British press

“ It is a living index of the colossal British power. Its existence honors the people who dare to print all they know, dare to know all the facts, and do not wish to be flattered by hiding the extent of the public disaster. There is always safety in valor. I wish I could add, that this journal aspired to deserve the power it wields, by guidance of the public sentiment to the right. It is usually pretended, in Parliament and elsewhere, that the English press has a high tone,—which it has not. It has an imperial tone, as of a powerful and independent nation. ”

“ The truth of this proposition becomes evident, from the close connection that exists between the press and the public, from the action and reaction, the efflux and reflux, from the true corporate unity which brings into the press the life-blood of the country. We depend upon the newspaper for distributing knowledge, as well as creating it; it is an instrument by which the opinions and feelings of the people may be guided and developed, as well as communicated and ascertained. It is in fact an essential element in the peculiar spirit and tendency which characterizes our modern civilization. ”

“ We have already reckoned upon the Press as a chief factor in the adequate criticism, cleansing, and modernisation of the British lawyer-politician; is there any power to which we may look for the security of the Press? And I submit the answer is the Press. For while the legal profession is naturally homogeneous, the Press is by nature heterogeneous. Dog does not eat dog, nor lawyer, lawyer; but the newspapers are sharks and cannibals, they are in perpetual conflict, the Press is a profession as open as the law is closed; it has no anti-social guild feeling ”

“ Time was when the average British newspaper represented a high standard of accuracy, fairness and literary ability, but since the importation of many doubtful American methods, the character of the press has to a large measure degenerated. Moreover, few British newspapers are independent of political or corporation control, although exceptions exist, and impartial reports of and comments upon news are rare. ”

“ The solution is easy: let us examine what are the genuine principles of the liberty of the press, as they regard writings upon general subjects, unconnected with the personal reputations of private men, which are wholly foreign to the present inquiry. They are full of simplicity, and are brought as near perfection, by the law of England, as perhaps is attainable by any of the frail institutions of mankind. ”

“ Let us hope the British public has an opinion of its own entirely apart from the Press, and that it will declare that opinion bravely and openly. It is hard to imagine that it will allow its fondness for “prize-competitions” and “puzzle-pictures” to interfere with its common sense and honesty. I may say, however, that I have often marvelled at the generosity with which a large majority of people will [Pg 323] insist on filling the pockets of newspaper capitalists, by purchasing such quantities of the particular journals which contain these puzzles and competitions. ”

“ No,—it is only the Foreign Press that is corrupt, so the British Press says;—John Bull looks on virtuously aghast at journalists who, in dire stress of poverty, will actually earn a little extra pay for writing something or somebody ‘up’ or ‘down.’ Thank Heaven, he employs no such journalists ”

“ Then the Irish trouble, and after that probably European affairs.
"They're writing so much about sport just to keep people's minds off the coal strike and more serious matters," says a comfortably-minded citizen. "The Government gives the papers a hint every day as to the line to take."
The idea that the Government prompts the Press came with the war and the efforts of the Press Bureau, and has come perhaps to stay. Journalists have made great efforts since 1918 to regain for the British Press that independence and freedom it had before the war. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is a very bad system, and encourages disaffection.” We endeavoured to explain that the freedom of the press was characteristic of the British system of government, and that the channel thus afforded for the unfettered expression of public opinion was one of the greatest safeguards of the Government, and a powerful instrument in the maintenance of public order. “It may be so for you; you are the best judges of your own interests. ”

“ Newspapers, as we know them, are the outcome of two circumstances, the removal190 of the paper tax in 1861 and the spread of telegraphic communication. |The Growth of Journalism.| Every industry, every sect, every amuse­ment, every shade of opinion, now has its special organs in the press; and perhaps nothing is more remarkable than the enterprise and high quality of the provincial journals, as distinguished from those published in the Metropolis. British journalism differs in several important respects from that of all other European countries. ”

“ And coming from one who, as you know, never had any thing to do with newspapers, except as having been an eager and regular reader of them for more than twenty years, I hope my testimony is worth having, when I express my opinion that our newspaper press is a very great honour to Great Britain, as well negatively in its abstinence from myriads of tempting but objectionable topics, as well as positively in the varied ability, the energy, accuracy, and amazing promptitude displayed in dealing with the ever-changing and often-perplexing affairs of the world. ”

“ The most acute problem of this vexed time is the ever-growing power of the newspaper press. Legislation of a drastic kind is needed to cope with certain newspaper ‘bosses’ in Great Britain and America and their combinations, national and international, of periodicals, agencies, special correspondents and their sinister antennae, which persistently foul at the source the wells of truth. ”

“ The influence of a newspaper in England is enormous, incalculable, and even in India where there is sometimes an affectation of poohpoohing the Press it is very great. Question it who will, the Press is a great power for good— it is also unfortunately a great power for evil. It can expose and insist upon the remedy of wrong —it can also do wrong. Reflect on this fact—that your first essential is to interest the public. No amount of industry or cleverness can avail without this. ”

“ If there is any one thing aggravating to the American tourist, on his first trip to England, it is the supreme indifference of the English press to American affairs. Accustomed to the liberal enterprise of the press of his own country, which, with a prodigality of expenditure, stops at nothing when news is to be had, and which every morning actually gives him news from all parts of the world, in addition to copious extracts from foreign and domestic papers, he is struck with astonishment at the comparative lack of enterprise shown by the London papers. ”

“ There was something that was irresistible in his candour, his enthusiasm, and his self-confidence. The Press was the greatest agency for influencing public opinion in the world. It was the true and only lever by which Thrones and Governments could be shaken and the masses of the people raised. In all this I was in strong sympathy with his opinions. But I was staggered by the audacity of the schemes for revolutionising English journalism which he poured into my ears on this the first evening on which he had ever entered a newspaper office. ”

“ Delightful country, where one sees everything in the papers—the big, familiar, vulgar, good-natured, delightful papers, none of which has any reputation to keep up for anything but getting the news! I really think that has had as much to do as anything else with my satisfaction at getting home—the difference in what they call the "tone of the press." In Europe it's too dreary—the sapience, the solemnity, the false respectability, the verbosity, the long disquisitions on superannuated subjects. ”

“ 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 public is this vast creature—the press are these tentacles. Fancy our Prime Minister pouncing oppressively and illegally upon the very obscurest provincial paper going—say the "Land's End Farthing Illuminator!" Why, the whole artillery of the press of the United Kingdom would instantly open upon him; in doing so, being the true exponent of the universal fury of the country—and in a twinkling where would be my Lord John, or would have been Sir Robert, with the strongest government that ever was organised? ”

“ Come, buy this print, and it will then be seen
That such a year as this has seldom been.”
Another of these stainers of paper addressed the spectators in the following terms, “Friends, now is your time to support the freedom of the press. Can the press have greater liberty? here you find it working in the middle of the Thames; and if you encourage us by buying our impressions, we will keep it going in the true spirit of liberty during the frost.” ”

“ Our readers have often had to oblige us by their attention to what we have said of the blessed THING. We are now going to trouble them upon an extraordinary occasion indeed, and are going to give an instance of the baseness and infamy of the London newspapers, such as we never before had it in our power to give; and such as we are quite sure will, before we have done with it, implant the character of everlasting infamy upon that corrupt press, which has so long been boasting of its independence and its honour. What a deal we have heard about the press being the guardian of public morals! ”

“ The English know the power of the great modern newspaper, not only to reflect but to form public opinion. They have watched the American press because they know to what extent it influences American policy. ”

“ I confine myself to criticism on matters such as he who runs may read. It is, however, true that, contrary to the general spirit of the country, such questions as socialism and the labour movement seldom receive so fair and sympathetic treatment as in the English press.
So many of the journalists I met in the United States were men of high character, intelligence, and breeding that it may seem ungracious and exaggerated to say that American newspaper men as a class seem to me distinctly inferior to the pressmen of Great Britain. ”

“ And as for those persons who are weak enough to talk as though newspapers were the great or sole means of [Pg 261] diffusing truth and knowledge among the people, they are not less mistaken than others would be, who might affirm that newspapers were the chief or only means of spreading lies and ignorance among them. But if so much evil is mingled with the good produced by the public press in Great Britain, how must the case stand with the same mighty agent of benefit or mischief in a colony like that of New South Wales? ”

“ They are most able men, a credit to the American Press. They are trustworthy. That is the opinion formed by the people who know in England. I am glad to be able to repeat this opinion here to-day. If the Press wants to unite countries it can. [48] If it wants to disunite them, it can. But the Press is just like a person in this. If someone tells you constantly of another’s shortcomings and faults and extols his own virtues, you begin sooner or later to avoid that person. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Discrimination is not made between the power of the printed word—which is limitless—and the influence that a newspaper, as such, exerts. The power of the press is in its facility for making public opinions and events. I should say it is a medium of force rather than force itself. I confess that I am oftener impressed with the powerlessness of the press than otherwise, its slight influence in bringing about any reform, or in inducing the public to do what is for its own good and what it is disinclined to do. ”