their favourite newspaper is not what they call “sound,” are quite unsuspicious of the news columns and accept as plain facts statements, which have perhaps undergone three unconscious garblings. It is therefore paradoxically true that where a group of men conducting a paper consciously try to exert an influence in a certain direction their intention is often discounted22 and they produce very little effect. Whereas otherwise, through being the medium of the distribution of mere news, a newspaper will wield unconsciously a very considerable influence over its readers and may continue indefinitely to do so, so long as it does not exploit this subtle power in any way, which is detected to be conspicuously unfair.

The last aspect of a newspaper is much less impressive to outsiders than anything, which appears in print in its columns. Every newspaper is a commercial organism subject to the same laws of life and death, which govern businesses in general. It has to build up a goodwill sometimes slowly and against great odds, almost accidentally, in other cases meteorically and insolently. Its peculiar faculty of dealing in publicity both ways, through its news columns gratuitously and through its advertisements for payment, give it a special power of making its own way independently of outside help, in certain cases of advancing itself by the aid of its own enemies. To succeed it must be talked about and abuse is welcome, almost as much so as praise. Once arrived at the eminence of an extensive popularity it becomes able to help others and thus acquires the revenue necessitated by its own expensive wants. But these wants are the23 great obstacle to any flash success. In the case of a new daily morning paper it is impossible to start with any less equipment than the best and richest of its rivals. The income from the sales of the paper is trivial and for some time it has to support enormous expenses out of capital, until it has not only established an undoubtedly important circulation but has also convinced the numerous classes of advertisers that this circulation has been securely attained, a problem which is sometimes even more difficult to solve than the other. All these questions and problems fall under the classification of business management, which we shall arrive at in due time.

The life and power of any newspaper or periodical is thus doubly entrusted to the hands of its readers and to their opinion of it. They must draw from it amusement, instruction and business facilities and for the latter the newspaper proprietor is even more concerned than for the former. The secret of the miracle whereby 6d. or 10 cents worth of news and literary matter can be sold in the streets for one penny or one cent is that the reader makes a return to the newspaper for every copy, which he buys, equivalent to the difference in price. This return is afforded by24 his attention, a commodity in these days of busy competition in exchanges, which it is extremely hard to secure and worth therefore to the advertising world a very considerable body of wealth.

CHAPTER II
NEWSCOLLECTING AND REPORTING

Of the duties and functions of any newspaper the first in point of time and of importance is the collection and dissemination of news. The necessity of giving to the news, which is collected, some sort of literary form in its presentation leads at once to the possibility of reinforcing it, of distorting it and sometimes, by suppression of essential points, of even inverting its meaning. The propagation of opinion is thus inseparably allied with the dissemination of news and no effort of organization can entirely separate the two departments. In all daily papers, however, and in most weekly papers, which attempt to give the news, the editorial system is a duplicate one having under the control of the supreme chief two staffs, kept more or less separate, one for giving the news of the day in the briefest form and the other for commenting on such news in accordance with the habits of the paper. The status and quality of every26 newspaper is chiefly determined by the relative importance allowed by the editor and his proprietors to giving the mere news as compared with the pains taken to elucidate it. The more popular and cheaper papers concentrate their chief energies on giving the largest number of items of ordinary news, which it is their aim to transform as far as possible into matters of exceptional interest, while the old-established organs of social and political weight are content to state their news impartially, if not boldly, and rely on their powers of interesting the reader by able discussions on political, artistic or literary topics, as they present new features day by day. Every one can call to mind two or three instances in either the United Kingdom or America of papers, which show these opposite tendencies in extreme form.

Taking the two branches of Anglo-Saxon journalism together as one whole, there is a very distinct tendency in America to attach greater prominence to the news-collecting side of journalism. Comment, criticism, propagandism are not excluded from American papers but the papers themselves live and flourish or die quickly according to the value which their public attaches to their news columns. In the United Kingdom, on the27 other hand, and especially in London, the purveying of news is accurately and competently done, but more or less in a perfunctory manner, while the energies, which competition calls forth, are devoted to the writing of special articles, the expert criticism of the arts or the drama or else in the creation of what are generally called the “features of a paper,” that is to say, news, of which the presentation is individual, while the matter is more or less common to every one. It must not be supposed, however, that on this side of the water, including London, there is no keen competition in some quarters in the procuring and even in the manufacture of news. Certain papers strongly specialize in that direction and in many respects have imported American methods. But the predominant type of newspaper in the two countries is very different. British and Irish newspapers are content to share much more news in common than is the case in America, which inclines the Transatlantic reader to consider them extremely slow and unenterprising. On the other hand the purely editorial columns in an American newspaper are often curtailed to minute dimensions, while the standard of indulgence generally extended to carelessness and ignorance in matters28 relating to culture would not pass muster in British papers, even of the second rank.

This comparison is made with obvious reluctance for a certain definite purpose, because the distinction between the two types, is a sure guide to the relative superiority of each system in its own way, the one aiming chiefly at efficiency in collecting news and the other at the perfection of editorial presentation. The American system of collecting news is necessarily superior to that of most English newspapers, because in America news is the all-important thing and nothing else counts in promoting the prosperity of a newspaper. It follows also that not only do individual American newspapers employ larger staffs and spend greater sums for news than is the case with us, but also, in spite of the competition and partly because of it, the whole business of newsgetting is professionalized to an extent, which no English journalist would be led to imagine from his own experience. The divisions between one grade and another within the ranks of editors and reporters are more finely distinguished; there is a much freer circulation of able men from one paper to another and much more prompt dismissal of incompetents from the whole group than our slower habits would tolerate. With us29 there is a certain amateurishness permitted in all ranks of a newspaper because when the system is too perfect the individual is cramped in his free play and the results aimed at in British journalism are less mechanical than the first-class newspaper “story,” which it is the aim of the “star” reporter in New York and Chicago to turn out. In America so great is the keenness of competition on one straight set of rails that individualism is practically stamped out by the ruthless perfection of the professional machine. Recent changes in their habits point all in this direction. The individual “I” has been long suppressed; the editorial “we” is considered to date back to the time of the war; what is more, every word tending to introduce an element of personal opinion is struck out of any ordinary description of an event. An American reporter is not allowed to say that a meeting was successful or that the statesman was eloquent or that the confusion around the railway wreck baffled description. His professional duties require that he should report only, what the statesman said and what his audience thought of him, and if his powers of description are to be baffled by a railway accident he will soon be out of a job. The present tendency on this side of the Atlantic30 is all the other way. The public seems to wish to know what great cricketers think about cricket, golfers about golf, statesmen about politics. A British editor’s task is largely a matter of keeping up communications with a large circle of experts on hundreds of subjects, who can be appealed to from day to day about any event or topic of immediate importance. The shortest way of putting it is to say that the ordinary American paper from cover to cover is almost wholly written by professionals, while perhaps one-third of our papers is the product of an outside sporadic ring of contributors, who are practically half-employed amateurs, and the remainder, which is the more perfunctory but sometimes the least sensational portion of the paper, is the work of the home staff.

I am sorry to labour, what seems to be perhaps an invidious critical comparison, but it is necessary to explain that any one who attempts to present the best side of two national journalisms, between whom I may say parenthetically the want of sympathetic comprehension is rather marked, can only do so by recognizing and making clear the difference in the strong points of each. Of an admirable system of news collection the American paper unquestionably offers the31 best example; it is, however, a difficult one, especially for a foreigner, to describe. But as an organ of opinion, the newspaper is on the whole much more comprehensively and effectively organized in the United Kingdom than in any other country; its standard of general culture is higher than that of the press of any other country except perhaps that of France and even in the case of this latter comparison it may be considered decisively superior, when the breadth of its scope and range is taken into account.

Let us examine in detail the organization of the most expert newsgathering machine in the world—an American daily paper with perhaps an evening paper attached to it.[2] Of this double system the former part is of the greater importance, because the morning paper has greater wealth and a wider geographical distribution but the latter presents some points of superiority owing to the more difficult32 task and the continued strain of producing edition after edition. To understand a news-collecting system is to be able to answer the five following questions: What is news?—From what sources is it drawn?—Who gets it?—Who writes it?—Who determines what and how much is to be published? The answers to these questions largely overlap one another, but together they cover the whole subject. The first two questions are mainly a concern of the public; what they are interested in collectively and what personal and public incidents they and their affairs will supply, which will be of interest to others. The last three are the concern of the organization of a newspaper.

What is news? Americans give a more comprehensive answer to that question than any other people. In that country small things overshadow the great. Perhaps it would be truer to say that the important things to them are matters of detail. Foreign politics are to them outlandish matters. Their public life is itself a matter of small things; detailed changes in the tariff; detailed changes in the personnel of federal, state and city governments; details about railway concessions or amalgamations or prosecutions, which affect stocks and shares. As a consequence33 an importance is attached to the details of personal life, private happiness, social standing, success and failure of individuals, which in Europe is quite beyond comprehension. Everything is news; almost anything may become big news, if it can be shown to be in any way connected with the interests of the vast, curious, highly intelligent but not deeply cultivated public.

Take the case of the suicide of a poor man. To a trained reporter this may be just a paragraph of three lines, or it may cover material for a week’s agitation and a national movement, so that his experience prompts him to examine its details untiringly for some underlying fact which will lift it out of the common run. Suppose the paragraph runs:—Early this morning (Monday) John A. Smith hanged himself at 31, W. 249th Street. He leaves no family and no light can be thrown on his motive. His habits were reported to be irregular.—Such a suicide, especially on Monday morning, would be unfortunately so common an occurrence after a possible Sunday’s intemperance, that not much beyond a few enquiries would be prosecuted. Let us put the paragraph in another way:—In an unoccupied room on the fifth floor of the tenement house at 31, W. 249th Street the body of34 an emaciated man was found hanging early this morning. He had apparently been dead some time. Enquiry elicits the fact that he was called John Alexis Smith, who lived with a wife and four children at 917, Ninth Avenue where he had no difficulty in finding work, but very little chance of keeping it long. His former employers describe him, as semi-imbecile, with various degenerate traits. Apparently he had been in the country only seven months. How he passed the negligent inspection officers at Ellis Island is a matter, which demands rigid scrutiny!—and so we go on to the Immigration Laws, Corrupt Federal Administration, Pauper Labour of Europe, etc.

Take John A. Smith another way and suppose him to have been in good work up to a few months ago and to have lost his savings through wild speculation in United States Steel Common; then will follow Wall Street and the Harpy Brokers, who stoop to take the Earnings of the Poor. Or, again, Smith may have lost his savings in one of the recent Trust Company failures and then we have a criticism of the Unstable Foundations of Credit. Or, he may have been sick and gone mad with the heat, which will yield an attack on High Prices and the Wickedness35 of the Ice Trust. Or, his family and he may have been starving, owing to the increased prices of food and the Machinations of the Beef Trust. All these are openings for news, where the further investigation of facts may elicit, it is not to be assumed that they will, confirmatory items of superior importance. On all serious questions the American public can be appealed to ten times more strongly through emotional sympathy than by reasoned discussion, and that is a reason, usually forgotten, why we should be slow in condemning a sensational tendency in their journalism.

The next question arises: What are the sources, whence the news, which interests the public, is drawn? These may be classified into three: official news, business items and general matter. What we may call official news covers all public announcements, government and municipal publications, police bulletins and matters of record from public registers. This class of news comes into the newspaper office automatically or very nearly so; sometimes a messenger has to call to fetch books and papers or a reporter is ordered to run his eye down the public registers; but very little trouble is necessary to collect this material, because everywhere all kinds of authorities and semi-authorities are accustomed36 to consult their own interests by keeping newspapers informed of official transactions. When anything unusual occurs in this field there will always be some one at the police office or in the city hall to telephone to the chief papers and warn them not to miss an opportunity.

Business items of serious importance are of all news the most valuable that a paper can get. But except for an occasional accident there is almost no way of getting any, save by way of favour. Anything interesting of this kind has always a value for some one so long as it can be kept secret and the only way in which a newspaper can counteract this tendency is to keep in touch or be introduced to other parties, who may be interested in disclosure. The ordinary published items of business news, failures, amalgamations, flotations, etc., are on the same footing as official news and come into the newspaper office of themselves.

General news sometimes comes in by routine methods, such as reports of trials, political speeches and all items of literary, artistic or dramatic material, which offer themselves generally only too profusely and eagerly for publication. The most interesting and most valuable matter under this37 head is the unexpected; accidents, crimes, disasters and mere freakish occurrences having a humorous aspect. All these must be collected by the professional organizations because, curiously enough, the public, who is the ultimate judge of what is interesting after it is printed, is not a good judge of it at first hand. A crowd is immensely affected by a small accident but may equally probably be unobservant of or callous to a great one. In criminal matters the police court is fuller than the final court of appeal. Those items of news which are brought in by private individuals, and a good deal of this is done by amateurs, are generally valueless or improperly observed. The observation, description and sifting has to be the systematic work of trained men. The American system is to assume that every small accident, catastrophe, crime or intrigue is potentially a great one. As a matter of professional competition this method is forced upon them. No newspaper can allow another to gain an important start on a question, which may become the sensation of the hour. Consequently the wearisome task of turning over every sordid detail of misfortune, weakness, disaster and corruption has to be undertaken simultaneously by the members of every staff38 in competition with every other paper. Except in the case of co-operative news agencies, to be described later, it is very rare that news investigation is undertaken in combination, and, when that happens in New York or any big city, it is generally done by private understanding between the reporters themselves, when the ground to be covered is extensive and there seems to be little opportunity for exceptional features to be developed.

We come then to our last three questions: Who gets the news? Who writes it? and Who determines what and how much is to be published? and we may well answer them together for this is tantamount to describing the organization for collecting news on any great paper. It is in this department, that the American newspaper has carried sureness of grasp and differentiation of function further than the press in any other country and we may take their system as our model. If any important news “story” slips through the meshes of their net for news more than once or twice a year on any individual paper, probably the shutters will have to be put up in that office and certainly all the editors and reporters will have been sent flying to other cities to look for jobs. The struggle for mere existence in this crucial respect is pushed39 to the extreme. The aim and object of this struggle in the American press is the presentation of a “story,” that is to say all the facts about and as many aspects as possible of some event, disastrous, humorous, pathetic or merely arresting, in such a way that the “story” should have more features or more human interest than the description of the same fact or event, which may appear in another paper. Almost everything in an American paper amounts to that in one way or another and very brilliant talents and quite astounding energy and resourcefulness are brought to bear to realize an ideal, which at first sight does not seem very impressive. It is, however, much more difficult to realize than appears on the surface and above all it is what their public wants.

The material for the ordinary newspaper “story” is more often than not taken from the unfortunate or shady side of life, because in that class of facts the masses of the public take an unfailing and untiring interest. It is not a question about which it is worth while moralizing, because, now that the supply of such matter has been made available from one or two sources, all others have to follow. The history of journalism has only one continuous lesson for editors and proprietors.40 It is not possible to dictate to your public and the only choice open to any one who is obstinate on questions of taste is to appeal to a narrow public of a better class against the more common preferences of the multitude. In America the papers, which have found such a better-class public to maintain them in moderate prosperity, may be counted on the fingers of one hand.

The regular sources of sensational news, which are watched as a matter of course by the professional corps of reporters, comprise some fifty localities in a big city. Mr. Given mentions some ten, where there is a constant attendance, such as the stock exchange, the City Hall and its courts and offices, police headquarters, the police courts and higher courts. Others, such as the police stations, municipal courts, fire stations, the jails, hospitals, the morgue and administrative offices of various kinds are patrolled at frequent intervals, while some twenty more places are visited every day. This duty falls on a special class of men called “watchers,” who are far from being ordinary reporters, as very often they have not been promoted to the dignity of writing a line, but they must know what news is and their function is to telephone to the head office any bulletins, which are41 promising, or any definite items, which need to be investigated and worked up, and in fact to be the eyes and ears of the newspaper. But they are eyes and ears which have to be open all the time. If they stopped to follow up any news item for themselves, they might miss a much more important one the next minute. This is the kind of news in brief which they send to headquarters.

9th Precinct 7 a.m. March 15.

6.30 a.m. Jessie Hawkins, 87, Cortlandt Street, attic above warehouse, badly burnt, feared dead; age 7 years, flannelette; no one present; sent St. A. hospital.—P.B.

6th Precinct 10.30 a.m.

10.10 a.m. Fire, 916, Franklin Street; tenement house; occupants mostly gone to work; 3 children crushed on stairs; Leczinski, laundryman, recent immigrant; damage $700, owner Belmont.—L.A.

2nd Precinct 8.15 a.m.

7.20 a.m. Body unknown man found off Pier 1, East River; about 40 years, 5 feet 10 inches; light complexion, lace shoes, blue shirt, black coat and trousers; some valuable papers in pocket but no money.—J.W.

To solve these problems another group of men is needed, the reporters proper, called, when they are on this service, “general42 workers.” As the original brief messages come in to the city editor, he details one or another of his young men to the spot, who sets to work to ransack every fragment of fact or probability, which throws light on the case. If a general worker has to think only of a morning newspaper and the matter is important, he will try to treat it exhaustively and not return to the office, until he has his story complete and ready for the press. But more often he has no time for this. He may very likely have one job treading on the heels of another, especially if he has evening paper editions coming out successively behind him. It is therefore more usual for the general worker to treat his work in fragments, either telephoning his account through to the office or, if he has time to be more careful, sending his notes by hand or taking them back himself. He will then continue to study the same story for more facts or pass on to some other task.

In any case the matter passes into a third stage and comes into the hands of the “rewriters” or “telephone rewriters.” These two groups of people handle this half-prepared matter and give it more or less literary form. It has now become a “story,” complete for the moment but liable to be changed, supplemented, or suppressed according to later43 information. But for the present it passes on its road to the press into the hands of a fourth body, the “copy-readers,” whose duties in America correspond partially to part of the work fulfilled in this country by “sub-editors,” who do not enjoy however so much positive responsibility, as we should allow them here. The functions of a copy-reader are unpleasantly negative. The real power of judging the news and criticizing it lies above with the city-editor and the managing editor, officials only dimly shadowed in England. The copy-reader’s duty is to suppress hopelessly incompetent stuff, to revise the results of carelessness, to add headlines and to correct all blunders. In addition he is the policeman of the office, cutting out the list of forbidden words, correcting spelling and removing contradictions and obvious absurdities. There are no thanks coming to him either from above or below and endless possibilities of reproof and disaster.

We have now the “newspaper story” complete in its final form for a morning paper and subject to addition and revision in the evening paper. It has to run the danger of fading away under the eye of the city-editor and may even, if it be very important, attract the unfavourable notice of the managing44 editor or the editor-in-chief. But, as these great men belong essentially to the central framework of the staff, we must invert our investigations for a moment and look at our American newspaper from the upper side downwards. The first difference between the two countries that strikes one here is the rather larger number of men and the much larger number of titles, as compared with the staff on an English paper. As the net output of most American dailies is not much larger than some of our own, we are led to suppose that what is once done in England, is done two or three times over in America, because over there the pace of output is tremendous. And that I believe to be the explanation of the difference between the two systems. While in England we have usually a single editor, or man in charge for the night, with but three grades of workers under him, the literary staff, the sub-editors and reporters, supplemented by outside men on special subjects; in America the situation is more complicated. To begin with, the proprietor very often takes a hand in it himself, eclipsing the great editor and laying down his views, often criticizing the “make-up” of the paper, while it is still in the press. But usually we have the editor-in-chief with a dual45 organization under him for pure news and for what one might call fancy news, such as the plays, art, finance, etc., of the day. In fact he has three separable organizations under him and every member of any one of them is called an editor. There is the staff for fancy news, including the editors of finance, sport, society, fashions, real estate, art, drama, music, literature and others. Then he has the routine staff for dealing with outside news, the foreign editor, the telegraph editor, who handles provincial news, and the exchange editor, who follows all the other papers and tries to get free “copy” from them if he can. Lastly he has the news organization proper, consisting of the managing editor, who usually has an assistant, the city editor, who looks after news up to six p.m. and the night city editor, who takes over this duty after that hour. Beneath these are all the reporters or general workers and others.

The duties of managing editor and city editor cover much the same ground; that is to say, it is the duty of the managing editor to revise and do over again the work of the city editor, while at the same time he has a certain control over the decorative news, except as a rule finance, and in this respect he rather trenches on the sphere of the editor-in-chief46 without however having any right to influence what may be the policy of the paper in politics or social matters. The distinctively American system centres on the city editors, who have the primary responsibility for the news and the newspaper “stories.”

The city editor on duty for the time being combines in himself functions, which in England are usually divided between the head reporter and one of the sub-editors, whose duty it is to revise home news. For instance he has to make the assignments for the early morning to his corps of reporters; but whereas the English head reporter, having distributed tasks, would probably himself take the most important engagement, work beside his own staff and leave the “copy,” as it comes in, to pass to the sub-editors’ room, this is not the case with the American city editor. He remains at the desk all day with the telephone at his ear, waiting for messages from the scattered “watchers,” ready to make fresh assignments for anything unexpected that may turn up. That is his pre-occupation and imminent anxiety. With all his men already out, something startling and of infinite importance may arise at any minute and he may have no one to deal with it. For that reason it is the custom for all “general workers,” except47 those engaged on some prolonged investigation to report themselves at regular intervals to headquarters. Suppose news came of an explosion or fatal accident to one of the huge ferry-boats plying from Manhattan Island to Jersey City or Hoboken. All ordinary “stories” would be dropped at once. Even “murders” would be postponed. Every available man, as he reported himself, would be hurried to the quays to get tales from officials or survivors and to try to build up a theory about the disaster.

On the return of these “stories” to the office the second half of a city editor’s duty begins. The stories have been to some extent prepared for him by the “copy-readers,” but he has to judge of each individual “story” by itself and to exercise a certain choice between them. Having declared certain preferences he issues fresh orders to the reporters for fresh facts to lengthen them, while at the same time he curtails or drops entirely the “stories” of lesser interest. In the end he sends up to his superior, the managing editor, a mass of digested and to some extent coordinated “copy,” enough to occupy from a fifth to a sixth as much space over and above what the paper will hold. Such a margin of superabundance of “copy” leaves some room48 for the superior magnate to exercise a choice of his own in going over all the mass a second time. But here it is not a question of amending or extending; rejection at this last stage is the only resource. If the managing editor has fault to find about preparation or selection, he gives his views to the city editor next day with more or less vehemence, as the occasion requires. For the moment the whole body of news has to go to press, more or less as it stands.

There is another higher function remaining to the managing editor. He has to keep the balance between the predominating bulk of home news coming from the city editor and reporters and the body of less important news coming from the foreign, telegraph and exchange editors; to estimate the quantity of financial news, which is generally inelastic and practically outside of his control; and to allow space as well for the decorative parts of the paper drawn from art, literature, the drama and society. This is not the end of his responsibilities. A certain quantity of editorial matter descends to him from above, coming from the pen of his chief and the special political writers, always at the last moment. The amount of this and its habitual fluctuations are merely a question of judgment49 or guessing, because it cannot be altered and everything else has to give way to it. The managing editor’s only resource is to mark certain of the other items sent to the composing-room, as optional matter, liable to rejection at the last moment, even after it has been set up in type.

[3]The English system has the same complicated problem to face but the pressure of mere time and space is relaxed by our easier habits. A larger part of the paper is habitually filled with regular services and with, what I have called above, the decorative items. All this comes in early and can be judged more coolly and definitely fixed in quantity. What is incomparably the most difficult part of a newspaper’s task, the adjustment, arrangement and choice between various items of news, is relegated to an allotment of space on less imperative terms and is more governed by mere routine. The simple explanation of this material consolation to editors and sub-editors lies in the fact that competition about mere news is not, speaking relatively in respect of American practice, tuned up to the same pitch of keenness. As we shall see in the next chapter, the English papers are content to have a comparatively large amount of their mere news provided from common sources.

50 The effect of this on the usual arrangement of the staffs of English papers is that the type of organization is more primitive, the working of it less vehement and more elastic and variation from one settled type more common. No two English newspapers have their staffs organized in exactly the same way. Yet there is practically very little departure from the grand traditional tripartite division of functions, including the editor with his personal staff of leader-writers or budding editors, the room of sub-editors, and the corps of reporters. This system is so flexible that it need not be materially altered in form to meet the most varying needs. Even the most progressive, sensational and restless innovators, who have half adopted the latest American impetuosities,51 can fit them tolerably well into the English framework. The editor and his staff share the responsibilities of power and round them they have an extensive group of half-employed satellites, differentiating into all shades of expertism and virtuosity. The sub-editors are not, as a layman often imagines them from their name to be, assistant editors, but those whose business it is to exercise the art of “sub-editing”; that is to say, of correcting, revising, arranging, selecting and passing judgment on news and “copy” of all kinds, except strictly “editorial” matter. In their quiet room filled with news clippings, flimsies and MSS. lies the core of an English newspaper, just as in America the critical work is done over the city editor’s telephone. The “sub-editors” have one great advantage over the American “copy-readers” in that they have a real and often final control of and power over copy and much of the responsibility of deciding what is to be considered “optional” at the last moment rests with them. The reporters are dwindling both in number and function owing to the inroads of two outside institutions; firstly, the purely reporting or shorthand work is now almost completely taken over by the great newsagencies, and secondly the semi-amateur outside specialist52 is coming to fill up more and more space both in the daily and evening papers. For instance there are people, who make a comfortable income by writing signed and unsigned articles on gardening on half a dozen papers; others specialize as reporters on naval and military matters, photography, golf, cycling, motor-cars, aviation, the weather, health, comic paragraphs, etc.; celebrated professors resign government posts and earn increased incomes by writing on science; dons at college write regularly on their special subjects. So that the sphere of the regular reporter narrows every day and his work is tending more and more to be confined to selecting incidents of an unusual kind and dressing them up in a way, which amounts to very much the same thing, as the American “newspaper story,” although the style of doing it is rather different.

The conscious aim of all news-collectors and reporters on all Anglo-Saxon newspapers is to score a “scoop” or a “beat,” which is the technical press name for an exclusive item of sensational interest. In America this achievement is still but very rarely within the powers of an individual reporter. A striking instance of a success of this kind in amateur detective work was made by a reporter on the New York World at the time when an attempt was53 made on the life of Russell Sage in December, 1891. The point of the sensation was that no apparent clue remained of the identity of the man, who threw the dynamite bomb, as his own body was almost completely destroyed. He had penetrated into Sage’s office in Broadway but mismanaged his throw, so that he himself was blown up without leaving any more traces than a few scraps of cloth and a button or two. This was the reporter’s opportunity. He secured one of the buttons and an adhering fragment of cloth. On the button was the name of a well-known Boston tailor. So with this clue in his possession, which had escaped the attention of the police, he took the next train to Boston. Interviewing the tailor and showing the cloth he found that a suit of this cloth had lately been made for a young Boston broker, named Henry Norcross. Further enquiry about Norcross’s antecedents and a visit to his home elicited the facts that Norcross had lately been in financial trouble and had been missing for several days. Putting two and two together the reporter risked the conclusion that Norcross and the potential murderer were one and the same man, and, inducing his paper to adopt his view, he obtained one of the greatest newspaper successes in New York.54 For the matter had been the sole topic of conversation in town for days and the subsequent verification of the facts fully confirmed his brilliant and daring hypothesis.

Those individual “beats” are rare and are becoming rarer. Their most frequent opportunity used to occur in war correspondence but nowadays in war all news is served out by the censor in common to a group of correspondents and the only task left to the latter is to arrange to wire the news according to the dimensions of the parental purse at home. Outside war a modern “scoop” is obtained only by elaborate and organized expenditure, undertaken a long time beforehand for some special purpose with the risk that the whole scheme may fall through and the money be wasted. A classic instance of a successful “beat” of this kind was the expedition organized by Stanley at the expense of the New York Herald and the Daily Telegraph to find Livingstone in Africa. A comparative failure of the same kind was the Jackson-Harmsworth exploration towards the North Pole. The Daily Mail achieved an inverted “scoop,” when it announced the massacre of the legations at Pekin.

The Daily Chronicle of London in the beginning of 1912 successfully brought off a55 sensational “beat,” no doubt by previous arrangement and at great expense, in being the only paper to receive an authentic telegram from Captain Amundsen, on his returning from the discovery of the South Pole. This “beat” was respected by all the London papers of the day and was only quoted by permission next day to a limited extent. In New York a different situation arose. The New York Times had purchased the American copyright of this telegram from the London Chronicle and expected to have it as exclusive news; since however New York time is five hours later than English time, there was time for Hearst’s paper, the New York American, to have the whole article telegraphed from Europe and to publish it simultaneously with the New York Times. The quarrel developed into a law-suit, turning on the question, whether there is copyright in news in the United States or whether there may be copyright in the literary form of news, a question long vexed in Europe and not yet entirely decided.

Another extensive “scoop” hardly known, but quite unequalled, in London was obtained by the Manchester Guardian, who had prepared for it long beforehand. The death of Queen Victoria took place at 6.30 on a Monday evening56 and on the following Tuesday morning there appeared in the ordinary way, incorporated in the daily paper, some twenty full pages of biography by several distinguished writers with a large number of illustrations, at a time when illustrations hardly ever appeared in the daily press. The success of this unexpected tribute to the late Queen was prodigious. Editions of many thousands were absorbed at once and single copies were sold in Lancashire towns by private speculators for five shillings each. The sale continued for five days and after a million copies of the issue had been sold, the publication was closed down out of mere weariness and in order to allow the ordinary work of the office to be carried on.

An amusing instance of a “beat,” which “fell down,” dates back to the time when the Oxford and Cambridge boat race was a matter of more absorbing interest to the general public than it is nowadays. A provincial evening paper with small circulation endeavoured to force itself to the front by engineering a sensational success. It prepared, some little time before the result was to be announced, two complete editions, one printed in dark blue ink announcing an Oxford victory, the other printed in a lighter blue colour announcing57 Cambridge as the winner. That year there was a dead heat.

A more important if not so disastrous a failure is recorded by Sir William Russell, who was sent on a special mission for the Times to Dublin to report the trial of O’Connell in 1844. He came back in a specially chartered steamboat well ahead of any one else and as he was entering the Times office among a group of shirt-sleeved men, whom he took to be compositors of his own paper, one came up touched his hat and said, “We are glad to hear, sir, they have found O’Connell guilty at last.” “Oh yes!” replied Russell innocently, “all guilty but on different counts.” This individual turned out to be an emissary of the Morning Herald, who stole Russell’s secret from him in the very jaws of the rival office.

If the ambition of the newspaper man is to achieve a “scoop” or “beat,” his ever present fear, and one much more imminently near to him than the corresponding hope, is an inadvertent libel. The great libel actions of the past, which have become historic, such as the Parnell letters and Pigott case, were generally the result of deliberate intention of the newspaper to run the risk in question, but only a newspaper editor knows how often58 accidental libels have been avoided by mere luck and at other times unfortunately not avoided at all. Libels lurk in single words misplaced, in head lines, in queer coincidences, in accidental resemblances of name or description. Many instances have come within my personal recollection, of which the following are a few. There was the celebrated Artemus Jones case, where an occasional contributor writing for a northern paper was giving a character sketch of people on their holidays at a French watering place. He mentioned as a purely supposititious character, a certain Artemus Jones, who apparently misbehaved himself or conducted himself in a reprehensible manner. Now there happened to be living in the neighbourhood a real Artemus Jones, a fairly well-known man, who was also even a frequent contributor to the same paper. The real man brought evidence of damage to his reputation and was awarded a considerable sum in compensation.

An even more curious coincidence occurred in the case of a disreputable weekly paper, now I am glad to say, long dead. This paper throve on scandal and one week it produced a circumstantial story, which the printers for fear of being held liable for damages refused to print; the story was then elaborately59 altered, fresh names and places being substituted. When the story appeared in print, it proved to be substantially true of another incident, which had happened elsewhere under circumstances sufficiently similar to justify action being taken. The matter had to be settled out of court.

One peculiarly unlucky case, I remember, which turned out the other way in the end, arose out of a mistake in the advertisements. A Liverpool firm of solicitors had sent for insertion a notice of winding-up proceedings to be taken against a firm of shaky credit. A daily paper in a neighbouring town received this order and had the advertisement set up in type for Saturday morning’s paper. On Friday night very late came a telegram from the solicitors, withdrawing the advertisement, as their own claims had been satisfied. Unfortunately the compositor in charge that night made an innocent but fatal mistake; he withdrew the wrong advertisement and next morning the incriminating advertisement appeared without any authorization. The newspaper had no defence and the damages threatened to be very serious. However, finally the firm in question had been so fatally shaken in their credit by this wholly accidental revelation of the true state of their affairs,60 that they went into liquidation and had no money to bring an action against the newspaper. But the manager of the newspaper had an unhappy time.

A reporter’s mistake, although quickly corrected, once had far-reaching consequences. A man concerned in a petty police court case was reported as convicted, when he was really acquitted. The true version came in three minutes later but meanwhile the evening paper had gone to press. A hurried rush was made by the editor and staff to the machine room to stop the edition and to the publishing room to recover all the guilty copies. Seventeen had been sold and of these fourteen were immediately recovered from the newsboys. The remaining three did not at the time seem to constitute much danger but unfortunately one of these papers fell into the hands of the agent of an evening paper in another town, whose business it was to get news for his paper cheap by wiring all news items from early issues of his rival. This agent had already wired through the fatal paragraph, which cost his paper £500. The original mistake cost the first evening paper only £200, because they were held to have caused less damage than the other.

Besides editorial matter, which includes61 both political, social and decorative items, and besides the news “stories,” the ordinary newspaper has to include correspondence from the provinces, from abroad and special correspondence, of which by far the most important and sensational kind is war correspondence. But before passing on to consider correspondence in general we must note one form of newspaper enterprise, the invention of American ingenuity and now universally employed everywhere, the interview, which does not exactly fall under any of the above categories. Interviewing has acquired a bad name, first because undoubtedly, when maliciously or stupidly done, it may be an annoyance or a serious nuisance to the individual interviewed; secondly, however, because human vanity, desperately afraid of detection, often proclaims the institution a bore, when in reality it is of the greatest value to the person concerned by enabling him to give forth his views on important occasions without being under the necessity of seeking publicity or being compromised, as he would be by a considered written statement. There is a great deal of interview matter now formally disclaimed under circumstances not entirely justifiable, as the mistake really lies with the person, who has changed his views, and the62 discredit would fall on the interviewer, if newspaper authorities were not fully aware of the weaknesses of public and semi-public characters.

There is hardly any need for describing what interviewing is, as it is a conspicuous feature of the press, but there may be some interest to the public in realizing what an extremely difficult art it is. The interviewer has to bring all his experience and art to bear to correct the errors or deceptions of his subject; he must be prepared to conquer his reticences and check his exuberances; to remember beforehand what he himself wishes to know and to render faithfully afterwards what information he has acquired. An experienced American journalist lays down the following rules, for what is perhaps the most difficult branch of all newspaper work. “Interviewing is hard work. Finding your man sometimes is the worst part of the task, but more often it is still harder to get him to talk. People to be interviewed are of three kinds; those who talk too much, those who talk too little and those who will not talk at all. And after you do get your man to talking it takes the concentration of all your mental powers to do your part of the work. You must pay the closest attention to what he is saying,63 grasp and remember the points he makes, take notes on the statistics he may quote, jot down some of his striking sentences, keep up your end of the conversation and at the same time bear in mind all the other questions, which you still must ask, for it will avail nothing to think of a neglected point afterwards. Before approaching your man be sure you have outlined clearly in your mind just what questions you wish to ask him. Impress each thought upon your mind when it is uttered and when you return to your desk you will be surprised to see how much of your conversation you can reproduce from memory. An important trick in interviewing is to be on the look-out for any pet phrase, which the speaker is in the habit of using and to work this into the article once or twice. It gives a lifelike touch to the story. As you proceed with the body of the article, take care not to be too rigidly verbatim. Wherever there is any part of the talk that is dull and wordy, give the pith of the matter in your own words and then drop into direct quotation again. A well-written interview with a prominent man on an important subject is a thing of which any reporter may be proud.” One may add to this that the most delicate tasks in interviewing have often to be done64 without shorthand notes or pencil and paper, lest the subject should be liable to nervousness and be checked in the current of his (or her) conversation.

The correspondence of a paper from outlying districts, from the provinces and largely also from abroad has been almost completely taken from the shoulders of individual papers both in America and in the United Kingdom by the great newsagencies, which we shall consider in the next chapter. So also has the recital of ordinary incidents in the streets of the capital town, those for instance, which do not merit special attention from the home corps of reporters. This has been especially the case in London, where twenty years ago the man, who made his living by selling short “pars” to a dozen papers, flourished greatly under the name of “penny-a-liner.” He has almost completely disappeared. The paragraphist of to-day is a much more elegant person, well educated and with some expert knowledge, of which he can make a monopoly. He flourishes chiefly on the needs of the metropolitan evening papers and on the well established institutions, known as the London letters of the leading provincial papers. By a man of this class and education the calling is not followed as a career in itself but as an65 aid to literature or the professions or sometimes, in between jobs, by the trained journalist. On the other hand the London press does not reciprocate the compliment; there are no provincial paragraphists and little provincial news in any London paper, except perfunctory paragraphs at the bottom of a column. I was told the other day on good authority that the Times for twenty years had no important article on the Manchester Ship Canal, one of the most extensive engineering enterprises of twenty-five years ago.

There is probably no respect, in which individual newspapers in this country differ so much as in the copiousness, merit and character of their foreign correspondence. This arises from the fact that the mere news is covered almost entirely by the wealthy foreign telegraphic agencies. In the case of America this is only partially true, because there is a peculiar circumstance, which renders telegraphic competition between daily newspapers for foreign news almost unnecessary over there. Owing to the difference in time between European cities and especially between London and New York, American newspapers can present to their readers at the cost only of Atlantic “press rates” all the news of the world from the London papers.66 London is thus the capital of the world in the matter of international news. She has an hour’s advantage or a little more from Berlin and Vienna; with Paris she is in constant touch by telephone; so that all that New York or Chicago has to do is to keep a bright newspaper man in London to run through the early editions at 4 a.m., and send the pick of it through to his paper. The only competition in foreign news within the reach of American correspondents in London is either for exclusive political news, which seldom comes their way and is not much wanted by the American public in any case, or else the manufacture from European sources of some ordinary newspaper “story.”

On the other hand the London papers and one or two provincial British papers find the question of foreign news a great problem. The public services of foreign news are now so comprehensive that to supplement them effectively requires great and permanent resources. A newspaper can easily spend £10,000 or £15,000 a year in this direction without adding appreciably to its attractiveness and a more important consideration appears in this sphere, that any open rivalry attempted can seldom be begun and afterwards dropped, without serious loss of prestige. It follows therefore67 that the majority of daily papers in the United Kingdom have almost completely withdrawn from avowed competition in foreign news. Their practice is to rely on agency news altogether in ordinary times and on occasions of special excitement to supplement these services either by sending an expert in foreign politics to the centre of disturbance or by forming a combined news service with other papers or by both. These resources are habitually used during war by most of the provincial press and by the weaker London papers.

The richer London papers still avowedly keep their salaried correspondents in the capitals of Europe and America and arrange for occasional letters and telegrams from locally appointed correspondents in the East and in the British colonies and dependencies. In this respect the London Times occupies a unique position in the world. It has correspondents regularly appointed everywhere and is probably the only newspaper independent of Reuter, except the New York Sun, which for special reasons has to be. It never prints less than a full page of foreign news, much of it special to itself and most of it telegraphed. It is the only paper, which has continuously scored important “beats” on news of first-class68 international importance. Of these probably the most vitally influential on the course of foreign politics was the secret information obtained by De Blowitz of the intended military pressure by Germany on France in 1875, which perceptibly affected the mutual relations of various powers, and the most sensational was his carrying off a copy of the draft Treaty of Berlin from the Conference in his hat. De Blowitz had arranged to meet his informant in the diplomatic corps every day at a club or restaurant and without recognition or salutation to exchange hats with him in the corridor every day as a regular habit. The hats thus offered a secret and sure method of communication of documents without the dangers of open intercourse.

The other London papers do not aim so high as the Times. The Morning Post has a corps of serious students of affairs abroad, whose news is sent on a consistent plan to enable the paper to maintain an independent attitude on foreign politics. The Daily Telegraph spends vast sums on the regular transmission of paragraphs from Paris and Berlin on lines similar to the London letter of a provincial paper. This regular fare is varied by sensational telegraphed descriptions, when occasion arises. But it can hardly be said69 to aim at any consistent scheme of policy with regard to foreign affairs. The succeeding changes in the editorial control of the Standard have rendered its policy in this respect somewhat erratic but its reputation abroad still stands very high. The foreign correspondence of the halfpenny London papers is spasmodic and liable to very considerable variations in extent. In the case of the Daily Chronicle not very much special foreign matter is given, but the paper has organized a syndicated service of some independent value in connection with one or two provincial papers. The Daily News maintains its traditional special consideration of foreign affairs, treated however in a manner closely adapted to the views and policy of the paper. The Daily Mail and Daily Express practically treat their foreign news, as American papers treat all their news, that is, according to its sensational value, but the former on special occasions will lavish expenditure quite on the most magnificent scale and will make almost any sacrifice in order to get a “beat.”

War correspondence falls into the same category as a foreign news service and is treated in much the same fashion everywhere. The public is so infatuated with the early stages of a war and so bored and incapable of70 serious interest in it after a few weeks, that the proper treatment of war news is the most serious problem, which a newspaper manager has to face. For an editor, the situation is confined to a simple issue even if his task of arranging for news requires great brilliancy in planning and judgment in selecting his men. For him it is a question of spending what is allowed him by the manager and proprietor and he cuts his clothes according to his cloth. But for those, who have to supply the sinews of war correspondence in [4]thousands of pounds the task is most unpleasant. The manager sees his advertising revenue curtailed and his expenses of distribution increased, while he obtains in return only a slight increase of revenue from greatly increased but useless circulation. The popular impression that newspapers and their owners like wars is fundamentally false. The only kind of war that a newspaper manager would really welcome is one that would last only three weeks, of which he had exclusive information; he might then be repaid all that it would cost him. The most dangerous feature of war from the point of view of newspaper finance is that a vast expenditure must be kept up long after the general public has ceased to take serious interest in it. A little can be saved in telegraphing at this stage and a correspondent or two may be cautiously withdrawn, but for the most part, wherever the men are first placed, there they must stay, even if they send nothing. The unfortunate manager lies awake at night thinking of a thin line of men, servants, donkey-boys, despatch-bearers, horses, ponies, camels, and mules all eating their heads off uselessly at the front day after day with little revenue coming in wherewith to feed them.

71 There is a great deal of romance and glamour attached to war correspondents personally, to the men, who suffer hardships and risk their lives more from fever than from bullets at the front, but none to the organization which sends them unwillingly abroad. It is a plain fact however that the public at present takes less and less interest every year in either foreign or war correspondence. The great public is intelligent and quick but not at all addicted to continuous attention devoted to anything but its business and serious amusements. It has become so much accustomed72 to have its interest sensationally stimulated at frequent intervals that nothing will hold it very long. All news has to partake of the nature of a “story” in the newspaper sense; the fate of kingdoms, the marriage of a Gaiety actress, the trial of a clever criminal will weigh differently for the time with the man in the train and the tram car but the duration of his interest will not be appreciably different in any case. Of the three the trial will probably be remembered the longest. The amount of space now devoted to this class of special correspondence remains still more a matter of tradition than calculation but the latter is slowly overtaking it and daily curtailing it. The dictum of a leading London manager about news is, that he will not print anything that interests less than a third of his readers and such a policy is beginning to cover the whole field and to narrow news down steadily only to those things which are next door to the daily preoccupation of the majority of readers.

In any account, however brief, of the characteristics of the American method of manufacturing “stories” one cannot omit to mention that extraordinary phenomenon of their journalism; the Sunday paper. Of these there are some which consist of the daily73 issue with additional supplements, which are conducted on the plan of a magazine. They are on the whole the exceptions and the majority are built on a sensational scale both as to size and as to general eccentricity of character. To a stranger, even if he be English, they are almost incomprehensible and indescribable and, as criticism on these points is quite a delicate matter, it would be safer to repeat an American description of them. “The average Sunday paper is like nothing else on earth. It might well be called a literary dime museum, for the editor presents not ‘stories’ that will simply amuse or entertain, but only those which will attract attention, because of their absurdity and the pictures, which sometimes cover whole pages, are, if anything, more unusual than the text.”

CHAPTER III
THE GREAT NEWSAGENCIES

Every man, who has had a newspaper in his hand, has remarked that from time to time on any occasion, which seems important, two or more accounts appear of the same event. These differing accounts to some extent repeat themselves and are also supplementary to one another. The most detailed one will be the production of the newspaper’s own reporters, who often work on the skeleton story provided from outside the office. The other accounts appear from one or other of the general agencies, whose function it is to supply to many newspapers the fundamental framework on which each is built up. The sphere of action of these agencies has grown steadily, owing to the mere utility of having the strain of competition lessened between rival newspapers. The field, which they cover, is continuously expanding and will soon include all that kind of news, which is expensive to gather and also offers little75 opportunity for obtaining individual distinction.

Of the established organizations the most interesting, which are also among the most important, began from the natural co-operation of newspapers in order to eliminate ruinous competition and to save expense. Although there are many newsagencies of all kinds, which are out and out commercial concerns, buying news and selling it at a profit, it is remarkable that on both sides of the water the leading news supply company is in each case a co-operative concern. In America it is the Associated Press, in the United Kingdom it is the Press Association and they are both organized on similar lines. It was the excessively daring and competitive spirit of American journalism, which in the early forties, brought about the first attempt at co-operation. At that time years before an Atlantic cable was laid competition for European news was limited to sending out fast sailing vessels to meet incoming ships and take the latest news from them. Newspapers vied with one another as to who should sail out the farthest and catch the news soonest, until at last it came to sending fast vessels all the way over to Europe to get the news at its source. Such competition had a sufficiently76 ridiculous aspect to bring about its own collapse and somewhere about 1850 the New York papers organized a joint service, which while primarily covering European news grew slowly to cover both general news and practically all but the internal news of each city, as subject for competition among newspapers. This was the germ of the Associated Press, which numbers about 700 papers as subscribers and regular members and is certainly the largest newsgathering concern in the world. It is both a newsgatherer and a news-trader and also a news exchange between its own members. As an exchange it receives news free from its members and retails it at a low charge. As a trader it buys from the great international foreign newsgatherer, Reuter’s Telegram Company and hands over the telegrams to its subscribers. Finally it has its own supplementary corps of editors and reporters in all important centres.

There is one very important respect in which the Associated Press of America differs from its English counterpart and that is that, while it is a very large, it is not a universally co-operative body. Existing members have a right to block the entry of new members and to that extent it is a close corporation. For instance the New York World77 has always vetoed the inclusion in the system of the New York Sun, thus driving the latter paper to maintain its own foreign and home service and in fact to establish a rival agency, in order, by getting outside help, to lessen the burden of its own expenditure. This rival agency, known as Laffan’s service, even has customers on this side of the water.

The co-operative English newsgathering organization, called the Press Association, had a different origin. It arose from a domestic crisis in the newspaper world, which was coincident with the taking over of the private telegraph companies by the State, whereby the telegraphs at once became a public service. Up to that time the newspapers, as the largest customers, enjoyed the advantage of a special rate for the transmission of news but without the power of furnishing their own services. About the fifties the telegraphs of the country were in the hands of three companies, who used their monopoly of the wires for the purpose of making also a monopoly of news services to all papers out of London. As these services were without any competition and cheaply organized for profit, the plight of the provincial papers was distressing. It came to a point where the provincial press organized a co-operative telegraph company78 of their own in 1865, so as to secure at any rate their own supplies or force their opponents to come to terms. This policy would have been certainly carried out, but whether successfully or not one cannot say, if it had not been for a national movement in favour of an improved telegraph service which culminated in the purchase of the telegraph organization from the private companies by the government. The provincial newspapers were led by necessity to organize a substitute for the old and inefficient common telegraph news services, which they did by founding in 1868 the Press Association under the lead of the late John Edward Taylor of the Manchester Guardian.

The Press Association in this country is almost as dominant as the Associated Press in America, but it does not include the London papers. It has for the provinces the same partnership with Reuter, as its cousin in America. The term P.A. is as much in the mouths of newspaper men on the one side as the A.P. is on the other. But it has one feature, as some people think, of superiority over the American organization in that it is a truly co-operative body; it welcomes any new member which wishes to join its membership and except for the London press, which79 remained voluntarily outside its scope, it includes every newspaper of any position in the country.

Reuter is so much a household word that an explanation of the function of Reuter’s Telegram Company is quite unnecessary. It was founded by the late Baron Julius de Reuter as a telegraph and foreign newsagency business and was turned into a public company in 1865 for the purpose of raising sufficient capital to equip a telegraph cable from England to Germany. This direction of development was subsequently altered and the cable sold and Reuter’s name became the trade-mark for semi-official foreign news all over the world.

Of domestic newsagencies in the United Kingdom there are many which come and sometimes go without making much stir in the world. The chief rival of the Press Association and Reuter is the Central News covering both domestic and foreign intelligence. Laffan’s service is also international in character and so is the Agence Havas. The chief domestic rivals of the P.A. are the Exchange Telegraph Company and the London News Agency, a newcomer founded by three or four experienced reporters, who found their old livelihood made by “penny-a-lining” being slowly undermined by the agencies. At one80 time these made almost a monopoly of police-court news in London, but this with other general news now passed almost completely out of private hands.

In addition there are the specialist agencies, whose names in most cases proclaim their work, such as the Commercial Press Telegram Bureau, the American Press Telegram Bureau, the National Press Agency, the Labour Press Agency, the sporting news services and firms like Tillotson’s, who do a great business in syndicating popular fiction for publication by newspapers in feuilleton form. Topical photographs are also a favourite subject of traffic by agencies for the benefit of illustrated papers. There is no question that this form of enterprise is largely on the increase, as the public is agog to have every sense tickled, as well as to have information as food for the imagination.

Some of the humbler servants to newspaper production, which escape the notice of those, who only know the big journals of the large cities on both sides of the Atlantic, are the agencies, whose business it is to furnish syndicated matter, supplied at a low price, not only already written and edited but even set up in print, stereotyped and ready for the press. Such a commodity passes in America under81 the name of “plate matter” and the trade in this branch of literary wares is enormous, especially there, where the small local papers cannot rely upon filling more than half their columns with the real news of their own districts. The organizations which supply this line of goods, sell the matter at so much a column or half column with or without illustrations. General news, fiction, truth, political opinions and jokes are all offered at the same “flat rate.” It is as near a thing to a Cervelatwurst, sold by the pound or foot, as one can get in the intellectual world.

There is one field for journalism, which is now peculiarly the property of the enormously circulated evening press. The halfpenny evening paper is the daily paper of the working man and especially so in the provinces, where in the small towns none but evening newspapers exist. For their immense mass of readers every conceivable matter of national or personal interest is subordinated to the overwhelming predominance of games, sports and betting. It is no exaggeration to say that five-sixths of the circulation of all the halfpenny evening papers is built up on amusements and gambling. The two for the most part go hand in hand, because, with82 the single exception of cricket, there is hardly any widely extended form of sport, which, so far as the masses of the people are concerned, is not the subject, and predominantly the subject, of betting. Incomparably the keenest competition in the newspaper world is developed as the result of rivalry to bring out the earliest news of sporting events. There is no indication of a reversal of this tendency, but since the mechanical facilities, which provide the means of this rapid production, are now the common property of all, it is no longer possible for any one competitor to leave another seriously behind.

The progress and development of these mechanical facilities are probably a matter of general interest, because, although the results of this break-neck rivalry are apparent to any man in the street, the methods, by which it is accomplished, are due to very elaborate devices of great technical perfection. I do not know that it is a matter to be inordinately proud of but this form of competition was first developed to its highest form of excellence, not in America but in England and not in London, but in the provinces. The old and common method of bringing out a special edition with the results of a race was by cutting a hole in the stereoplate from which the paper was83 printed and slipping in a small box with a spring, holding one or two lines of type. The process was dangerous and inadequate because it would be used only once for one announcement and that a curtailed one. Mr. Mark Smith of Manchester originally invented the device now in universal use. His invention is variously called the “late-news device” the “stop-press box” or familiarly the “fudge.” The object of this invention was to enable several small items of news, such as the result of a race or football match or the score at cricket, to be rapidly inserted in the paper, without the necessity of altering the body of the text and of going through the lengthy operation of recasting the large metal stereoplates from which all rapid printing has to be done. For this purpose a blank of about half a column has to be left on the main page, or on whichever page is selected for the latest news, so that, as the paper passes through the printing-press, that portion remains unprinted. Corresponding with the space thus left blank, there is attached to the printing-press a small supplementary cylinder, which can carry securely clamped a specially designed box to hold type or linotype slugs, so adjusted as to print on the portion of paper left blank during its passage through the main84 press. It is an easy and expeditious task to alter the contents of this small box without otherwise disarranging the plates and the process effected a material increase in the pace of production over the old methods, especially where a large number of presses were used to produce a big edition. The two to five minutes thus gained were quite sufficient to establish a decisive advantage over a rival not similarly equipped for publishing news of special interest. At the present time hardly any evening paper in any considerable town in America or the United Kingdom is without this invention.

At one time this device was protected by a patent, which was the property of a firm for which I was acting and I came across an amusing experience in connection with it during one of my visits to America. Some little time before, while my firm was engaged in difficult and expensive litigation over the validity of the patent in this country, there had been some question of the purchase of these patent rights for New York by the proprietors of the New York X. We had been asked in the course of this negotiation, whether we would defend this patent, if infringed. Having our hands more than full with litigation at the moment we declined,85 but offered to sell the entire rights in the invention to the New York paper for a moderate sum. The New York X broke off negotiations and knowing that the patent would not be defended adopted the device at once and spent a very considerable sum of money in adapting their presses for this purpose. There the matter was dropped for the moment.

Some eighteen months later, when we had successfully established our own patent here through a decision in the House of Lords, I had occasion to go to New York and found myself one evening in the office of the New York X. The occasion was of exceeding importance to the New York press. It was the night when the prize-fight to decide the championship of the world was to take place at Coney Island—a little way out of the city—between Jefferies and Fitz-Simmons and the island of Manhattan was agog from end to end with excitement to a degree, which sober Britons would hardly understand. On that occasion there was especial rivalry between the two popular papers in New York, the X, in whose office I was, and the Y. Both had made elaborate arrangements for special editions and the presses in both offices were furnished with very expensive installations86 of the special late news apparatus, which was controlled by our patent.

Mr. M. the manager of the X received me most cordially and showed me all over his office and the machine room. When I reminded him of our unsuccessful negotiation over the patent, he smiled genially and remarked that it was all right. In introducing me to various foremen in the building he said, jocosely: “This is Mr. D., whose patent we stole,”—the exact phrase was his own. Before leaving him that night I met him in his own spirit and said in farewell: “You have spent a lot of money on equipping yourself with this patent and the Y has done the same. What good has either of you got out of it? Do you not think it would have been better to have bought our patents for a moderate sum and have kept out the other fellow?” He smiled: “Now that you put it that way, perhaps you are right.” So we said: “Good-night.”

CHAPTER IV
THE NEWSPAPER AS AN ORGAN OF OPINION

While the necessary characteristic of all periodical literature has been the conveyance of news of some sort, sometimes of a general and frequently only of a special character, there has run side by side with this function the conveyance of general information and of instructed comment and incidentally the opportunity of thus moulding public opinion. In respect of this capacity there has been the widest divergence in the character of newspapers and journals. So far as they are newsgatherers and news disseminators, all papers have the same task, even when there are enormous differences of excellence and subtle differences of intention. But it is otherwise with them as organs of opinion. This is an optional duty, which a great many papers avowedly reject. Others by professing impartiality seem to follow the same policy, while in reality they attempt to exercise influence by every indirect method. A minority constitute88 themselves or find themselves forced into the position of becoming the official or half-avowed leaders of parties or groups, while every word of comment or criticism is admittedly stamped with the current doctrines commonly held by its special band of readers.

It is the case of these latter organs which we have specially to consider in this chapter. There are so many ways of either guiding or forming opinion by editorial comment or exposition and by the publication of signed or unsigned articles of a more or less rhetorical nature that a complete analysis of the subject means little less than the history of the press. There are, however, roughly speaking, certain broad differences of method, which afford us means for a partial classification. It has been the habit for newspapers on the continent of Europe to become the mouthpiece of certain well-known journalists or groups of journalists, who influence and lead opinion by the publication of signed articles, for whose policy the individual journalist is himself alone responsible. In the United Kingdom the prevailing practice has followed another course. Anonymous journalism has been found in the end to be a more powerful political weapon, partly because reverence attaches itself more easily89 to the unknown and also because the shelter of corporate responsibility adds somewhat to the freedom of writing and very much to the fertility of invention. In America again the case is somewhat different. Both methods are there followed but they are employed subject to the supreme requisition made by the reading public for mere news, which it can analyze and judge for itself.

Just as we chose the American daily paper for the model of a newsgathering and news-presenting organization, so here we must admit that, as an organ for expressing instructed opinion not only on politics but on general topics, the distinctively English type of paper is a far more potent and more highly-developed instrument. In this respect the American press suffers severely from the general democratic contempt prevailing on that continent for expert opinion of all kinds. Since one man there is commonly reputed to be as good as another, so there is no room even in that huge population for any one whose opinion carries weight in any other sense than that a large number of people think that he adequately expresses their views or comes near to saying publicly, what privately each man feels and thinks more effectively for himself. Although there are to be found across90 the Atlantic many men of literary distinction and of a culture, which would be exceptional anywhere, they hold sway, journalistically speaking, only in elegantly printed magazines of small circulation and in social circles they are notable for an apologetic manner and deprecatory attitude to their countrymen, which sometimes seem odd to a stranger prepared to reverence their talents. Of course here as elsewhere there are exceptions, which we will come to later on.

So far as the American press is concerned the only sphere, where editorial influence is either secretly or forcibly exerted, is in national or municipal politics. Here the line is so sharply drawn between opponents that little or no attempt at impartiality is pretended and news and comment are both frankly presented by party newspapers with highly-coloured bias and vehement advocacy. Persuasion is not a weapon adopted by the American press, because during a political campaign no reader has time or inclination to read the other side. Sheer battering force or biting ridicule are the favourite weapons. Their ingenuity is directed almost entirely on personal matters rather than in the exposition of general ideas. More importance is attached to discovering some weakness of91 private character in an opponent or to attaching to his opinions and views some nickname with an unpopular connotation than in confuting his arguments or in examining the soundness and sincerity of his patriotism. The power effectively within the control of an American party organ can be exercised much more decisively inside the party before candidates are chosen than afterwards when the champions are selected and the battle is formally set. This choice of candidates is however itself painfully restricted by the almost monotonous sameness of character among the budding Transatlantic statesmen of the time. Pedestrian eloquence, high animal spirits, physical vigour and an unimpeachable rectitude in private life are indispensable requirements for success in public life in America and politicians happy enough to possess all these characteristics rather resemble each other on these lines to the exclusion of any marked or unusual individuality of character or intellect.

In France and Italy, where the signed article, speaking generally, prevails, the excellence and weight of the written word in the press has been profoundly modified and greatly extended. This authority, however, attaches itself by a natural law to the names92 themselves, as they become well known, and is apt to carry the fortunate individuals, who thus establish themselves in popular favour, up to greater heights than mere anonymous journalism can scale. Journalism thus becomes only the ladder of ambition, as far as the successful writer is concerned, and so far from being an end in itself, as it should be, is generally, no more than the first step on the road to politics, even more so perhaps in this respect than the profession of the law. As compared with the English system the power of the newspaper itself is very considerably curtailed. The advantage of the temporary possession of a meteor is a doubtful one. He may mingle insubordination with brilliancy and even where meekness and all the journalistic virtues are combined in one pen, the ultimate loss of it will be the more severely felt. The solid qualities on which the continuous influence of a great newspaper rests are difficult under these circumstances to build up and it may therefore be taken as an axiom that the cultivation of brilliancy in journalism is to some extent converse to the acquisition of permanent power and wealth by the press.

The favourable side of the continental system is the maintenance of a very high93 literary standard and the acceptance in metropolitan circles of only the finest qualities of artistic criticism on most subjects. Nowhere in the world is such power wielded by journalists in the realms of music, literature, art or the drama as in France or Italy. It is taken seriously by the cultured public which reads it, because it is good. It has to be good, because it is taken seriously. The standard set in these matters is quite unapproachable by the wealthy and enterprising English press and nothing less than a century’s education of the English people would be required for us to see how much in this respect our public taste is inappreciative and our general journalistic performances inadequate.

The German journalistic system is on the face of it not so far distinct from the general continental practice, except that they make less use of the signed article and newspaper properties are correspondingly more valuable. While the artistic and critical sides of German newspaperdom are distinctly inferior to the standards common in France and Italy there is one path in which their journals can claim pre-eminence in that they treat seriously and reverently all matters of science and learning, quite apart from any commercial demand in94 this direction from their readers. But after making this deserved tribute to German newspapers a foreign critic can best add to it by paying them the compliment of treating their newspapers as in a state of transition from Bismarckian serfdom to American commercialism. They combine some of the worst qualities of both. Of independent character in the English sense they have none, as they are too much under the heel of authority. Enterprise in the American sense is only adopted in unessentials. In the collection of news they are not more enterprising than the French and their standard of accuracy in reproducing it is not very high. Their papers are printed in Gothic type and written in a still more Gothic style. Neither in politics nor in commerce, nor in finance is their integrity above suspicion. Their influence with the public is very considerable, especially in politics, but the source of their power arises from the general respect felt by every loyal German for the ultimate and all-high authority which does not scruple or disdain to use a thousand methods of pressure in order to sway to its will the minds of men. Even where this authority is not itself ostensibly at work, as it often is, its powerful and indirect influence over the press is fertile in suggesting95 to the popular imagination those courses of conduct which will be agreeable to the powers that be.[5]

Taking the press not only as the great news-distributor of the world, but also as almost the most powerful existing mechanism for the moulding of opinion, I do not hesitate to declare that for the last half of the Victorian century the British press held a position demonstrably superior to the press of any other country. Although in many respects, and some of them important ones, of which I have already mentioned a few, we ought freely to acknowledge our inferiority, in the two most vitally important attributes of journalism I believe we have long been unrivalled. The first is good professional judgment in selecting and absolute faithfulness in presenting the news of our own country and the most important96 news of the world. The second is the spirit of independence and contempt for corruption, either through the channels of power or by the pulling of financial strings, which makes it inconceivable for even the smallest newspaper here to boast of its honesty, an experience, which is a common enough occurrence, when one travels in any other country. Whenever corruption or blackmail occasionally finds an unsafe footing in one of the side-walks of journalism it is looked upon as a crime, both morally and professionally, which every one must stamp out, wherever found. Any manager or journalist of experience will tell you that the suggestion of bribery either at headquarters or with one of the ordinary daily staff of a newspaper is an experiment of the utmost danger to any one attempting it. It would most probably be followed by the instant occurrence of the disaster, which there was an endeavour to avert; in fact the only chance of escape for the offender would be the extreme insignificance of his affairs.

But while in many respects much of this stubborn virtue is still a characteristic of the British press, especially in the professional sense, yet it is questionable whether, looking at the independence of our press in the broadest sense, we are not in the course of a transition97 to a less desirable state of affairs. It is a matter on which I should be very reluctant to pronounce a responsible opinion. All I can see clearly is that a very important change is in progress, the final result of which it is still too early to forecast. The critical date of the change was almost exactly at the end of the last century with the outbreak of the Boer war and the tariff controversy, which followed. Those two events, while they left the country press in very much the same position as before, profoundly modified the position of the richer and more influential daily papers in London. The bitter controversies, which commenced with those issues, have practically thrown the great majority of the well-to-do classes in the kingdom on to one side in politics. Nearly all the richer newspapers, including one or two influential provincial dailies, naturally followed this lead and we have the remarkable spectacle of practically the whole of the important daily press in the metropolis being influenced by the aspirations, prejudices and casual opinions of only one of the great political parties. Now without suggesting the slightest imputation on the professional honour of these great journals nor impeaching their straightforward honesty, it is clear to me that the relative value of truth in all controversial98 matter has been dangerously disturbed. The mirror of the London press reflects only the drab colours of any presentation of one aspect of society, reserving all the hues of sunset for any little feature of the other. The resulting picture is produced unconsciously and in good faith, but it is none the less subject to dangerous distortion of the truth. This prevailing misfortune is growing worse daily and already we have lost the chastening memory of days, when impartiality was more strictly maintained in our press as a whole by the adequate representation of both sides. Society with a big S, has gone entirely on to one side and has imposed on its press that most hopeless form of provincialism, which already prevails in high circles in Berlin, of merely refusing to recognize as possible the existence of culture, good faith and even of common honesty in those who do not adopt the opinions prevailing in its own ranks. From this blindness I see no ordinary means of deliverance.

These somewhat gloomy reflections are applicable only to the penny press. In the more popular forms of journalism honours between the two political parties are nearly equally divided. But stress is to be laid in this matter chiefly on the penny press, because it is only in these journals or more expensive99 ones that any considerable space can be given to political debates and intellectual and artistic interests. They are a necessity to any man of culture and it is a disaster for him if opinions on important matters in the leading organs become stereotyped in what some may regard as a prejudiced point of view. Again the importance of the penny press in this connection arises in another form, because in what I am disposed to consider the Augustan age of the press, the last fifty years of Queen Victoria’s reign, it was this section which really raised British journalism to a height of dignity and power, which has never been equalled and most probably never will be again.

During this golden period, in the course of which the penalyzing taxes on advertisements and paper were removed, the rise of those powerful and rich organizations took place such as we pre-eminently connect with our idea of an “organ of the press.” This idea itself is probably more completely embodied than anywhere else in the London Times, which although not itself a penny paper, set the standard to which the penny morning journals of the United Kingdom more or less approximated. The foundation of the power and influence of our great metropolitan and100 provincial dailies was continuity of proprietorship and of general policy over a long period and the possession of great wealth. They were too valuable, both as properties and as political weapons, to pass easily from hand to hand and the families in whose possession they remained constituted a little aristocracy of high ideals and great stability of character. This represents one side of the medal. The other must be looked for in the staffs of journalists, who worked for them and the system of co-operation and the sacrifice of interests on both sides.

Looked at philosophically the keystone in the dignified arch of the old-fashioned press of the United Kingdom was mutual sacrifice between the proprietors and journalists. Wealthy corporations though they generally were, the great English dailies have always been liable to storms and disasters and progress could only be purchased by great risks of capital. The proprietors of those days stood by their papers,[6] as they would not have done by an ordinary business, staking their private fortunes and exposing their family comfort to the risks of an unstable source of income. Some foundered while others rose to great wealth. The proprietors also stood by their men, whether editors or journalists, and treated them as members of a family, protecting them, encouraging them and keeping many a lame dog in employment because he had once done good work.

101 The sacrifices they required and generally received in return were devotion to duty, anonymity and frequent concessions in matters of opinion to the policy of the paper. As the two latter points are vexed questions of high domestic interest to newspaper men a digression102 to discuss them will be pardonable particularly since they have a very material bearing on the power and influence of any organ of the press. With regard to devotion to duty a very special quality in this respect is demanded of newspaper men. Private interests, life and limb and even reputation have to be risked by them more frequently than in the ordinary walks of life.

Anonymity is the institution on which the peculiar success of British journalism is founded. It is a point on which the individual surrenders with the greatest reluctance. There is something dazzling in the public reward of successful persuasion and the avowed capture of other men’s minds. In fact very brilliant writers will never consent to it, feeling, that their power is inherent in themselves for which there can be no adequate compensation. So long as either pure literary quality is aimed at or personal influence desired, such an attitude is entirely justified. But such men are not permanently destined for journalism. They must fight out their fate on a wider field and bear the frost of criticism and the starvation of neglect by their own strength without the support or constraint of a newspaper behind them. For journalism proper anonymity has many good points about it, which escape103 the eye of the young and inexperienced. For one thing it builds up the wealth and importance of the organization, which draws the revenues and distributes the salaries. Thus it comes about that a young man, who would not earn a pound a week in any walk of pure literature, where he expects to be paid also by recognition, can earn a comfortable living by suppressing his natural desire for fame and doing the necessary work of the press. But there is a further advantage for the journalist in anonymity; it is a very effective shelter under which he can do his daily round of ordinary work without the natural slackening and the painful fits and starts which pursue inevitably the responsible writer, who has to put his own name to everything he produces. It may be possible for the Latin mind to dwell perpetually in the higher levels of brilliancy but the heavier Anglo-Saxon finds a sheltered routine more profitable to his genius.

The advantage to the newspaper of anonymity is more obvious. The grand manner can be more easily sustained where irrelevant individual characteristics are suppressed and continuity can be better preserved in spite of necessary changes of the staff. Again any writer can almost double his output under the shelter of the paper’s responsibility and104 what is lost in brilliancy is gained in steadiness. Perhaps the greatest advantage is gained by the paper through the establishment of journalism on a professional basis. The writer of signed articles is really a pamphleteer, who uses the newspaper as a vehicle just as in other days he would use a publisher. The journalist proper, who takes material as it comes along, has to acquire a certain toughness of taste and suppression of inclination, which in the ordinary course of things is probably the greater part of the sacrifice he makes to his calling. It is only a rare writer here and there, with something of the touch of the missioner or fanatic, who can successfully fulfil his career as a journalist without acquiring these callosities and partial mutilations.

The harder sacrifice sometimes required from a journalist in the occasional subjection of his private opinions was fortunately not often demanded under the old system. How far any concessions in opinion to the exigencies of his profession is possible for any journalist is a matter for a man’s own conscience. But custom has always ruled these matters in this country in the spirit of judicious and practical compromise. A wise editor will never be exacting in this respect because in one eventuality he will get bad work, in the other105 he will either break or lose his instrument. It is usually found that an intelligent sympathy with the general policy of the paper is enough for most conscientious people. There is no humiliation in conceding matters of detail and even here there are compensations, for a subordinate may now and then steal a march on his superiors by committing his journal in the sense of his own opinions on some happy occasion. It is essential that these happy occasions should not occur too often or there may be a sudden parting of the ways opening up to the adventurous writer.

Under the newer newspaper régime, where commercial considerations rule far more than they did under the old family system, this question of a conflict between conscience and economic pressure frequently comes up in a most cruel fashion. When a newspaper passed into the hands of a new proprietor, whose only object in acquiring it was to have the opportunity of changing its politics, all the special writers, whose province covered politics, might be condemned by their sense of honour to go out into the street. This has happened before now, as every newspaper man knows. Lord Morley at a dinner given to Sir Edward Cook dwelt on this precarious feature of the journalist’s life and stated that106 he himself during a long connection with this calling as writer and editor had never yet seriously advised a young man to adopt it as a career.

There is no doubt that the successful commercialization of journalism during the opening years of the twentieth century has greatly increased the chances of this painful misfortune occurring to a writer in the zenith of his career. There is little distinction now made between newspaper properties and any other, except that their political influence adds some considerable extra value to their market-price. In almost the majority of cases they are owned by limited companies. Their possession does not carry with it the feeling of a public trust; to own one means just so much money and so much power. It is safe to say that, while these pages are being written, not less than four of the London dailies are to be had for an offer, one of which at least is an exceedingly good property in the full course of prosperity. The effect on the life of the journalist and on the type of man, who is now coming into the profession, shows a change for the worse as compared with twenty years ago. The hazardous career now offered attracts a different class of men, more exacting in the way of remuneration, more107 brilliant and less patient, with none of the specialized devotion to his own institution, which was the peculiar characteristic of the Victorian political writer. At present the newer papers, such as the halfpenny dailies, are living mostly on the supplies of talent left over from the Victorian era with a few newcomers of a more sensational type. But some of these will soon pass away and some will become editors and we shall become altogether dependent on journalists of another kind, one quarter special pleader for any cause and three-quarters descriptive reporter. Education will become a disadvantage and motherwit with a turn for word-spinning will take its place.

To return to the main question of the actual power over opinion exercised by the press I am inclined to think it was at its maximum in this country during the Victorian age. Not only one but three or four prominent journals would guide opinion during a decade, of which the Times stood easily first. Statesmen would take hints from newspapers or privately from journalists. The leading articles every day would be scanned by politicians looking for approval with an eagerness, which is already becoming a thing of the past. Of instances frequent enough and already well-known108 to the public, it will be sufficient to select only one, the celebrated advice given to Lord Beaconsfield by the late Frederick Greenwood, and acted on by the former with prompt adroitness, to buy the Suez Canal shares for the British Government, advice which ultimately led to our control of Egypt.

The influence of a newspaper on the opinions of its readers is largely a matter of reliance and discretion on the part of those who guide its policy. Of course there is the avowed political partisanship, officially acknowledged and attracting the support of most of its readers for this cause alone. In this respect, however, no paper can claim to influence its readers, because they have formed their own opinions for themselves on the main issues already. The real power of a paper depends chiefly on the skill with which it is kept in the background and the severe economy of its use. Any blatant partisanship on unnecessary occasions begets in the reader the habit of discounting its repetition and of steeling his will in resistance. This is sometimes so strong an automatic habit that many men make a point of reading something of an opposition journal, so as to stiffen their prejudices and give an indignant edge to their own version of patriotism. It is getting truer every day that109 the lecturing leading article is little appreciated and influence is more effectually exerted by the presentation of news.

This is conspicuously true of the more popular halfpenny journals. These are not all of the same class, as those which once occupied the position of penny morning papers retain many of their old following and are thus encouraged to continue something of the style and of the make-up, which was suited to their narrower circulation. Of the new and frankly commercial press one may say with some confidence, that they have no influence in the old-fashioned sense at all. In all matters of opinion what they say is a matter of indifference. Their function is to supply to those, who already agree with them, a brief and effective setting for obvious facts and sometimes just so much misrepresentation as to make unpalatable facts a little more tolerable. In London it is conspicuous how insignificant their political efforts may be. In the last three elections the most populous parts of London have on the whole voted in the sense contrary to the two or three sensational journals which have the largest circulations in those localities.

With all the merits of these popular journals, and these are very marked in comparison with110 the halfpenny press of other countries, it is impossible to deny that the recent commercialization of journalism is an irredeemable loss to this country. We have probably in the last twenty years parted silently with an asset of unique value. It was perhaps inevitable and no one need blame themselves or any one else. In fact, the group of successful men, who have rather brilliantly, in one sense, effected this revolution, are not responsible for the circumstances, which made their own victory necessary. One may perhaps grumble at the rather obvious insignificance of the new “replacers.” No personality seems to emerge from among them and one is tempted to conclude that the task they have effectively accomplished was one more suited to Attila than to Napoleon.

The real dominant factors of the modern press and the press of the future are the machine, the telephone and the special train. Production by the million is an exacting master. Instead of three hours for a considered version of facts or opinion, the modern writer is often given fifteen minutes, in which to turn out a smart distortion. The more a man can resemble a Linotype machine the more useful will he be to the paper of to-morrow. He must of course be complicated in organization,111 his mechanism must be ingenious enough to conceal his mental subordination. But just as the pressing of any key on the composing board brings down always the same letter so will it be required from the brilliant, up-to-date journalist of the millennium, that he must react automatically with the most faithful resemblance to the accuracy of a machine to each stimulus afforded by varying events, popular emotions and the ideas of the market-place.

CHAPTER V
THE NEWSPAPER AS A BUSINESS ORGANIZATION

The future will belong more and more exclusively to organization and machinery; and this obiter dictum may be held to be as true of newspapers, as of anything else. It is necessary in the first place to make a clear distinction between these two terms, as they each describe a method of effort, which runs very easily into the other, without any obvious dividing line. Roughly speaking, the term, organization, is generally applied to a systematic use of human endeavour; while the term, machinery, denotes that part of our activities which we have succeeded in delegating to steel and iron and thereby in saving the wear of flesh and blood. Obviously the two terms to some extent overlap on the same ground, because system requires the use of machinery, and machinery must be employed in systematic fashion.

From the point of view of organization the chief requirement of a newspaper is continuity;113 and this continuity must be maintained in two ways. A newspaper in order to be successful must maintain the same kind of continuity of opinion that a politician has to establish for himself in order to secure the permanent support of his constituents. Side by side with the other and equally necessary for success is the same continuity of good management and energetic business development, such as is aimed at in the course of any prosperous business. This double life of newspapers thus distinguishes them very markedly from any ordinary enterprise and leads to certain very distinct and not generally observed results.

Should a newspaper be conducted with conspicuous success for a long period by its editor and staff and also enjoy the benefit of wise and far-seeing management, the work of each redoubles the value of the other to an astonishing extent. The result will be the establishment of a property of enduring value, not to be paralleled in any other business, not even by the history of any powerful banking concern. On the other hand a permanent failure in either respect will sooner or later bring about the ruin and decease of the oldest established journals. The process of such a failure will, however, be different from114 the course of natural decline to be observed in ordinary commercial life. Successful editorial conduct of a newspaper will often prolong its career in spite of mistakes of management, while good business ability will keep alive for some time a journal, whose readers are dropping off day by day. It seems to be a law of newspaper life that mistakes in this business have far-reaching and not easily discoverable consequences; the fatal decision and critical mistake will not receive its inevitable recompense until after a period of delay, which makes the original cause of the disaster only a matter of conjecture. There is nothing more mysterious, even to a highly-skilled and discerning eye, than the decline and fall of many powerful and long-established newspaper properties.

The commodity, which a newspaper has to dispose of, is the most valuable in the world; publicity. This commodity it dispenses freely for no consideration whatever in its news columns. It has the power to set generals, politicians and artists on pinnacles of success and glory by keeping them before the public and under other circumstances it can ruin and drive to despair the courtier, the public servant or even the humblest individual. Any one who has taken a practical part in115 our mysterious calling will appreciate its terrible power, especially in the latter sense. We have all been witnesses of the despairing appeals “to keep something out of the paper”; as we are equally aware of prominent men, whose careers, sometimes contrary to merit, have been created for them by the newspapers. It is out of the same commodity, supplied under different conditions for purposes of business, that the newspaper acquires the magnificent revenues from which it can defray the enormous expenses required by a modern fully-equipped organization for the collection and presentation of news.

Advertising is the newspaper’s backbone. The world is only beginning to realize how vitally necessary it is to business. Probably from £40,000,000 to £50,000,000 a year is spent on advertising with various journals and periodicals in this country alone. Perhaps as much is spent in Central Europe and at least four times as much in North America. All these vast revenues are a subsidy paid by the public in aid of journalism and for the provision of news. They enable the newspaper proprietor to give to his readers a product, which costs him from four to ten times the amount, which he receives from them in purchase of his papers and in return116 they give to him and his advertisers part of their daily attention and ultimately they requite him by buying more or less of the articles advertised in the paper. Thus there is an ingenious exchange of services, which makes the management of a newspaper in a commercial sense almost as complicated a process as its editorial conduct.

The process is attended by a subtle danger. With the increasing expenses of modern newspapers under the stress of competition the necessity of swelling the advertising revenue of a paper becomes of paramount importance. So the courting of prominent advertisers is every day more and more the preoccupation of a newspaper manager and he is apt to listen too favourably to any representations made by strong monied interests and himself to exercise a corresponding pressure on the editorial side of the enterprise. Here is the point, where the newspaper, as an essential feature of its career as a business, may be said to have a conscience or should have one. The tendency to a decline and fall into the last stages of commercialism must at all costs be resisted. If not resisted, it may become suicidal and by ultimately weakening and losing the hold which a newspaper has on its readers, it may sacrifice its capacity for usefulness117 to the public and lose its own source of strength and revenue. Or worse still, the tendency may be followed downhill almost to a criminal extent and lead to organized fraud and systematic blackmail.

Although there are in the United Kingdom considerable differences both as to accepted principles and also practice between one journal and another in this respect, yet we are fortunately, with rare and insignificant exceptions, free from the criminal methods of prosecuting success. The press of other countries in this aspect we need not consider. With us the problem of relative independence with regard to advertisers presents itself within a comparatively small compass. It is a question of how far newspapers and other periodicals allow the use of their news columns to the puff preparatory or supplementary for the benefit of those firms and businesses who contribute freely to the revenues of the advertising columns. This practice is on the whole fairly common. There is in it nothing in any way immoral or disgraceful and it really resolves itself into a question only of dignity and expediency. Perhaps one might be within the mark in attributing such practices to a greater or less extent to the weaker half of the press of the United Kingdom. Those118 who avowedly adopt these methods place themselves on an inferior plane and to a certain extent lower their reputation and weaken their bargaining power. Still it must be admitted that such surreptitious puffing is often adopted under pressure even by wealthy and powerful journals to an extent, which makes resistance on principle to the same demands exceedingly difficult for their weaker competitors. Among other disadvantages these puffs ultimately tend to lower the value of the columns openly sold to advertisers and thus to impair these as a source of revenue.

As I have said elsewhere,[7] the philosophy of publicity is rather hard to grasp. In some forms it comes perilously near to charlatanry and quackery and yet in the modern world it is not only a valuable aid to business but absolutely indispensable. Although the practice has been known to all ages, it is only the development of the immensely productive power of the factory system, which has caused its enormous extension during the last century. In former times goods were produced with difficulty and found their hungry markets waiting for them. It is entirely different now-a-days. The chief modern problem is to sell goods fast enough to prevent a glut of production. To take a concrete instance from modern America, the output of motor cars as these lines are written is considerably more than one a minute and in order to secure continuous cheapness of production this rate of output must be maintained and probably even increased. All this flood of production has to be marketed without delay and without intermission. The missing of even one month’s sale of such a prodigious output would entail the bankruptcy of half the manufacturers in the kingdom.

119 It is advertising which supplies the remedy for their ever-present difficulty. It affords the chief practical solution of the paradox of modern industry, which requires that goods shall be manufactured in immense quantities in order to secure cheapness of production and yet will not allow that they should be put on the market in too large quantities at a time for fear of creating a glut and lowering prices. Demand must never be satiated. It must be perpetually stimulated so as to maintain a steady suction at least equivalent to and preferably exceeding, the normal rate of output. The most effective and almost universal method of obtaining this stimulation of demand is by advertising.

Advertising began by aiming at mere120 publicity. Then it became combative and assertive of individual superiority over rivals. As this grew stale, it assumed blandishing and seductive methods, flattering the customer and appealing to his intelligence, his discrimination and his good taste. The latest tendency especially in the technical journals, where immense sums are spent in this business, is to become soberly educative. The customer is offered gratuitously the benefit of the immense experience acquired by the advertiser from an extended business in meeting the particular needs of the buyer. This is an eminently legitimate and highly successful method. It is perfectly true that, where a speciality is concerned, the seller may have far more detailed experience than the buyer himself. But it hardly meets the more general case, where the nature of the want is trivial and it is only a question of which satisfaction to take out of a choice of several.

One of the difficulties about advertising, of which the newspaper manager has to take account, is the element of misrepresentation, which is apt to creep into it. The stereotyped precaution, which has always been taken to prevent misrepresentation being such as to involve the newspaper proprietor in damages or to embroil him with other customers121 is to refuse to insert any reflection or disparagement of any recognizable rival goods. The advertisement is therefore driven back on to a rather tame proclamation of general excellence and of the pre-eminence of the article advertised over rivals in general. Of course the utility of any device, so tame as this, is rapidly exhausted, so that advertisers have long learnt to vary the appeal and the claim in every possible way. But although the form changes, the methods are few. The earliest method was the attempt to use literary skill, but as this necessarily appealed only to a class of people very much on their guard against advertising of all kinds, it was soon abandoned. Another method was the surprise. A long story would be printed with a little tag at the end advertising some nostrum or necessary. This was speedily discounted and disused. Then mere blatancy became the general rule. Advertisers appealed only to the eye by wearisome iteration. Curiously enough such a policy, apparently trivial to a primitive degree, has held its own for decades against devices of a much more elaborate kind. But in the newspaper itself severe limitations are imposed on this method both by the paucity of type faces and the mere cost of space. It has come therefore to be122 almost exclusively the weapon of the very rich, who are able to buy whole pages at a time of the most widely circulated and most expensive journals. Lastly and perhaps the most successfully of all, illustration has come prominently into use. Here again the limitations of the medium impose themselves. It is not every kind of design or sketch, which is effective under the rough conditions imposed by the rapid printing of the daily press. The managers of newspapers themselves being aware of this are not anxious to encourage this form of enterprise and some of them exclude it from their columns. The legitimate field for its full florescence has now become the pages of the popular magazine, which are printed with monthly deliberation on the flat and thus secure a high degree of excellence in technical execution and reproduction. The American magazines are the most suitable home for brilliant expository work of this kind and in many cases the ingenious advertisers have succeeded in making their advertisement pages a serious rival in interest with the pages in the text.

All these efforts, while they are strictly speaking the chief concern of the advertiser, become by proxy the daily problem of the newspaper manager and of his familiar spirits,123 the advertisement solicitors for the journal or periodical. This is a task very much better understood and executed in America than in Europe and a high degree of expertism in advertising has become a sine qua non of newspaper management everywhere. The work is as often as not now carried on by a highly-trained staff including writers, artists and canvassers, so that the manager himself has nothing more than a general supervision and direction of policy. It is especially his province rightly to appraise the class of readers, whose patronage he has, so to speak, to sell to advertisers, to advise as to the best methods of approaching them and to lay down general rules and a scale of prices regulating the advertising, which his paper is prepared to take. Such a responsibility is a very serious one because the rules and conditions, under which this traffic has to be carried on, cannot be changed very often and once established the rules must be observed with judicious strictness, as any suspicion of partial or favoured treatment would unite his customers fatally against his paper. He must never forget that the bulk of his custom comes to him through a profession of the most suspicious people in the world, the advertising agents, whose pre-occupation it is to secure most-favoured-nation124 treatment each for his own customers and to prevent any one else stealing a march on them.

Let us examine this problem as it presents itself to the manager of a London daily morning newspaper. The complication of it can be seen by carefully examining the columns of a typical daily like the Morning Post or Daily Telegraph. Advertisements for these papers divide themselves into two classes, displayed and classified. In the first class come all those miscellaneous announcements, whose character we have discussed in general terms above. The advertiser in these cases practically buys so much space, sometimes in column form, sometimes across column rules, in which case he is almost invariably charged a higher rate. In this space he frames his advertisement using the special kind of type laid down by the rules of each paper, which in the United Kingdom vary greatly from the extreme conservatism of the Morning Post to the unlimited license of some of the smaller provincial dailies. It is becoming increasingly the practice to sell space of this kind at a “flat rate,” which is an American term meaning a fixed price per inch with reductions for a quantity, allowing the advertiser to make his advertisements what size he likes and to125 repeat them at his own convenience, as opposed to the older English custom, where so many specific columns and half-columns were sold at certain regular intervals of recurrence, restrictions which imposed needless trouble on the advertiser and often interfered with the most effective display of his advertisements.

But with regard to classified advertisements, that is, advertisements grouped under regular headings, more old-fashioned usages prevail. Probably no two papers in the country have exactly the same scales for this kind of advertising. The reason is not far to seek. Every paper has some little connection in a special class of advertising arising out of the ineradicable habits of the public. For instance the Morning Post is pre-eminent for domestic servants, the Daily News for pressmen and compositors and I remember one provincial daily, now dead, which even in articulo mortis was the only organ through which the barbers and hairdressers of Lancashire sought for new situations. It followed that the scales charged for this extremely varied volume of custom are roughly governed by the simple rule adopted by railways in fixing their freight rates, of charging whatever the traffic will bear. Each paper will put up the rates on126 its own specialities and charge less for custom which it is trying to draw from a rival paper.

The expectation of attracting custom from elsewhere in classified advertising is very seldom fulfilled. The habits of the public are extraordinarily stable in this respect. When once a paper is recognized as the special organ for a particular purpose every one has to buy it in this connection and people save themselves the trouble of looking elsewhere. The most outrageous overcharging will very seldom drive this custom away, but it is very unwise for any manager to attempt it, as he may easily injure his general reputation for justice and thereby lose other business. The most important groups of classified advertising are as follows: financial, theatrical, public notices, losts and founds, educational, auctions, property to let or for sale, situations for clerks, situations for servants, births, marriages and deaths. Of course there are a good many general announcements under special headings and in addition there are cross classifications, as when special prices are asked for special positions in the paper, of which the most usually prevailing variations are an extra charge for advertisements next reading-matter and for announcements printed in127 what has come to be universally known as the “agony column.”

Next to the skilful handling of his volume of advertising, the chief pre-occupation of a newspaper manager is the cultivation and increase of his circulation. Some people would say that it precedes the other in importance, but this is hardly the case. It would be so, if it were the business of no one else but the manager to secure readers, because circulation must antedate advertising or any rate it must appear to do so. The fundamental responsibility for the circulation remains with the editor, who has to produce a paper permanently interesting to his readers, whether these are drawn from a small and select class or from the masses of the general public. The manager’s function with regard to circulation is to improve his machinery of distribution to the limit allowed by the means at his disposal and to secure the utmost publicity for the efforts of his colleague.

This is a very much more difficult task than appears at first sight. One would naturally suppose that to an expert in advertising and publicity, as a newspaper manager has to be, the marketing of his own wares would be an easy task. That it is not so, is due to the fact that the commodity he has to offer128 for sale differs in kind from any other. The chief form of publicity, whose peculiar virtues he is perpetually extolling, namely advertisement through the press, is almost closed to him. He can use his own columns to puff special features only to a limited extent and probably to very little advantage. He can hardly use rival papers to his own, except on very special occasions, without increasing their revenue and prestige and to some extent confessing his own weakness. To appeal to the readers of papers of a different class is to approach a public, which probably does not want him. Worse still is the habit of using for the purpose of newspaper propaganda other means of publicity, such as the hoarding in the country or the placard in public places. These are inevitably cheapening in their effect on the public mind and it is his daily business to say so to his own clients, who bring their advertising to him.

He is driven in the end to occasional and impromptu methods such as the distribution of interesting copies of his paper, the production of various subsidiary publications, whose circulation may keep his paper before the public or the organization of little tricks and surprises. None of these devices however can ever be expected to advance the interests129 of his paper very seriously. The real propaganda for a newspaper therefore remains in the hands of the editor and his resources are of a simple nature and must be used continuously and with the greatest possible skill. First and foremost he must make for his paper the reputation of being the most efficient and, more important still, the most alert in his own district. He must miss nothing and score a “beat,” when he can. Secondly he must identify himself and his paper conspicuously with all local efforts, needs and opportunities. He must be prompt to hear and take up grievances, to track down scandals, to open subscription lists for the sake of important public charities of an occasional kind and to bring prominent names conspicuously before the public. Lastly he must watch anxiously for any legitimate object of sensationalism, such as is sometimes offered in a war or, as is at other times the case, may be invented and planned in the office of the newspaper. Such were the New York Herald’s expedition to discover Livingstone, the Jackson-Harmsworth expedition to the North Pole, or the rescue of a white girl from Cuba by a New York paper. This class of sensation is only within the reach of a very long purse and moreover is valuable to none but popular130 journals. The readers of higher class circles are apt to be thoroughly bored with reiterated details on a subject, which soon becomes stale, while yet there is no other method than this by which the newspaper can secure a suitable return for its enterprise and heavy expenditure.

One of the vexed questions for the publisher of periodicals is properly to assess the relative value of a large or small circulation. Some small circulations especially of a technical kind have a far higher value for advertisers than a large one of poorer quality. On the other hand, if the readers are of too high a class, they are not to be hit by the efforts of the advertiser and the revenue therefore remains small. I know of one paper, which is unique in this respect in the world. It is the Zeitschrift des Ingenieuren Vereins, whose editorial product stands on a level of technical excellence unapproached in the engineering world. Yet it has the large circulation for this class of journal of 20,000 or 22,000 a week and a very considerable advertising revenue. The secret of this success lies in the fact that it is a class organ circulating to all the members of the immense association of German engineers, which includes not only all German engineers but innumerable foreigners, who131 have come to Germany to be educated in Charlottenburg or in their other admirable technical schools.

But with regard to the general and daily press it may be said that both in the United Kingdom and in America newspapers tend to range themselves in grades and in each grade it is the largest circulation, which brings in the greatest advertising revenue and profits. The highest grade has the smaller circulation but a monopoly of certain kinds of advertising, which is the backbone of its security. The lowest grades have immense circulations, high rates for advertising and very large revenues. But because the readers in this grade are mostly people of small means these newspapers are not the best organs for those expensive articles of luxury on the sale of which the largest sums of money are spent. The largest volume of business therefore undoubtedly goes to the middle grades, where considerable circulations prevail among the wealthy middle classes. The most profitable clientèle for a newspaper is among the vulgar rich, who are easily led in their habits and expenditure by the suggestions of fashion and the interested blandishments of the skilled exploiter.

Of all the functions exercised by the manager of a great newspaper property the132 most serious and responsible is his collaboration with the editor in weighing the relative advantages to be gained and the cost to be incurred by enterprise of all kinds. Unfortunately for newspapers, while they are driven by a law of their being to assert themselves wherever possible by venturing on new ground this can practically never be done without the outlay of very large sums of money. Here is certainly a case, where two heads are better than one. The editor is generally the executive, as he knows that very little effort is permanently remunerative, which does not improve the quality or extend the influence of the publication. But he is very seldom the best judge of how much can be risked for a certain object and whether the object itself, even when successfully gained, will really be worth the sacrifice. There are certain cases, such as war correspondence, when reckless expenditure, perhaps of two or three years’ income, may be forced on a newspaper by competition. There are others where the risk and expense may be optional, such as the organization of special correspondence abroad, the establishment of new and permanent features of the paper, the starting of a new edition for local distribution, or perhaps of extending the area of circulation133 of the journal by going earlier to press and catching special trains.

The special train has been a very important feature in the changes, which have come over journalism in this country, both in the provinces and especially in London. Unlike America where spacious habits in geography confine every newspaper to the suburbs of the populous towns, Great Britain can almost be reached in all its corners before breakfast by morning papers printed in central positions. The result is a perpetually recurring struggle for better facilities of distribution involving increased expenses and altered habits. There was a time when provincial newspapers “went to press” early in order to utilize the ordinary mail trains which generally left at or near midnight. London on the other hand, which had no large towns near to it, generally closed for press only at 3 a.m. But the special trains have radically changed these habits. To the best of my knowledge the first paper to run special trains of its own was the Manchester Guardian, whose object was to improve the paper by giving more time before “press”; the special train in this case postponed publication from 12.30 to 1.30 a.m. with very beneficial results.

In London the process of change was134 reversed. London has the serious disadvantage of being at one end and in one corner of our little island. To reach the great populations of the Midlands, the North and the South West a series of special trains costing enormous sums of money were started about 2.15 or 2.30 with the result that the hour for “going to press” was moved forward from 3 or 3.30 a.m. to 1.30 a.m., seriously cutting down the possibilities of considered literary production. The example of this exacting competition was first set by the Daily Mail at the outbreak of the Boer war and was necessarily followed by every London morning paper. How severely this was felt by the weaker brethren of the press, the following story will illustrate. I was assured by the proprietor of a prosperous newspaper that the increased expenditure on this competition at that time entirely wiped out his current profits for some years and reduced his property to the position of a journal struggling to establish itself. The indirect effect on the editorial staffs of newspapers was also disastrous to some. The result of curtailing the time for journalistic effort placed those papers, whose speciality was superior literary style and well weighed judgments, on much the same footing as the cheaper papers.

135 As a partial relief from the expense of special trains and carriage of newspapers it has become the practice for the progressive popular papers of London to print elsewhere local editions, which have also the advantage of meeting local needs both with regard to news and advertisements in a way that a purely metropolitan issue can never do. In this respect also the initiative was taken by the London Daily Mail, which at the turn of the century established a branch office and printed a northern edition in Manchester, from whence it could reach all the north and the greater part of Scotland by breakfast. This was followed some years later by a special edition in Paris, in which the local edition is printed in French. It has since extended its grasp by starting a Midland edition in Birmingham. The Daily News followed the example of the Mail by establishing a Manchester office but it anticipated the Mail by being the first to go to the Midlands. The London Daily Chronicle has followed the other two to the Midlands and will probably end also by going up north. To the best of my knowledge the first daily paper in England to start a special local edition was the Manchester Guardian, when it produced its Welsh Edition about the years 1894 or 1895. But the practice had136 long been common among the weekly papers of the country.

Analogous to the enforced expenditure on communication is the provision that has to be made for cabling foreign or special correspondence. In this matter the pressure to follow the example of a richer competitor is not overwhelming, as readers have different tastes and many are almost indifferent to foreign news. Yet every paper feels very severely the indignity of being obliged to admit inferiority in enterprise and of publicly taking a seat in the second row in any respect. Yet the cost of cable messages is sometimes prohibitive and they have to be summarily cut off on occasion. In any system of foreign correspondence by cable, the salary of the correspondent is a mere trifle compared to the expense of telegraphing. Every foreign correspondent is aware that his fate, as far as that particular position is concerned, is determined much less by the quality of his own work than by financial plethora or stringency at home. It has been the fate of many, as it has once been mine, to find themselves quietly snuffed out by the application of this effective extinguisher.

A new terror has been added to journalism in America, though hardly yet to the same137 extent here by the use of wireless telegraphy. In New York all the leading papers have wireless plants, which they use not only to transmit and receive their own news but to intercept where possible those of others. It is credibly repeated that after the Titanic disaster one of the causes of the appalling confusion of reports and rumours was that every newspaper kept getting fragmentary messages intended for every other and the most absurd and self-contradictory accounts passed current without any attempt to verify them. Clearly in future the manipulation of press messages by wireless telegraphy will have to be very severely curtailed in any future naval war. In fact it seems to me that the only possible road to security will be to forbid it without any exception.

The latest development in enterprise of this kind was recently devised by the Liverpool Echo and the Liverpool Express in conjunction with the Yorkshire Post and the Manchester Guardian. When Mr. Winston Churchill made his sensational irruption into Ulster at the beginning of 1912 the public wires were entirely taken up with general orders and the lease of a special wire was impossible. The speech was then reported by undersea transmission over the electrophone, the first time that this138 instrument had ever been used in that way. There were thirty-two transmitters placed round the platform where Mr. Churchill spoke and his voice was heard distinctly in the Liverpool offices and his words were then taken down as he uttered them.

The mention of the telephone reminds me that much that has been said in this chapter and elsewhere with regard to the telegraph applies also especially to the telephone, which in some respects is an equal and even better competitor. Some of the London press agencies use this form of communication for reporting police cases and other immediate items of news to the complete exclusion of the telegraph. At one time I had to examine very carefully the merits of a wireless system of telephoning through the ground for this purpose but could not persuade myself, that it would operate with accuracy and inevitable success. I have heard no more of it.

CHAPTER VI
THE MECHANICAL PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION OF A NEWSPAPER

The process of the production of a modern newspaper is one of the curiosities of industry. It is inconceivably complex. To begin with, for every single letter used in every word of the day’s issue—there is an average of about six letters to each word, nine words to a line, two hundred lines in a column, seven columns in a page and ten or twelve pages and often more in a standard morning daily—a reproduction in metal has to be made and placed in its right position between two others. That is to say about three-quarters of a million individual little metal stamps have to be made every day afresh in a certain order, never twice repeated; they are used once and then entirely destroyed. That is but the first miracle. Another is that in the output of a popular morning issue from fifty to sixty miles of double-width paper—that is four times the width of the front page—representing the140 denudation of perhaps thirty or forty acres of forest land, will be devoured every day. The third and most amazing miracle of all is the pace at which these huge operations are done. All these little distinct metal stamps will be made in the right order in from six to eight hours by less than a hundred men. The miles of paper will be eaten up in perhaps from two to three hours including intervals at a rate of output representing the printing of something like fifteen thousand copies of the paper per minute or two hundred and fifty per second in the offices where the largest circulations are produced.

Let us now take these processes seriatim and see if we can understand them in detail. The first point to realize about a newspaper is that everything has to be done, not at the double, but at some quicker pace, of which there is no example in ordinary life. Perhaps a Cabinet Council planning some revolutionary legislation may work quicker or a council of war summoned to meet in an emergency. The feat can only be accomplished by the strict training of all concerned to do each his own job with an intense concentration, regardless of the simultaneous carrying out by others of a hundred corresponding tasks. The news or special article as it leaves the author’s brain141 commences at once its progress in the form of words through the minute mechanical processes required to carry it to the breakfast table. It may never get written at all. In several New York offices only type-written matter is accepted by the city editor and the typed copy has to be either by dictation to shorthand or to the machine or executed by the reporter himself. The most progressive method of all, which has not yet been completely adopted but I have no doubt soon will be, is the use of the dictating machine, which is a special form of phonograph. The records, when the proper degree of accuracy and self-confidence have become general in a reporting staff, will ultimately come to pass direct to the compositor, thus saving one intermediate stage.

The three chief processes through which the written word has to pass in order to get into print are composition, or the assembling of types, stereotyping, or the preparing of the types for fast rotary printing, and printing proper. Of these the first is the most difficult and complicated, and has been the slowest in coming to the modern standard of perfection of all the three. As every one knows, the old-fashioned method of composition consisted in setting up together various movable types so that they successively142 formed words and sentences. This process has proved much too slow for modern newspaper production. The hand compositor, as he was called, could not put together more than 1,200 or 1,500 typical letters per hour. The composing room staff had to be very numerous, and the issue of very large papers was physically impossible. Besides there was the difficulty of dealing with the types themselves; they were difficult to handle in a mass for fear their order might be disturbed; they were easily injured and worn out, and they had to be distributed afresh in their proper cases after every use.

All this has been abolished by the invention of various forms of composing machines, of which I shall describe the one that is most often in use in newspaper offices. I am told on good authority that out of about 2,000 offices in the United Kingdom only about six have not at least one Linotype machine. This Linotype machine is probably the most ingenious mechanism ever planned and, with the exception of a few calculating machines, resembles the human brain more than any other. The Linotype is not content to assemble made types, but it makes them line by line as they are required. It is constituted of a keyboard actuating a magazine143 containing matrices, or letter-moulds in intaglio, together with a casting mechanism. By tapping the keys the operator can bring to a suitable position in the casting machine, opposite to the blank end of a small mould of exactly the size of a line of type, these various matrices in due order so as to form successive words in a sentence. When the matrices are assembled in their proper place, as he is informed by the ringing of a bell, the operator will touch a lever releasing molten metal into the empty mould and thus obtains a metal slug representing the line of type which he has to set up. The machine shaves and trims this slug to an exact size and returns the used matrices to their appropriate channels in the magazine ready for use in another line. By this method the handling of separate metal types is abolished. Fresh new printing surfaces are presented for every issue and the old ones destroyed. Above all the pace of output is more than quadrupled and very much larger issues can be produced than was possible under the old system.

The latest development of the Linotype composing machine is the provision of several magazines of matrices of different founts of type, so that for varied setting such as is generally required in advertisements successive144 lines of type can be used from different magazines. As many as four magazines have been attached to one machine. Besides the Linotype which is the most useful machine to a newspaper there is a German machine called the Typograph, operating in a similar fashion. The Monotype machine, very valuable for certain purposes such as catalogue work in a general printing office, casts each single type separately and sets them together. Matter set in this way lends itself more easily to small corrections.

The Linotype slugs with their new type-shaped faces are then assembled into columns and screwed up in frames so as to form a page, but they are as yet very far from being a suitable printing surface. The reason for the next transformation of these type surfaces is, as follows: it is impossible for any fast printing to be done from a flat surface. The only possible device for securing rapid pace according to our present notions of machinery is the use of rotary motion. In other words the paper must be made to run between two wheels, one of which has a type surface and the other a soft blanket. So that we have to convert a flat type surface into a curved one for our fresh purpose. This process is called stereotyping.

145

Fig. 1.—End Section of Two Stereoplate Cylinders. C is a cylinder holding two plates W & Y; D is a smaller cylinder of half radius; M is a tubular plate; E and F are impression cylinders.

Stereotyping accomplishes this purpose in two ways; it can make a semi-circular plate or a tubular plate. In the first case, which is the more usual method, the printing cylinder in the press is of double size and will contain two full newspaper pages on its circumference. In the second, adapted to a new form of press, the page encircles the whole cylinder. The process of transforming a flat surface into a circular one was long done by hand, and in a great many offices continues so to be done. On the surface of the square page of type is146 placed a damp mould, resembling papier-mâché, composed of several overlying sheets of thin tissue and heavy backing papers; the type with the mould on it is placed inside a steam press, when it is effectually squeezed into the face of the type and dried by heat at the same time. A hard mould is thus made in about six minutes, showing the impressions of the newspaper page in intaglio. This dry mould is of course flexible and can be placed in a cylindrical casting box and cylindrical plates having an exact reproduction of the type surfaces on their curved exteriors are rapidly cast and sent down to the machine-room. It is from these curved plates that the newspapers themselves are actually printed and not, as many people naturally suppose, from the type itself.

The hand production of stereotype plates is already out of date in most progressive offices. The first improvement is the substitution of a dry “flong,” as the paper mould is technically called, thus eliminating the five or six minutes spent in drying at the cost to some extent of accuracy, a fault which is in process of diminution. The second is the use of elaborate machines called variously autoplates, junior autoplates or multiplates according to size and design. These also147 arise from the newspaper passion for speed and they carry out automatically the casting, trimming and planing to a true edge of stereoplates, which was formerly carried out slowly by hand. To see a double autoplate turning out these monstrous heavy page-sized plates complete at the rate of six a minute gives one an impression of an intelligence also something akin to human. The only limit to their speed is the necessity for allowing the metal of the plates to cool sufficiently during the process to ensure that their cylindrical accuracy will be exact before they start on their journey to the machine-room. In a few minutes later these same plates will be revolving on a fast modern press at the rate of 16,000 revolutions an hour with a surface speed of rotation of approximately twenty-two feet per second. The degree of accuracy of plate-casting required in order to get good printing at this rate of production is very great and has only been effectively secured in very recent times.

Before proceeding to examine the habits and constitution of the printing-press itself let us take a peep inside a modern press room. In the first place it is almost sure to be irregular in shape and though very large and high not large enough or high enough to hold comfortably all the machinery that is in it.148 Expansion is the law of a newspaper’s existence and hardly any newspaper ever succeeds in building itself a machine cellar, which it will not ultimately grow out of. The difficulty and expense of acquiring new printing press accommodation in crowded and valuable areas assures an irregular shape to most modern machine rooms. Imagine an immense cellar perhaps twenty to thirty feet high with huge irregular piles of machinery reaching almost to the ceiling. There is no general lighting, for the path of the rays from the ceiling lights is broken up in all directions by the tall presses, but everywhere there are bright handlights conveniently placed so as to illuminate instantaneously every square inch of the masses of metal work. In some cases lights are turned on for the moment in the central parts of the gaunt machines themselves. Everywhere on the outside of the presses are to be seen handles and bells and indicators so that to the uninitiated there seems to be no central point of control, no pineal gland where the soul of things is situated.

Just before press time in a big office order begins to appear. The men group themselves systematically at various stations round the presses, which are half ready to start. That is149 to say, that the machine is more than half clothed with the plates of those pages, which have been the earliest to go to press. Then comes a clang, indicating from the stereotype room above that the last plates are cast and probably on their way. Down the hoist they come singly, almost too hot to be handled. One by one the cellar-hands take them and fit them on the plate cylinders, where the turning of a single cog fits each into position. A big double sextuple machine such as the one illustrated (Fig. 2), printing a twelve-page paper, will want eight plates of the last page to start it, so that this last operation may take as many minutes. Then the lever is pressed down and the printing begins with a sound like a sustained purring, punctuated by regular sobbing. In this respect the latest presses are showing marked improvement with every fresh design and the noise is by no means overwhelming. A few years ago rapid printing in great masses involved considerable distress to the ears for any one forced to remain for very long downstairs in the printing cellar.

150

Fig. 2.—This Illustration of a Skeleton Side Elevation of a Modern Double-Sextuple Newspaper Printing Machine made for the Daily Mail, is reproduced from a drawing kindly supplied by Messrs. Joseph Foster & Sons, of Preston.

Explanation of figures in drawing:—A B C D E F, six reels of paper in position for printing; G H I J, four reels of paper ready to come into position; K L M N O P, six double pairs of printing and impression cylinders; Q R, assembling points, where on each side three printed sheets come together for the purpose of being cut and folded; S T, two folding apparatus; U V W X, two pairs of inking apparatus carrying ink from the ink-boxes by reciprocating rollers to the printing cylinders of the lower tiers. (The inking mechanism for the higher tiers is omitted.) Y Z, delivery of printed papers from each side.

151 There are now-a-days so many distinct varieties of printing-press available and used for newspaper printing that it is a matter of some difficulty to select a suitable type as representative. I have chosen two, which are here illustrated. One is the double-sextuple press recently installed by Messrs. Joseph Foster & Sons in the office of the London Daily Mail (Fig. 2). It is not by any means the largest in the world but it is the latest in design and a typical fast rotary press for rapid work. The other (Fig. 3) is a typical small press such as a provincial evening paper would find convenient. The small illustration (Fig. 1) above, shows the end-on section XYZ of a semi-cylindrical plate of large size compared with the smaller sized section of a tubular plate M, where a single page of the paper to be printed goes completely round the circle, except for a narrow margin at the bottom of the page, a space, which is taken up on the cylinder by clamps, which hold the plate firmly.

On the double-sextuple machine here illustrated by a section of the machine from the side the reader will observe that it is really a combination of six separate machines arranged in three tiers. The paper is carried in six huge reels, three at each end of the press. The paper in the course of printing comes from the reels at each end to the central portion of the press down into the four folding mechanisms in the centre of the press, where152 they are automatically folded and delivered ready for sale.

Now the chief marvel of a modern combined printing press is its power of being used to print separately a large number of small sized papers or by leading the paper through the press in a slightly different way to print a mammoth paper folded all together and receiving contributions from all six reels at once. In the particular machine in question, which is used to print a comparatively small sized paper, any six of the separate machines can be run separately, if a small paper and a small output only is wanted. When required, they can be combined in pairs or in threes or all together, either for an immense number of small papers or for a moderate number of very large ones. With a Daily Mail of eight pages the two lower tiers of the press could be run with an output of 132,000 copies per hour. For ten pages half the upper tier, using half length reels, could be run to supply the supplementary two pages per copy at the same rate. To produce a twelve-page paper the whole upper tier could be run and again produce them at the same rate. The larger sizes would involve a lesser rate of output. From fourteen to twenty-four page papers would be produced at the rate of 66,000 per hour, and153 twenty-four to forty-eight page papers at 33,000. To change over from printing one size paper to another would not be a matter of more than half an hour.

Fig. 3.—Illustration of a Four-reeled Press with Tubular Plates in Section.

The paper from the four reels runs through the machine from left to right. Each sheet passes between two pair of cylinders, such as A A, following the direction of the small arrows. The four sheets after being printed respectively between rollers A A, B B, C C, and D D, are all carried up together to the assembling roller E, where they are timed to meet exactly so as to form each 4 pages of a 16-page paper. They will pass down the triangular folder, where they receive the longitudinal fold, and then are cut into separate papers. After being cut the papers pass into the side folder F, where they each receive one cross-fold, and are delivered one above another, so as to make up a stack. (By courtesy of Mr. Lock, of Linotype and Machinery, Ltd.)

154 The course of each sheet from the reel through the printing cylinders is exactly the same. The paper has to be printed on both sides and on one only at a time. To effect this it passes between one pair of cylinders, one of which carries the stereotype plate containing the raised surface of type, whose course we have already followed; the other is covered with a hard rubber blanket, sufficiently pervious to allow the slightest possible indentation of its surface as the irregular type faces come opposite to it with the rapidly-flowing paper ever between them. This slight but rapid indentation gives a clear cut impression and applies the ink without smudging to one of the surfaces of the paper. The impression of ink on the other surface is given by going through another pair of similar cylinders but with their relative positions reversed—i.e., the plate cylinder must now come in contact with the other side of the paper.

The merits and defects of fast rotary printing depend wholly on two conditions, as far as the workmanship in the press is concerned, apart from the several qualities of paper, ink155 and accurately made stereotype plates, which are here supposed to be all of normal excellence. These two conditions are the degree of the impression allowed between the plate and the impression cylinders and the proper supply and distribution of the ink. Both these are matters requiring the highest technical judgment, and where illustrated work is concerned, as is increasingly the case in modern newspapers, slight variations have enormously different results. Conveying the ink, which in printing is a thick glutinous fluid, mostly oil and lamp-black, from the long ink cases running from side to side of the press, is the work of a number of subsidiary rollers with various conflicting and combining movements. The ink is allowed to ooze out generously on to a large metal cylinder, where it is pounced upon at once by a cohort of gelatine rollers and pounded and smeared in various directions and ultimately taken by carrying rollers with reciprocating motion to larger gelatine cylinders, which are in contact with the plate-carrying cylinder itself. All this pounding, squeezing and manœuvring are the only means of getting an absolutely even distribution of ink, which the reckless speed of newspaper printing requires. It must be remembered that the speed of the printing peripheries in156 contact with the moving paper often amounts to more than twenty feet per second.

There is a further complication of refinement required in the printing of illustrated work, which the increasing accuracy of modern times has not yet eliminated. The depth of the hollows in between the raised printing surfaces is very much less in plates reproducing photographic illustrations than in the case of type. It is found that “half-tone” work, as it is called, requires a degree of exactness in the printing plate, which at present it is impossible always to get. One part of a picture to be printed is very often slightly higher or lower than the other. To remedy this in the plate is impossible. Another plate might have fresh faults. Good printing is secured at a fast pace by a process called “making ready.” The printer runs his paper slowly through the press and discovers the faults in the plates containing illustrations by a trial impression on the paper. He then corrects the lightly-inked parts of his illustration by raising the corresponding surface of the impression cylinder. To do this he pastes on various thicknesses of paper on the latter, so that the paper to be printed is brought more firmly in contact with the printing cylinder, wherever the illustration157 appears to him to require it. The object is to get an even blackness of impression all over the illustration. The correction requires good judgment and skilled attention.

The last stage of the passage of the paper through the press is cutting and folding. It will be remembered that the printed papers are coming down two at a time, side by side into the central folding mechanism. The first operation is a longitudinal cut separating the two papers and making two half width running strips instead of one. Taking one of these strips the next operation is to run the paper over a V-shaped plate, drawing the two edges of the paper together at the bottom and making the central fold of the journal. A transverse cut separates each journal from the other, which are then taken separately sideways for one final revolution round a cylinder, where a knife pops out from the interior and neatly gives it the last fold, which we recognize across the front of our daily paper every morning.

So the papers come out at a pace about a thousand times quicker than one can read the description. Enormous efforts are required to deal with the advancing flood. Any accumulation would be destructive of order. Most of the papers go straight to waiting carts158 and motors. Others go to the mailing room, where, as in some American offices, they are fed through machines, which with the same operation print the names and addresses on wrappers, affix and gum the wrappers and deliver the newspapers into assorted bags, whose destination is already fastened on the outside.

Once outside, distribution is very much a question of population and locality. Different methods have to be employed to meet fresh problems. In London internal distribution is very difficult, because the local railways and tubes are not organized to handle goods traffic. Horses and carts are now outdistanced except for small consignments. Bicycles can be used to some extent but the motor will be the chief reliance of the future. In this case the problem must be divided up into two parts owing to traffic considerations. At night the roads are free and high speed can be kept up for long distances, so that the utility of the motor is only limited to its capacity, otherwise its tonnage. It has been calculated recently that a motor van can run from Fleet Street to Barnet, a distance of about twelve miles within an hour, stopping twenty-seven times in the last seven miles to deliver separate parcels to newsagents on the way.

159 The problem of the distribution of evening papers during the day is very much more difficult. One prominent evening newspaper in London has estimated that it costs as much as £1,000 per week to each paper.[8] In the first place competition is much more keen, because, while the morning paper has to reach a limited number of important distributing points at one stated time, i.e., before breakfast, it is the business of an enterprising evening paper to multiply occasions of distribution, as for instance after every race or at short intervals during an exciting cricket match, and also for the same competitive purpose to multiply points of distribution, so as to cover the widest possible field. In the second place the general traffic in London is still conducted at the same pace, at which the animals entered the ark. At all important centres the streets are blocked for half the daylight hours of the day. At Wellington Street, the westward boundary of newspaperdom, five hours daily are lost; in the city the average rate of progression is three miles an hour. For these reasons a large and fast unit of distribution, like the motor-car, is discounted in utility by the blocks in the traffic so that light carts and men on bicycles can hold their own in pace and serve a greater number of independent centres. The bicycle has a special power of penetrating a block because the police are indulgent to newspaper distribution and generally allow them to pass.

160 The modern method of distribution in London—it was invented first in the provinces—is conducted, as follows: various centres are selected—take the corner of Pall Mall and Cockspur Street for example—where staffs of boys are assembled at stated periods during the afternoon. At fixed times there come at breathless speed bundles of evening “specials” or “extras” by cart or bicycle, which are instantaneously served out to the waiting newsboys. There are thus perhaps a hundred local centres of distribution awaiting the trigger to be pulled in the central office, which will deliver the selected news all over London. Here is the point where the skilled judgment of an experienced journalist is required to select the right news and the right moment. It is a fatal thing to pull the trigger on a small occasion too soon before a big one, as for instance, if one sent all the boys away with a county cricket result ten minutes before the result of the Cambridgeshire. As a matter of fact most boys would know too much about161 their own business to take a special, just before an important racing event.

The distribution of evening newspapers is probably the chief point of organization, where we are probably well ahead of the American press. On the several occasions, when I have had the opportunity of comparing the two systems, I have found New York papers conspicuously behind ours in this department. This may be due to lesser competition or a less developed organization but more probably to the fact that the American public pay much less attention to sporting events than do our working classes.

CHAPTER VII
THE LONDON DAILY AND PERIODICAL PRESS

It is not possible to write about the Newspaper without making some compressed reference to the history of the press. But the history of the press can be adequately treated only in a formidable and forbiddingly dull work. The fact is that the only interesting newspapers are live newspapers. It is practically impossible to read with attention the files of bygone journals except for the purposes of research. History has already eviscerated them and what history leaves only biography or statistics can put to any use. Confined as we are to brief space our best course is to deal only with living papers, the selection of which is indeed a sufficient task and to note only such facts in their complicated lives as will be of service to us in determining the character of the British press as it is to-day. Of all that exists anterior to these it will be sufficient to notice only those parts of our subject, which have succeeded in creeping163 into the history of our politics or our literature. Of the foreign press no more than a brief contemporary review can be given.

England was the last in Europe to develop its own press and when it came, it appeared in a full-fledged form that is startlingly modern. During the controversies of the Civil War pamphleteering and preaching were the great English weapons and owing to the seriousness of the times both often ran into volumes. It was not until the easier days of Queen Anne that we had our first daily paper with the Daily Courant of 1702. But two years later we had a much more important event in the advent of the Review. This was started by the true father of English journalism and the greatest of all journalists, as I venture to define the term, Daniel Defoe. As I propose to deal with his journalistic character later on, I shall confine my remarks here only to the story of the papers, which he published faithfully, if rather irregularly, for nine years. This immense work was practically entirely the work of Defoe’s own hands and in its 5,000 pages it included articles on almost every subject of human knowledge. It practically established the prevailing type of English journalism, which has survived to our time. This type is neither literary nor critical, which164 is the prevailing style with the French, nor the mere newsgatherer, such as certain popular journals have been everywhere, but pre-eminently an organ of opinion, dealing with current topics, so as to exert political influence. In fact he was found carrying out this function of influencing opinion to an extent, which modern notions of honour would never condone, for at one time of his life about 1718, he, a Whig and Nonconformist, is found taking a share in the conduct of three Jacobite and High Church organs, Mercurius Politicus, Dormer’s News Letter and Mist’s Journal, in order, as he says himself, “to take the sting out of them” in the interests of the Whig government of the period. This embodied a peculiar view of irony, not approved of even at the time.

The Review was soon followed by other famous names, the Tatler started by Steele in 1709, the Spectator by Steele and Addison in 1711, yet while their object of supporting the Whigs was partly achieved, these journals were too far removed from the popular type to secure permanent success. Atterbury, Bolingbroke and above all Swift were supporting the other side in politics in the Examiner, but although the wit, eloquence and brilliant literary qualities displayed by both these165 groups by far exceeded the equipment of Defoe in these respects these joint journalistic efforts never succeeded in following continuously the true path of development, which leads to our modern newspapers. The same may be said of two other celebrities Henry Fielding in the Champion and True Patriot, both Whig organs and of Johnson in the Rambler. In fact the only resemblance of the latter to a newspaper was that it appeared at regular intervals and had the general wish of the author to support Church and State, as they were understood by the Tory party.

With the well-known names of Wilkes, rake, demagogue and editor of the North Britain (1762–3) and Woodfall, editor of the Public Advertiser and publisher of the famous Letters of Junius we come nearer still to the modern spirit. In both these cases the original example of Defoe is followed of seeking for public support through the press against the power and authority of government and thereby of establishing the great English principle of its real and practical independence. The example and success of Junius has also to my mind had a far-reaching effect on our newspaper habits in helping to extend the practice of anonymity, which has contributed so powerfully to the wealth and influence of166 our leading organs. Finally with Cobbett, soldier, agitator and editor of the Weekly Political Register (1802–35) we come to the end of the predominantly personal note in English journalism, which started with Defoe. In many respects Cobbett strongly resembled the father of English journalism especially in his directness, ruggedness and fertility. But he was quite incapable of reaching the immortal heights, which Defoe touched more than once. Though he was too independent to stoop to deceit, he was capable of changing sides quite honestly, an inconsistency of which in his heart Defoe never was guilty.

From henceforward we begin to deal not with journalists, even if they were editors, but with influential papers established as impregnable properties, independent of government, of their own brilliant literary staff and sometimes, though rarely, of public opinion. This change was brought about by a succession of three able and tenacious men in one family and raised by the long service and controlling genius of a fourth to a degree, which has made it for ever the model of English journalism and to some extent of the press of the world. The history of the Times for half a century has become the history of the English press and the duration of its greatest power coincides167 with the most flourishing period in our journalism. That is why we may save ourselves time and space by taking the course of its development in some detail, leaving room only for the most recent history of other journals, which have more or less followed its example.

The Times was founded in 1785 by John Walter but received its present name only three years later. Its early course represented the general discontent of the middle-classes, which were the democracy of those times, with the régime of repression and financial sacrifices enforced by Pitt, as the leader of the dominant aristocracy. For his enmity to government and fearless exposure of high-placed misconduct Walter suffered more than once in fine and imprisonment and only just escaped sharing Defoe’s exaltation to the pillory. His counter-weapons were however far more effective. He first understood the overwhelming importance and popularity of early news. Refused the use of the post for his foreign news packets he made himself independent of it and beat the government again and again. He published the news of the capture of Flushing twenty-four hours before the government received their despatches. His attacks brought to ruin Lord168 Melville, Pitt’s intimate friend. He had the temerity to send to the Peninsula Henry Crabb Robinson, the first of all war correspondents and his paper was the first to announce the battle of Waterloo.

Such men are more powerful than governments and though the elder John Walter had relinquished part of his control in 1803 and had died in 1812, he lived long enough to hand over to the second John Walter privileges and responsibilities which were primarily of his own creation. The son was worthy of them and under him the Times rose to the assured position earned by his father’s fierce energy and his own discreet judgment. John Walter, the son, found himself in comparatively quiet times. He devoted himself to the problems of business management and succeeded in 1814 in being the first printer to make use of steam. It is not often that a paper is so well served by one man, as to be kept more than abreast of all rivals as well in mechanical as in editorial excellence. It took many years to place it well ahead. Circulations in those days were not what they are now, and the Times was not then the only expensive paper in London. But 10,000 a day was not bad for 1834 and four years after John Walter’s death in 1847 it was 40,000 and169 at the outbreak of the Crimean war the circulation rose to 51,000. Compare this with the circulations of other London papers of the time, ranging from 7,644 down to 2,667. There is no doubt about the figures because at that time every copy had to be stamped.

It was under John Walter, the son’s, rule, that the editorial duties expanded to an extent, which divorced them naturally from the proprietorship. The editor of the Times became something in himself. Sir John Stoddart (1810) and Thomas Barnes (1816) at first held this position but there was another power beneath them, hidden at the time, but better known now. Edward Stirling, it was, who as a leader-writer earned for his paper an imperishable nickname by the quaint assurance with which he once wrote: “We thundered out the other day an article on political reform—” Stirling, like the others, was the second Walter’s appointment and one of the many Irishmen, who have successfully carried their heads high in this growing profession. A greater Irishman still was J. T. Delane (1841), the most successful selection, as editor, ever made by a newspaper proprietor. There will be more to say about him later on.

John Walter, the grandson, took over his170 father’s power in 1847 just before the period of the greatest influence and almost the greatest prosperity of the Times. This was so much personally the work of Delane with the loyal support of his proprietor and the brilliant achievements of his famous subordinate Russell, that it will have to be dealt with more particularly in an account of the relations of these two men. So great was the success of the Times in restoring by its sole influence the efficiency of the army in the Crimea and in destroying the ministry responsible for the early failures in that war that for many years it rode unrivalled and without question on the top of the wave of power. Delane was succeeded as editor by his former correspondent in Constantinople, Chenery (1877) and Chenery again by Mr. Buckle (1884) and the latter in 1912 by Mr. G. G. Robinson. During all this period the high standard of literary excellence and editorial independence of the Times has been unfailingly kept up. The proprietorship passed into the hands of A. F. Walter in 1891 and recently to a company, in which the head of the house of Harmsworth has the chief interest.

Meanwhile modern forces had been at work undermining the commercial monopoly of the Times. The inordinate cost of things171 had originally been in favour of that organization, which first succeeded in forging ahead of its rivals. The tax on each newspaper originally 4d. in 1815 fell to a penny, and was abolished in 1855. The taxes on advertising were so high that in 1830 the Times paid the sum of £70,000 on this account, at a time when the total receipts from this tax amounted to no more than £170,000.[9] The paper duty was abolished in 1861 in the United Kingdom but this by itself, although important at the time, has had less effect on the relative position of English newspapers than the enormous cheapening of paper from the extension of the kinds of material, of which it can be made. Paper which cost 10d. or 11d. a pound in America during the ’sixties costs now only about one-tenth of that price. Consequently the door has been opened for cheap competition in all directions.

The prestige of the Times stands very high, but it had one shattering experience, the effects of which were far-reaching. The manager in 1886 accepted, as authentic, forged letters, purporting to come from Charles Parnell, and published them. The result was a trial of intense political excitement lasting 128 days and terminating172 dramatically by the flight and suicide of the forger, Charles Pigott and the utter discomfiture of the paper. Mr. T. H. S. Escott, a contemporary journalist of those days, remarks that “ten minutes’ reflection and the slightest practical use of table talk, that would long ago have reached Printing House Square, would have prevented the imposition’s success. C. S. Parnell never wrote a line except under compulsion. It was simply inconceivable that he should have troubled to disguise his caligraphy in the laborious production of folios representing the work of many days.” He compares the mistake made on this occasion with the trouble taken by Delane on receipt of Blowitz’s secret news of the threat made by Germany to reopen the war with France in 1875. Before publishing this news—after a fortnight’s research Delane had sent his best man, Chenery, to Paris and had made every personal enquiry about the truth of it himself.

It is impossible to extend this brief account by a recital of many other triumphs of the leading British paper. Its supreme position was gained for it by the fortunate conjunction of talents and character of four able men, but looking at its whole career philosophically it is hard to deny that the true creator of this173 splendid property and source of political power was the old John Walter, who had the courage to fight Pitt and the English aristocracy at a time, when they appeared to be irresistible. It must be remembered that he led the middle-classes against the government in the days when no effective power remained in any institution outside the ruling classes except the press. At that period the wealthy bourgeoisie possessed too few votes to make its real power felt and if they had been less ably and forcibly represented they might ultimately have joined the forces of revolution. But Walter was not a demagogue like Cobbett. He was something of a statesman, while being wholly a journalist. He fought the government with his strongest weapons and beat them whenever they came upon his own ground. His successors filled in very ably and with expert professional skill and cool judgment the gigantic outline, which he left behind him, of a power able to control governments.

The year which imported the first great change in English journalism was 1855, when the stamp duty was finally removed. The first to take advantage of it and to challenge the sole control of middle-class sentiments and pockets was the Daily Telegraph. This174 paper, founded in 1855, was bought in that very year by a commercial genius, Joseph Moses Levy, who at once enlarged its size and brought its price down to a penny, which was the conquering touch. The property has been handled with cool judgment and the paper has held ever since the first place in the hearts and tastes of the lower middle-class. At one time it had the largest circulation in the world and it is still ahead of all penny rivals both in circulation and advertising revenue. The keynote of its management has always been a judicious conservatism, which knew the right moment to take a forward step but never took any that were unnecessary. It is still in the hands of the same family, whose representative is Lord Burnham. The editor is Mr. J. M. Lesage.

Another paper which came gradually forward about the same time in some rivalry with the Times was the Standard. Founded in 1827 it came into line with the progressive press by being reduced to a penny in 1858. In politics it represented the clergy and landed gentry and aspired to greater power of literary expression than any daily morning paper except the Times. One of its claims to distinction was the fact that the late Marquis of Salisbury, most brilliant of free-lances,175 wrote freely for it in his earlier days. Owned at one time by Captain Johnston, it was left by him in the charge of a very able journalist and manager, who brought it to great heights of prosperity during the Disraelian period of power. When Mudford relinquished control at the end of the century it began a decline, which has taken it through several proprietorships.

A rival to the Times on another side was the Morning Post, whose history divides itself easily into two halves. Founded in 1772 its early days were tinged with great literary distinction. At the turn of the century it had frequent contributions from Coleridge, Southey, Arthur Young and brought out some of Wordsworth’s greatest sonnets. Mackworth Praed was later a regular contributor. But in accordance with a well-known commercial law that with too much brilliancy there is too little money it passed ultimately to a paper-maker named Crompton in satisfaction of a bad debt. Crompton made a good choice of an editor in Peter Borthwick but it was Borthwick’s son, Algernon, who ultimately raised the paper to great prosperity after having bought it on his own account at a time, when it was still a somewhat speculative venture.

176 The Morning Post through many vicissitudes had always preserved its extremely aristocratic and fashionable connections, to which Borthwick added tactful management, an eager desire for good and early news and a prudent distrust of mere ability. Five years after his purchase of the paper he had the courage to reduce the price to a penny in 1881, and in a few years reaped so assured a reward that he was able to improve his paper without damaging his property. At the present time it maintains a high standard of intellectual ability in many departments and contains more features of merit than any paper in its own rank. Borthwick became Lord Glenesk and the paper is still in the possession of his family. The editor is Mr. Gwynne and one of the noted men on its staff is Mr. Spenser Wilkinson, Professor of Military History at Oxford.

There have come down to us from the great days of the penny press two daily morning papers, whom the stress of competition has driven into the more popular ranks, yet which fortunately preserve several of their most valuable characteristics, as an inheritance of ancient days. The Daily Chronicle and Daily News together in 1904, took the final plunge to a halfpenny price, which will probably177 remain the ultimate minimum, unless we invent something equivalent to the three centimes price of one paper in Milan. The Daily Chronicle was the latest arrival among London daily morning papers, as it emerged from the Clerkenwell News in 1877 and for many years had a peculiarly strong local hold on London. It represented at one time a milder form of Liberalism, but just before the Boer war it surged up on a wave of aggressive independence of traditional views. The editor at that time, a brilliant journalist, Mr. H. W. Massingham, courageously held opinions about an editor’s rights, which would in effect have made newspaper proprietors rather more like mere annuitants, than some of them cared to be. The assertion of his views by resigning his position came at a moment when commercialism was not losing its hold on the press and his paper came under a more moderate régime during the early stages of the war. After it became a halfpenny paper the Daily Chronicle adopted more popular features, shortening its articles and increasing its headlines. But it has passed through its change very reticently and this feature of considered progressiveness is carefully preserved by the present editor, Mr. Robert Donald. It is the private property of the Lloyd family.

178 The change in the Daily News had much the same material effect on its outward appearance. But the inward transformation was reversed. Mr. (now Sir Edward) Cook in 1900 had taken an imperialist line about the outbreak of the war, while the Cadbury family, who had acquired the paper, took the opposite view. The effect was the same as with the Daily Chronicle. The Daily News now represents with much ability the views of the left wing of the Liberal party, not at all Socialist and quite distinct from the Labour Press. Its policy is highly sentimental and inclined to a disinterested humanitarianism, which opposes narrow national views. It somehow fails to exclude this tinge of feeling from its presentation of news, particularly in foreign affairs, and some people hold this to be a serious journalistic fault.

The Daily News is a paper with a great past in spite of an unfortunate beginning. It was started by Charles Dickens at the height of his fame with some money from his hosts of friends and the more weighty confidence of his publishers. As has happened since on Bouverie Street account all the salaries in Fleet Street were raised. The story has been told more than once and a contemporary professional view of it was given by Russell179 of the Times. “The 21st of January, 1846, came at last and there was a wild rush for the first number. At the sight of the outer sheet, hope at once lighted up the gloom of Printing House Square, the Strand and Shoe Lane. I am not sure that there were not social rejoicings that night in the editorial chambers, which had been so long beset by dread. Dickens had gathered round him newspaper celebrities, critics in art, music and literature, correspondents, politicians, statists. Yea, even the miscalled penny-a-liner was there. But Dickens was not a good editor; he was the best reporter in London and as a journalist he was nothing more. He had no political instincts or knowledge and was ignorant of and indifferent to what are called Foreign Affairs; indeed he told me himself that he never thought about them till the Revolution of 1848. He had appointed as manager his father, whom he is said to have immortalized as Micawber....” Forster, who had been Dickens’ chief backer, took up the burden after three months for another three months himself but it was Eyre Crowe, as editor, and Charles Wentworth Dilke, as manager, who pulled the venture round into smoother waters. Their great success was made in handling the revolutions of 1848180 and the complicated European disturbances which followed. Similarly it was the success of Sir John Robinson in dealing with the Franco-German war and the brilliant successes of Archibald Forbes, which brought the Daily News once more into the front rank of papers. The present editor is Mr. A. G. Gardiner.

In the history of English newspapers the most astonishing sky-rocket came with the advent of the Daily Mail in 1896. Its immediate and phenomenal success was one of those things, which can be explained afterwards, but was little expected at the time. It was the final result of a movement of great vitality in the press, which up to that time had remained unnoticed. What that movement was we shall see, when we come to discuss the various forms taken by our weekly press and the remarkable revolution, which started in the provinces and bore such astonishing fruit in London. The Daily Mail had just time to make an assured success in London and Manchester before the outbreak of the African war, an event, which has had the effect of making a fresh dichotomy in our politics and in all that depends primarily on politics including newspapers and to some extent society. It led to a new division between the sheep and the goats with a vehement acceleration181 in the old-time controversy, as to which was which. In that rearrangement of ideas all our newspapers bore their part but to the scientific management of all the arts of improved combustion of feelings and sentiments the Daily Mail added an energy which carried all before it. The use of the pens of Rudyard Kipling and of an exceedingly able special writer, the late G. W. Steevens, lent a striking advertisement to the popular passion but did not really create it. The years 1899 and 1900 offered an opening to a newcomer in journalism, which is not likely to be repeated. Here was a nation which had been talking about war for forty-five years without seriously experiencing it. Here was a journalism, not inefficient and not unobservant of new tendencies, but inclined to believe that dignity was profitable and that every wise man would look round twice before taking any serious step. The result to those, who had the privilege of taking advantage of it, was a commercial success at least equivalent to that of old John Walter, a century before, more easily realized and with possibly less far-reaching consequences. The editor is Mr. Marlowe and the property with several other papers is substantially in the hands of Lord Northcliffe and his associates.

182 With a brief reference to the Daily Express, the Daily Mail’s strong popular rival on its own side in politics, to the financial papers such as the Financial Times, and the latest addition to London dailies, the Financier and Bullionist, founded in 1870 and London’s chief sporting daily, the Sportsman, owned by the Ashley family, we must pass on to the evening papers of the Metropolis. At one time London was very considerably behind the provinces in the development of its popular evening papers largely owing to the great cost of distribution and also because Londoners had always been more addicted to the morning paper habit. But of late the Evening News and the Star have placed themselves in the front rank of successful commercial exploitation. But they can hardly be said to exercise any serious influence on opinion. This function is exercised however to a very considerable degree by the penny evening papers, who secure the attention of the commercial and professional classes on their way home to dinner and often exercise an influence equal to that of the most powerful morning daily. They are able also to use effectually all the material and comment supplied by the morning press.

Of the four London penny evening papers the oldest is the Globe (1803). In its young183 days it was Liberal and preponderantly literary. It sheltered both Thomas Love Peacock and “Ingoldsby” Barham. At the present day in common with the Evening Standard, once the St. James’s Gazette (1880), it more or less repeats the function of a morning paper, as being chiefly devoted to news, with comment, as a subordinate feature. The Pall Mall Gazette is the spoilt child of journalism. Founded in 1865 under the editorship of Frederick Greenwood, it sprang at once to the position of being the darling favourite of intellectual London, which it has never entirely lost in spite of alternate periods of hideous sensationalism and considered dulness, in spite of a complete reversal of politics and of every imaginable transformation of “make-up” and journalistic devices. In its early years it had a ring of noted contributors, such as George Eliot, Charles Reade, Sir James Stephen, R. H. Hutton, James Hannay, Anthony Trollope and Tom Hughes. Through the brother of the editor, James Greenwood, and his adventures as an “Amateur Casual” it first introduced to London the sensational realism, which was afterwards carried by a later editor, W. T. Stead, to intolerable lengths. Besides Stead, Lord Morley and Sir Edward Cook have been184 editors and Lord Milner was once a member of its staff. It is now the property of Mr. W. W. Astor and is edited by one of the most influential journalists in London, Mr. Garvin. It is safe to say that no Conservative morning paper wields more power in the councils of the party than the Pall Mall Gazette.

In this respect it meets a worthy rival on the Liberal side in the Westminster Gazette. Founded by Sir Edward Cook and the late Sir George Newnes as an offshoot of the Pall Mall Gazette in 1892, in consequence of the staff of the latter having to go into the street, because they could not manage a change of opinions with a change of proprietorship, it has always held a very remarkable position in its own party. It is the only penny daily paper in London, which supports the Liberal party and government. Its editor, Mr. J. A. Spender, has thus had a greatness thrust upon him, which few could consistently maintain. What his paper has to say every day on current politics receives an attention from the leader writers in provincial papers of the next morning, the extent of which they might be reluctant to acknowledge. The Westminster Gazette may be classed decidedly amongst those important things, which we are accustomed to call an “Institution.” For so185 young a paper its success has been phenomenal and one of the deep-rooted causes of its power is due to the fact, that it is probably the only paper in the capital on the Liberal side in politics, which is habitually read by an influential section of its opponents.

Curiously enough the Labour press in the United Kingdom is still in its infancy, which is less than one would expect in a country, where Trade Unionism has been so strong. Hitherto it has been confined to one or two weeklies, such as the Clarion, founded by Mr. Robert Blatchford, a writer of unusual talent, the Labour Leader and others. But within the last year London has its Labour morning daily, the Daily Herald and the Daily Citizen is shortly to appear in Manchester.

When we come to consider the weekly and monthly periodicals of the metropolis the number and variety of them is staggering. It is possible to deal with them only in groups and mention expressly a few, which must be taken to be not necessarily the most important ones but those which are perhaps the best representatives of their class. In dealing with illustrated journalism we have not yet altogether done with the dailies, as London has three daily illustrated papers, the Daily Graphic, a penny paper and two halfpenny186 papers the Daily Mirror and Daily Sketch. The rise of the last two to sensational circulations is probably the most striking new feature in newspaperdom since the meteoric success of the Daily Mail. The Daily Mirror was accidentally a pioneer in this direction because it was actually founded by the Harmsworth group with the intention of being a ladies’ daily paper and as such it was an absolute failure. But the publishers with a commercial acumen that was almost uncanny swerved in their design at once, dropped all the feminine part of it and continued it as a picture newspaper of the simplest kind with results in a bounding circulation, which is far from having reached its limit. This phenomenon is intimately connected with the popular success of the cinematograph theatres and points to a trait in the public of to-day, which will probably go far before it is exhausted. It is due to the intense modern desire to see things and judge them, each for oneself. Written matter, views, opinions and criticisms are not desired by the masses. There is a very marked desire for information but solely of a positive kind. Men are inclined to shun guidance or leadership and intensely desirous of forming first-hand judgments about everything.

187 Of weekly illustrated papers London has quite a number. There are the pioneers of this class, the Illustrated London News, founded by Herbert Ingram in 1842, the Graphic (1869), the Sketch (1892), the Sphere (1901), the Tatler, all three founded by Mr. Clement Shorter, and Country Life. Of these the latter is the most original in character, being concerned with the pursuits, sports and residences of the country gentry. By throwing open to the middle-classes of the towns all the inner history of the life and manners of a secluded class it has achieved a remarkable success. The illustrated press in England has reached a very considerable standard of technical excellence in reproduction and shows great ingenuity in obtaining pictures and photographs; but it has never succeeded in obtaining reading matter to hold its own against the pictures. At one time it was markedly ahead of foreign effort in the same sphere, when there was little else abroad but L’Illustration, Ueber Land und Meer, and Harper’s and Collier’s Weeklies. This is hardly true at the present moment; the French and German illustrations now surpass ours in technical excellence and for reading matter the Philadelphia Saturday Evening Post is unexcelled. The circulation of the latter is188 probably four or five times as great as all the English illustrated weeklies combined.

Some of the reproaches to which the British daily press is perhaps open, for instance, with regard to the meagre amount of space devoted to matters of purely scientific or intellectual interest, as compared with the German press, or as to the somewhat easy-going critical standards which prevail in their treatment of literary and artistic questions, may be redeemed by urging the merits, variety and influence of our important and serious weekly periodicals. No country in the world has such a diversity in this respect nor maintains so consistently a high standard. Whereas a German requires his most serious interests to be taken care of in his daily paper, an Englishman is more indulgent because he knows that his hobbies and specialities can be properly nourished by a suitable weekly paper, of which we have all kinds. In finance and banking we have the Statist (1878); for general economic questions and the review of investments the Economist (1843). In the special British interests in sports, games and country pursuits generally we have that quite unique organ the Field, founded in 1853. This project was originally started by Webster, an actor, but not carried by him to any degree of success.189 It came into the hands of Mr. Sergeant Cox, who besides being a leading lawyer, was something of a publishing genius, for he not only carried the Field to success, but also established prosperously the Queen, the chief ladies’ paper and the Bazaar, as well. The Field ranks as an authority in international sport and has a following far outside this country. Its present editor is Mr. T. A. Cook.

In the realm of general culture and literary criticism the British “heavy weeklies” deservedly stand very high. But it is in accordance with the serious nature of the English and Scotch genius that literary questions are dealt with not by themselves alone but are tinged with either a political or religious spirit, thus dividing their readers into watertight compartments. The first of these in point of dignity is the Athenæum, founded in 1828, with which are associated the well-known names of the elder Dilke, Hepworth Dixon, Norman Maccoll, and Mr. J. C. Francis. Of higher literary quality may be ranked the Times Literary Supplement, which although nominally a part of the Times is practically an independent weekly under the charge of Mr. B. L. Richmond. As Literature under the hands of H. D. Traill it attained at once a very high standard, which has been steadily190 raised without any falling away. The reviews in its columns have the widest range of interest and learning and they are surpassed in serious excellence by no other journal in the world.

A very famous name revived appears in the Spectator which was founded in 1828 by a group of Radicals round Joseph Hume. Its great days of literary and political influence date from the combined control of the paper by R. H. Hutton and Meredith Townsend. At the present moment it is probably more widely known outside the bounds of the kingdom than any other of our weeklies. Under the editorship of Mr. J. St. Loe Strachey it combines moderate Conservative views with a strong support of Free Trade. Another famous but more modern name is the Saturday Review, a paper which at one time employed more brilliant pens than were ever elsewhere united in one cause in England. In its golden days it was served together by the late Marquis of Salisbury, Sir Henry Maine, Goldwin Smith, Sir William Harcourt and Mr. Walter Pollock. It has always supported an extreme Conservatism. A newer review of the same type but even more pronouncedly political than either of the others is the Nation, which was founded by Mr. Massingham in 1907 to fill a gap made in Liberal journalism by the termination191 of the Speaker, whose place it assumed. It is conducted with intense seriousness and great ability and in spite of the fact that its intentions are mainly social and political, the literary standard maintained is very high. It would be impossible to omit the insertion here of one excellent little literary weekly, which circulates widely at the price of one penny, T.P.’s Weekly. Humble as it appears by the side of its sixpenny contemporaries it yet probably does as much to keep up a genuine and popular taste for literature as the best of them. The editor, Mr. T. P. O’Connor is one of the most experienced and versatile journalists in the kingdom.

Closely allied to the literary and political reviews are the religious papers, which are of all prices and connections but resemble one another in this, that, after pursuing their primary object of representing a section of religious thought, they are to a considerable extent also literary reviews. The paper, which is most obviously the connecting link between the two classes is the British Weekly. Comparatively a late comer into the field and originally founded to lend its support to Nonconformity in general, yet the extraordinarily wide and well equipped mind of its editor, Sir Robertson Nicoll, has elevated it192 almost to the status of a literary magazine. Coming to more specifically religious papers we have first of all the Guardian (1846), the official representative of Anglican views and interests. Its former editor (1878–81) Mr. D. C. Lathbury raised it up to be a power in the country, which has been continued by the Rev. Walter Hobhouse to the present time. Since 1905 it has been a penny paper. The High Church party is represented by the Church Times (1863) and the Evangelical fringe, which runs into Nonconformity, by the Christian World (1857) founded by James Clarke, whose son, Mr. Herbert Clarke is the present editor. This is largely an independent journal, whose readers are drawn to a great extent from those both inside and outside of the Church. The Christian (1870) is still further advanced in the Low Church direction, as its old name, the Revival testifies. Liberal views in religious matters are supported by the Christian Commonwealth, whose present editor, Mr. Albert Dawson had been secretary to Dr. Joseph Parker. It has come to a great extent under the influence of the Rev. R. J. Campbell. The Roman Church in Great Britain has a very important organ, The Tablet (1840), which, when it was founded by Frederick Lucas was to some extent independent193 and rather advanced in thought for those times. Since 1868 it has become official by passing into the hands of Cardinal Vaughan and it is now controlled by Cardinal Bourne. Its present editor is Mr. J. Snead-Cox and well-known contributors are Mr. Wilfrid Ward, Monsignor Benson, Mr. W. S. Lilly, Mr. Hilaire Belloc, Alice Meynell, and Katharine Tynan. The Jewish Chronicle (1841) fulfils an obvious mission. It attracts attention, as a periodical, by the singular feature of adding to the time-honoured classification of Births, Marriages and Deaths, also Betrothals, Forthcoming Marriages and In Memoriam notices, the distinction between numbers four and five in the series being original. The articles, while written in a religious spirit, cover a wide ground of interest and exhibit no narrow prejudices. The editor is Mr. Israel Davis. The most singular of the religious papers comes last, the War Cry, which circulates to the extent of about 300,000 weekly among members of the Salvation Army at home and about the same number in twenty-four foreign editions abroad. As it accepts no advertisements, it has to depend entirely on sales for its revenue.

The professional and technical press of Great Britain is too complicated and extensive194 for any one mind to grasp. It includes a myriad of small papers catering for little pockets of trade and others which in their own sphere have all the authority of the Times itself. They obtain support from an amount of advertising very much larger in proportion to their text than the ordinary dailies or general weeklies so that they sometimes constitute properties of great value. To begin with the medical profession the earliest surviving paper devoted to this subject is the Lancet (1823) whose story merits a little digression. Its founder was Dr. Thomas Wakley, a man of unusual character and resolution, who in the ordinary course of events would probably have lived an uneventful and successful life as a general practitioner. But he was brought painfully in touch with public events in a sufficiently odd way to justify repetition. He was still a young man at the time of the Cato Street conspiracy for which Arthur Thistlewood was condemned and hanged. Now the executioner of Thistlewood conceived the dramatic idea of cutting off his head and holding it up to the public saying, “This is the head of a traitor.” This incident had a singular reaction on Wakley. He was then a doctor attending at St. Thomas’s Hospital and for some unknown195 reason a popular rumour, which spread among the roughs with whom Thistlewood was a hero, attributed this decapitation to a St. Thomas’s doctor, quite unjustly. At any rate Dr. Wakley was set upon one night and badly treated by some unknown scoundrels, his house was burned down and his practice was ruined. Not only that, but his story of his wrongs was hardly believed and he had to undertake a difficult lawsuit in order to recover his insurance money. Wakley was greatly distressed and angered at his misfortune and owing to his friendship with Cobbett and other journalists turned his mind to the press and he planned and founded the Lancet. This has come through to very substantial success after a singularly stormy start in life. In one year he had to stand eighteen libel actions but he won them all. As an illustration of the way journalism was looked upon in those early days we may quote from a report of one of Sir Astley Cooper’s lectures in which he specifically referred to the Lancet and stated that though he could not prevent the report of his lectures he had succeeded in inducing the editor to keep his name out of the paper, for, he said, “I felt myself disgraced and degraded by my name forever appearing in the press.” There are not many men, who would echo196 those sentiments now. The editor of the Lancet is Dr. Squire Sprigge, who has written Wakley’s life.

Another later rival in the same field is the British Medical Journal, the official organ of the British Medical Association, a body founded as far back as 1832 under the name of the Provincial and Surgical Association by Sir Charles Hastings. In 1856 the Association took its present title and issued its journal as a regular medical organ. The connection with its parent organization lends considerable weight to its opinions and adds to its technical excellence but may to some extent limit its independence in discussing questions affecting merely the interests of the profession.

The legal profession is not calculated to support a press of its own as advertising is not encouraged and there is no general trade or commerce attached to it. For the reports of cases they depend on the efficient rendering of the Times Law Reports and for special legal points on the Solicitor’s Journal. The engineering profession is so closely allied with one of the most powerful and wealthy industries of the country, that it supports a number of wealthy papers. Of these the oldest is now the Engineer founded in 1856 by Edward Charles Healey and still in the197 hands of the same family. The present editor is Mr. L. Pendred. Engineering was founded ten years later and it is edited in conjunction by Messrs. Maw and Raworth. The two earliest electrical papers are the Electrical Review (1872) and the Electrician (1878). Besides these are many others both weekly and monthly of which perhaps the most remarkable is a workman’s paper, the Mechanical World published at 1d. in Manchester. Allied to these and overlapping the engineering trade are the Iron and Coal Trades Review, the Hardware Journal and the Ironmonger, the chief journal of the metal trades. The latter was founded in 1859 by the old family firm of Morgan Bros., who are proprietors also of the Chemist and Druggist, the Grocer and other papers. The present editor is Mr. A. C. Maygis. Perhaps the oldest of all technical journals is the Mining Journal, founded in 1835. Another old established property dealing with an entirely different line is the Gardener’s Chronicle (1841) founded by, among others, Sir Joseph Paxton, Dilke and the printer of Punch, Bradbury. The first editor was Dr. Lindley and famous contributors have been besides Paxton, Sir Joseph and Sir William Hooker, Berkeley, Sir Thistleton Dyer and Thomas Moore, the curator of the Chelsea198 physic garden. A new arrival among trade papers, but a very wealthy one, is the Draper’s Record. This property had an early precarious existence until it came into the hands of the late D. G. Macrae, who is said to have given it so many weeks to get to the stage of making a profit, which it did in the very last week allowed to it. Its income now runs into five figures.

With regard to our one established humorous journal Punch, founded in the same year, 1841, as the Gardener’s Chronicle and by the same printer, it is as impossible to say anything new about it as to leave it out. Famous men without number have written and drawn for it, of whom I may mention, Mark Lemon, Douglas Jerrold, John Leech, Sir John Tenniel, Charles Keene and Du Maurier. The present editor, Mr. Owen Seaman, is a supreme master of polished and pointed verse.

After this brief and inadequate account of the technical press we must turn a moment’s attention to the general weeklies of London, which have the largest circulations in the world and represent the really popular tastes of the clerk, the artisan and the growing boy. Their history is peculiarly interesting because it includes the origin of the most vital and astonishing revolution that our press, at any199 rate, has ever seen. But before I come to describe this revolution we must notice first the three or four metropolitan weeklies, which supply the news, mostly of criminal or sporting matters, to the seven and a half millions, who live in and around London. The oldest is Lloyd’s Weekly News, established in 1842, which has reached a circulation of one and a quarter millions in round figures. The News of the World (1843) was at first a family paper published at threepence with a large circulation for those times, which fell away under old-fashioned management almost to nothing. But it came into the hands of two able business men, the proprietors of the Cardiff Mail, the late Lascelles Carr and Sir George Riddell, who modernized it, not without some loss of sedateness, and raised its circulation to two and a quarter millions a week, in all probability the largest in the world. Reynold’s Weekly News (1852), an extremely Radical popular organ and the People, allied with the Globe, each have a large following. Finally the Sunday Chronicle of Manchester is the best representative of some very widely circulated papers in the provinces with issues running up to a million in many cases.

The revolution in the English press, which has extended to every corner of journalism,200 except the “heavy weeklies,” originally started in the provinces and spread to London with three rather insignificant gossipy and anecdotic penny weeklies. But the causes of the movement were very far-reaching and may be said to have had their true origin in Forster’s Education Act of 1870. This measure brought into existence as new readers an enormous number of immature minds ready for the simplest information and oldest stories, as yet quite unsophisticated and disinclined to raffishness or vice. The older newspaper proprietors utterly failed to see the growth of these new and potential readers and made no effort to meet their needs. In fact one may say that it was almost impossible for journalists of the old school for the first time to cater for the untrained ineptitude of people who were equipped with mobilized wits and eager minds. The task was undertaken by entirely new men.

The pioneer of this movement was the late Sir George Newnes, who made the fortunate venture of starting Tit-Bits in Manchester in 1880. The name exactly describes the paper. The next in order was Answers, started in 1888 by the two young brothers Harmsworth, one of whom is now a peer and the other a knight. This paper was originally intended201 to contain answers to correspondents but, as no one corresponded, the paper had to become something else, so it became a fair imitation of Tit-Bits. The third Pearson’s Weekly, was begun by C. Arthur Pearson, who was for some time Newnes’s manager in London.

If the movement had stopped there, it would not have had an important influence on the British press. But these pioneers were all men of exceptional ability, activity and insight. Their rapid success gave them command of great sums of money and the power of obtaining more of it from the public. They had moreover an inside view of the public mind, which enabled them to see, not only what the public mind required at the moment but what it was likely to want next year. Because it must be borne in mind that the newly-invented public of the Education Act, which was satisfied with Tit-Bits in the eighties wanted something more in the next decade and a further advance in the new century. So the houses of Newnes, Pearson and Harmsworth became great publishing firms bringing out new periodicals, books and ultimately daily papers in great profusion. All three firms came to considerable fortune and left their mark on the daily press. Newnes established202 successfully the Westminster Gazette, Mr. Pearson the Daily Express and the Harmsworths the Daily Mail. The latter house has obtained the most striking and comprehensive success. Their enterprises have divided themselves into two groups. One, the original proprietors of Answers consisting of Lord Northcliffe and his brother Sir Harold Harmsworth, has produced a series of successful but trivial papers and has overlaid on that a popular educational publishing system on a grand scale, which is of much greater benefit to the public than is usually recognized. Their second venture in conjunction with Mr. Kennedy Jones embraces the Evening News, the Daily Mail, the Daily Mirror and other papers. This energetic, self-assertive and ever-increasing popular press excites in many old-fashioned readers something akin to a disgust, that is quite needless. These good folk should recognize that what is suited to a million readers can hardly cater also for the tastes of a restricted cultivated class. If the great American circulation-monger Hearst comes over to England, as rumours repeatedly assert, it will be apparent at once how much better the Daily Mail is, than it need be.

Perhaps the only branch of the weekly press, which has not yet found a niche in our203 Valhalla, is the group of ladies’ papers. The doyenne of these is certainly the Queen, started by Serjeant Cox and more or less followed in style by the others, which devote approximately the same proportion of space to illustrations of fashions and brides and titled hostesses. As they are mainly high-priced, well-printed journals appealing only to wealthy readers, they are doomed to a fatal mediocrity and give a male reader, who should imagine that women read nothing else, a painful impression of their intellectual status. Happily there is no reason to suppose that this is the case. Besides the Queen, we have the Lady’s Pictorial (1880); the Lady (1885); Woman (1889); the Gentlewoman (1890); and the Ladies’ Field (1898). On the other hand lady journalists, writing for papers of all kinds including the leading dailies, have already made a very considerable mark on our press. In some respects they have shown a greater aptitude for this calling than men, but they are not able to get about the country to all kinds of places so well as men and they cannot be expected nor even asked to endure the manifold hardships often required from reporters and correspondents.

CHAPTER VIII
NEWSPAPERS IN THE PROVINCES AND IN THE EMPIRE

One of the important facts about the home country that a Londoner can never get to understand is that there exist throughout Great Britain and Ireland, prosperous, successful and wealthy dailies, which in many respects are equal to and in some even superior to the great organs of the London press. Especially in the political influence they exert, they have the advantage over their metropolitan contemporaries, because there is so much give and take in the whole London press that both sides of a question are heard by most people, even if not generally accepted. In the provinces on the other hand, while there used to be as a rule two important dailies in every large town representing each side in politics, there has been a tendency in each centre to concentrate business on one of these dailies to the loss and perhaps extinction of the other. There has resulted therefore a considerable205 weeding out of provincial dailies and generally in each district there is one presiding genius of journalism, which wields an immense sway in local politics and has very considerable influence even in national affairs.

For instance the power of the Scotsman about any matter affecting Edinburgh would be considerably more effective than even that of the Times in any question which was of importance in London. And not only in civic matters does the Scotsman hold sway but owing to its unique position in the capital without a rival and the provident business talent which gave it an extensive circulation throughout all Scotland, it has come to be the national newspaper of the country. Founded in 1817 it led only a precarious existence under the régime of a 3s. 6d. tax on advertisements, the penny stamp on the paper and the paper duty. But when these were gradually reduced and removed the paper began to forge ahead. But the predominant position which it now holds in Scotland was due to the combined talents of two very remarkable men. One was the brilliant and untiring journalist, Alexander Russel, who sat in the editorial chair from 1848–1876. He took a leading part in the initial Free Trade controversy. His remarkable knowledge of church questions206 endeared him to a theological people but probably it was his gift of humour and his hatred of bigotry and shams of all kinds, which gained the paper its wide popularity. The other factor was the close attention to detail and remarkable foresight in affairs of Mr. James Law, probably the ablest newspaper manager in the kingdom, who has held the reins of business control for over fifty years. His achievement in placing the Scotsman in the forefront as a national paper is the more remarkable, since the home city in whose midst it grew up was greatly exceeded in wealth and population by Glasgow. The Scotsman now stands as one of the most solid newspaper properties in the whole country. Its ownership is in the hands of the Findlay and Law families and the present editor is Mr. Croall.

To give some idea of the upspringing of a provincial paper after the removal of the taxes in knowledge, I may quote the circulation figures of the Scotsman, which have been officially published. Before the abolition of the stamp tax the Scotsman was a bi-weekly with an issue of perhaps 2,500. After 1855 it became a penny daily and reached 6,000 during the Russian War, settling down to 4,000 afterwards. In 1859 its average circulation was207 10,000. In 1862 after the repeal of the paper duty it rose to 15,000. In 1865 it was well over 25,000; in 1870, 30,000; in 1877, 50,000 and during the eighties it reached 60,000 daily.

After the Scotsman for power and influence most people would name the Manchester Guardian. But the Manchester Guardian has an even stronger claim to eminence in being perhaps the only paper in the kingdom outside the metropolis, whose editorial conduct has caused it to be not only the leading paper in its district but also a newspaper of universal range and influence. It has been in the hands of one editor, Mr. C. P. Scott, for more than forty years and he has had the courage, besides leading his own community and representing its local interests with faithfulness and efficiency, to look higher still and to raise his standard of effort far beyond the natural demands in culture of a wealthy industrial district. There is no paper in England, which takes so seriously the intellectual side of life. It has become the unfortunate London habit to select here and there enclaves of culture, where the work has to be brilliantly done at the expense of much else neglected or left absolutely out of account, a failing which is no doubt due to the pressure of competing208 interests in the metropolis. All the painstaking details of culture such as reviewing, musical, dramatic, and artistic criticism are carried out in the Manchester Guardian with something of the thoroughness of the German and with much of the wit and point of the Latin races. Work of this kind is the more praiseworthy, inasmuch as it has been done under a very strict rule of anonymity, a veil which was very seldom lifted.

The Manchester Guardian, founded in 1821, two years after the “massacre of Peterloo,” an event, which ranked in the mind of Manchester radicals almost as July 14 does with a French “red,” has been until the last few years practically in the hands of two men of the same name, John Edward Taylor, father and son. They were both men of independent character, not over-valuing the wealth which came to them. They preserved the traditional opposition of the paper to anything like aristocratic dominance or reactionary foreign policy and this policy is still faithfully carried on. The business history of the paper was very much the same as that of the Scotsman, the price of the two papers being reduced to a penny within one month of each other. One of the most prominent events in its career was the attack made by the paper on the209 misuse of trade marks in the Eastern trade, leading to a libel action, which, though it was indeed lost, brought the paper more than popularity. It established it as the rightful representative of Manchester interests.

A very important newspaper property and the leading organ of the Midlands is the Birmingham Daily Post, which was developed out of the weekly Journal in the form of a penny daily in 1857. The establishment of this property was the joint work of John Feeney and Sir John Jaffray aided by the editorial work of J. J. Bunce. The late Mr. Feeney, the son of the co-founder, bought back the various papers in the group and they are still administered as part of his estate by Mr. J. R. Smyth. It maintains a high level of editorial excellence under the care of Mr. G. W. Hubbard.

One of the oldest papers in the kingdom, perhaps the oldest still alive, is the Leeds Mercury, founded in 1717, which has gradually grown weaker in a contest with a younger and more vigorous rival and finally subsided to a halfpenny price. The Yorkshire Post was originated by a group of landowners and Conservative manufacturers in opposition to the Mercury, always a Liberal organ. It gradually grew to the position of leading newspaper210 in Leeds, mainly through the skill and energy of H. Palmer, one of the few men in this country, who could combine in himself the functions of editor and manager. The present editor is Mr. J. R. S. Phillips.

The honour of being the first penny daily newspaper in England appears to belong to the Liverpool Daily Post, which anticipated several others by one or two months in 1855. The Post was always an enterprising Liberal organ, aggressive in business under its able manager, Mr. A. G. Jeans. Its present editor, Sir Edward Russell, has had control since 1869, anticipating Mr. C. P. Scott of the Manchester Guardian by a couple of years. About ten years ago the Post executed a notable stroke in business by effecting an amalgamation with the moderate Liberal paper, the Liverpool Mercury, to the great advantage of both. The Liverpool Courier is still the representative of Conservatism.

Among well-known Northern papers is the Newcastle Chronicle, celebrated through its connection with a noted figure of his time, Joseph Cowen. The Bradford Observer has become after some vicissitudes the Yorkshire Observer. The Sheffield Telegraph with several satellites is a prosperous property held jointly by the Clifford and Lang families. In Manchester211 besides the Guardian there is the Conservative Courier owned by Lord Northcliffe and a very successful group of papers belonging to Mr. Hulton. These are all of a sporting tendency, with none of them specially remarkable as newspapers. But as a publishing house the Hulton group of papers come near to be commercial rivals on equal terms with the Harmsworth group in London. Their chief publications are the Sporting Chronicle and the Daily Despatch. One of the most successful papers in the kingdom is the Manchester Evening News, under the editorship of Mr. Parkinson which has been the pioneer of rapid production and distribution. In this office were perfected the various devices for printing late news, generally known as the “fudge box,” which were adopted ten years later by London and fifteen years later by New York. It is the property of the Allen family.

Down in the South we have the Bristol Times and Mirror and the Bristol Mercury; at Plymouth, the Western Daily Mercury and the Western Morning News from which the notable journalistic family of the Spenders take their origin. Nearly all these newspapers have also allied evening papers but it is impossible to do justice here to the widespread212 organization of the provincial evening press; in some respects it is more important by its bulk than the better known morning papers. The evening paper in the provinces is the workman’s daily paper. But there are so many of them that it is very difficult to make distinctions.

Returning North, we find a wealthy property and a newspaper powerful by its able editorial conduct in the Glasgow Herald. Until recently there was some uncertainty as to the real date of the first appearance of this journal under the name of Glasgow Advertiser. The proprietors themselves were under the impression, obtained through counting backwards from early issues that it began in 1782 but the first number was unearthed the other day announcing the conclusion of the Peace of Versailles—concluding the American war—in January, 1783. Twenty years later it became the Herald and Advertiser and in 1805 the Herald only. Distinguished editors have been Samuel Hunter, soldier and surgeon as well, who raised 1000 volunteers with himself as colonel to put down the Radicals in 1819; George Outram, Dr. Russell, Dr. Wallace, and Mr. F. H. Kitchin the present editor. The Herald became a penny paper in 1859. It is held by a joint-stock company. There is also213 a halfpenny daily, the Glasgow Daily Record. In Aberdeen there are two excellent dailies, which it is very much to the credit of a comparatively small town to keep in comparative prosperity, the Aberdeen Journal (1748—daily 1876) and the Aberdeen Free Press (1853). Dundee is a very energetic newspaper centre, which not only has two dailies the Dundee Advertiser (1801) and the Dundee Courier (1851) but it has developed weekly papers of large circulation of the family type, whose circulation extends far over the borders of Scotland.

In South Wales there are two flourishing dailies, the Western Mail (1869) a Conservative organ allied with the News of the World and the South Daily News (1872) a Liberal paper. Other Welsh papers are evening papers or weeklies.

In Ireland perhaps the most secure newspaper property is the Irish Times of Dublin but it cannot be regarded as a national paper in the same sense as is the Scotsman. Politics in that country have made so deep a cleavage that they have thrown the bulk of the wealth of Ireland into the hands of that party which the majority of the population do not deem to be national. The title of the paper was an old one, revived in 1859, but the paper only214 started its modern successful career after its purchase in 1873 by Sir John Arnott. Since that time it has consistently supported the Union but with moderation. It was heartily in favour of the Butt scheme of conciliation. The out and out defender of the landed gentry and the party of “ascendency” is the Dublin Daily Express (1551). On the Nationalist side are the famous Freeman’s Journal, a very old foundation dating from 1763 and the Independent. In Belfast are the old-established Belfast Newsletter (1737) and the Belfast Northern Whig (1824). In Cork there is the Cork Examiner (1840).

Of papers of the Empire very little is known in the Mother country beyond the mere names. One of the oldest established is the Montreal Gazette (1765) and the newer Montreal Herald and Star, both very well written and edited. Perhaps the most influential newspaper in the Dominion is the Toronto Globe, which represents the Liberal party but to some extent supports the policy of Protection. The chief Australian papers are the Sydney Morning Herald (1831) and the Sydney Daily Telegraph, the Melbourne Argus (1846) and the Melbourne Age (1854). A rather unique journalistic effort in Australia is the Sydney Bulletin, a paper often capable of bitter and effective215 satire reminding one of Simplicissimus but not always able to keep up to the high level of brilliancy and wit, which it has elected to take as its standard. In South Africa there are the well-known Cape Times (1876) and the Johannesburg Star. The oldest established paper in India is the Calcutta Englishman and elsewhere the Bombay Gazette, the Madras Mail, the Pioneer at Allahabad and the Civil and Military Gazette at Lahore.

CHAPTER IX
CONTINENTAL AND AMERICAN NEWSPAPERS

Any review of the continental press is even more difficult than in the case of our own kith and kin. There are added difficulties of race and language and of prejudices, which cannot be excluded. With regard to the French press a certain amount of reverence is due, because in this branch of activity they were the pioneers of Europe. Without going into history we may note the rise and struggles of one or two papers still important. Of these the Journal des Débats was founded, as its name would suggest, with the beginning of popular government in 1789 by Baudouin, and afterwards bought by Bertin, who carried it to a circulation of 32,000 under Napoleon, a surprising figure for those times. But about 1805 Fouché, under orders, began to make its life unhappy and Napoleon left on record his neat and clear cut views as to what he required from newspapers. “No news unfavourable to the government is to217 be published until it has become too well-known to be worth publishing.” The paper changed its name to the Journal de l’Empire and resumed its old title in 1815. There were other historic journals, which played their part in the last century, such as La Presse founded by Emile de Girardin in the Orleanist interests in 1836; Le Siècle by Dutacq also in 1836, which achieved great popularity; Le Figaro (1854) whose most prominent entrepreneur was Villemessant. The latter introduced into its management for the first time the principle, since well-known under the name of “the squeezed orange,” by which young men of talent were overworked at high salaries, until they were worn out and discarded. Others have followed the same method since, under the mistaken impression that they were original. Villemessant also found the means to finance the celebrated Henri Rochefort in starting La Lanterne in 1878, which was quickly suppressed.

At the present moment there are more daily papers in Paris than perhaps anywhere else except Berlin; unfortunately most of them are too poor to be independent of outside support, so that they tend to belong to private groups of politicians. Curiously enough the “heavy” dailies are evening papers like218 Le Temps and the Journal des Débats, which are moderately Republican. Of the same colour are the five morning papers, the Figaro, Journal, Le Siècle, edited by M. de Lanessan, Petit Parisien and Petit Journal. Three news organs are Le Matin, L’Eclair and the Echo de Paris. There are four Radical Socialist papers, L’Aurore, La Lanterne, L’Humanité (edited by M. Jaurès) and Le Bloc, guided by M. Clémenceau. There are three so-called Nationalist papers, the offspring of Boulangism, La Patrie, the organ of M. Millivoye, La Cocarde and L’Intransigeant, formerly edited by M. Rochefort, and now by M. L. Bailby. Also three in number are the Conservative papers, Le Gaulois, controlled by Arthur Meyer, Le Soleil and La Croix, which supports the clericals. Except the Figaro, the price of all the morning papers in 1902 was five centimes. There are a few well-established provincial papers, besides a host of small ones. Such are La Gironde of Bordeaux, La Dépêche of Toulouse, Le Lyon Republicain, L’Echo du Nord, of Lille, and Le Journal de Rouen.

In Italy the press suffers very much from poverty and there are very few papers, which can be called independent. The strongest are in Milan, Il Secolo (1866) and 219 La Corriere della Sera (1876) which has made itself independent and a real power. In Rome the chief papers are the Tribuna, Liberal, the Messaggero, popular and L’Osservatore Romano, a clerical or “black” paper.

In Austria there is one paper of European reputation with very intimate relations both with Jewish financial circles and with high diplomacy, the Neue Freie Presse. Besides this there are in Vienna the semi-official Fremdenblatt, the clerical Reichspost, the Neues Wiener Tageblatt and Die Zeit, a Liberal paper with large circulation. In Hungary the best known daily paper is the Pesther Lloyd.

In Germany there are one or two papers in the provinces which exceed in merit and influence the papers of the capital. For instance the Frankfurter Zeitung, Kölnische Zeitung and Hamburgische Nachrichten have wide circulations extending even over the borders of Germany. They give an ample supply of general news, not always up to date. The two former are moderate Liberal papers while the latter is pan-German and decidedly anti-British. In Munich there is the Münchener Neueste Nachrichten and a widely known satirical weekly, called Simplicissimus, which directs its shafts chiefly against the220 clerical party. With all its wit it is sometimes scurrilous and often indecent.

Berlin has a large number of papers of every shade of opinion. The largest circulation belongs to the Berliner Tageblatt, a moderate Liberal organ and to the Lokal Auzeiger, a neutral business organ with a good connection in advertising. The Kreuz-Zeitung now called the Neue Preuszische Zeitung, is Conservative and clerical; Der Tag, high-toned and literary; the Vossische Zeitung, Liberal with a small circulation and influential business connection; the Morgen Post is a cheap democratic paper with large circulation; the Vorwärts is Socialist; and the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung is a semi-official government organ. The Berliner Neueste Nachrichten is a paper published in the Krupp interests. News is not well handled in the Berlin press and a high value is not placed upon accuracy. They have some curious features, for instance, in using Gothic type for the literary part of the paper and Roman script for the advertisements and commercial news. As the size of the sheet is small they increase their papers by adding numerous supplements, each devoted to some particular subject. The Sunday issue of a Berlin paper is like a miniature library of books on all subjects.221 I do not know which is the more surprising to an English reader, to purchase one of these weekly encyclopædias in Germany or to get buried in a huge American Sunday paper with stories, news and illustrations all spread hugger-mugger over sixty or seventy gigantic pages with nothing to guide him through the intricacies of either.

The American daily newspapers have certainly more money to spend than any other press in the world, although, owing to the severity of competition among themselves, I doubt whether so much comes back to them in profit. But when it comes to enterprize in procuring news the money any New York paper is prepared to spend is sufficient to take away one’s breath. This was the policy inaugurated by the first William Gordon Bennett on the New York Herald (1835) and subsequently carried even to greater lengths by Joseph Pulitzer in the New York World (1860), when he bought it from Jay Gould. Of all newspaper men probably Pulitzer came nearer to claim the possession of a special genius for the work than any other man. He kept control over both the management and editorial conduct of his paper in every detail through a long life even after he became blind and wherever he might happen222 to be in his wanderings round the world in his yacht. While at first the conduct of his paper seemed to aim at nothing better than mere success and sensationalism there became clear in him a genuine democratic passion, which redeemed many faults. More than once he was known to take in his paper the unpopular and almost the impossible course, justifying himself ultimately by holding his own. His gift of political prophecy was considered by other newspaper men to be uncanny. When he died he left a large sum of money to found a school of journalism in New York.

The Herald still holds its own as the chief general paper of New York on the Republican side while the World is not far behind as a Democrat paper. Beside them is the sensational New York American, which is the New York link in the chain of Hearst papers, which stretches through Philadelphia and Chicago in perhaps ten cities over to the San Francisco Examiner in the West. Hearst is still an unfathomed problem in the newspaper world as no one yet knows what his ultimate aim may be. Equipped originally with millions he has added to them by successful newspaper enterprize. He has political ambitions but whether he will pursue them on ordinary223 lines or turn aside to revolution it is too soon to say.

Of sedate papers we have the Tribune (1851) Horace Greeley’s old organ during the war, now owned by Mr. Whitelaw Reid; the Times (1851), once celebrated under Gilbert Jones for his successful defeat of Oakey Hall and the City ring, now in the hands of an enterprizing Chattanooga journalist, Ochs; and finally the Sun (1833), the most brilliant of American journals, once very bitter against this country, now settled down to be rather an outspoken friend of ours with reactionary tendencies at home. It was the first cheap paper in America and under Charles A. Dana achieved a great reputation.

One of the bright stars in the firmament of the American press is the old New York Evening Post, founded in 1766. Its editors had well-known names—John Bigelow, Carl Schurz, and Horace White. At a time when it was sinking into somnolence after the war it was bought by Henry Villard and placed under the control of E. L. Godkin, who had just triumphantly established the Nation. Another successful Irishman, Godkin, became one of the most remarkable men in America. No one exceeded him in the courage with which he attacked knavery and jobbery of all224 kinds not occasionally and sensationally, but steadily day by day. Before he died he made the Nation, afterwards edited by William Lloyd Garrison, one of the chief purely literary papers in the world, and the Evening Post the most powerful foe to corruption and upholder of pure politics and finance in America. The present editor, Mr. Ogden worthily continues these traditions.

The American press outside New York is so vast that only a fragmentary notice of it is possible. In Boston the old-fashioned literary paper is the Transcript (1830); there are also the Herald (1836) and the successful popular and democratic paper started in 1872 by General Taylor the Globe. One of the most influential papers in America at one time was the Springfield Republican (1824). In Washington the Post (1877) and in Philadelphia the Public Ledger (1836) and the Press (1857) are the best known. Chicago has a very rich and progressive press of which the following are the best known, the Tribune (1847); the Examiner started by Hearst; the Inter-Ocean and the Record-Herald. I would dwell longer on the American press if I had not already rather closely described the organization of a typical American daily in the chapter on newscollecting and reporting.

225 There is no space remaining for even the briefest review of the vast technical press of America, in some ways her most remarkable achievement. In all commercial respects, artistic production, energetic management, comprehensive information they leave all other countries far behind. To mention only the engineering papers, they have an old established general paper, the Iron Age, which is at home in every market in the world, and the only really international organ existing, the American Machinist, published every week simultaneously in New York, London and Berlin.

CHAPTER X
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 the227 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. But228 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 now229 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 explanatory230 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 exact231 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. Mesnager232at 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 extreme233 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 reasons234 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 maintain235 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 to236 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, afterwards237 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 distinction238 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 superfluous239 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]

240 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 whatever241 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 been242 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 of243 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, now244 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 accompany245 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 I246 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 command247 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.

248 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 was249 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 home250 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.

251 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!’” 252

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 Doyle254 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.