The Daily Telegraph

“ Journalist, Republican, Legitimist, and Imperial, notably the renowned correspondent of the Daily Telegraph, who is everywhere and knows everything; politicians, lawyers, novel writers, financiers, aristocrats, bourgeoisie, Parisians, and villagers, are presented in careful portraiture—evidently from life—the whole being done with very great literary skill and brilliancy. ”

“ The word, again, which we children of God speak, the voice which most hits our collective thought, the newspaper with the largest circulation in England, nay, with the largest circulation in the whole world, is the Daily Telegraph! I say that when our religious organisations,—which I admit to express the most considerable effort after perfection that our race has yet made,—land us in no better result than this, it is high time to examine carefully their idea of perfection, to see whether it does not leave out of account sides and forces of human nature which we might turn to great use ”

“ Michael complained. “It’s so damned inclusive. It’s like The Daily Telegraph. It’s voluminous and undistinguished. It shows the same tepid cordiality toward everything, from a man who’s going to be hanged for murder to a new record at cricket. Why can’t you infect it with some of the deplorable but rather delightfully juvenile indiscretion of The Daily Mail?”
“The Daily Mail,” Maurice scoffed. “That rag!”
“A man once said to me,” Michael meditatively continued, “that whenever he saw a man in an empty railway compartment reading The Daily Telegraph, he always avoided it. ”

“ He joined the staff of the Newcastle Daily Chronicle, and afterwards became a leader writer on the Daily Telegraph, but the double labour of journalism and novel writing threatened his health, and he resigned in 1887. Many of the papers which he contributed to the Daily Telegraph were collected in volume form in Round the Galley Fire and other volumes. ”

“ We have suppressed mention of all facts which Bumble would fain ignore, and utterance of all opinions likely to disturb his sacred peace; we have canted enough to nauseate the angels, and have continually lied for God as for a man to pleasure him; so our popular books are fit for emasculated imbeciles, the Times is our leading journal, and the Daily Telegraph boasts the largest circulation in the world! ”

“ In 1870 he represented the ' Daily Telegraph' in France on the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war, and was arrested as a suspected spy, while he was searching Metz for his colleague, George Augustus Sala [q. v.] . Amongst other contributions to the 'Daily Telegraph' was a series of independent studies of religious parties in the metropolis, which attracted attention. ”

“ The American newspaper endeavours to speak to the people direct.
That English papers are immensely more democratic than once they were goes without saying. A man need not be much past middle age to be able to remember when the Daily Telegraph created, by appealing to, a whole new stratum of newspaper readers. The same thing has been done again more recently by the halfpenny papers, some of which come approximately near to being adapted to the intelligences, and representing the tastes, of the whole population, or at least the urban population, down to the lowest grade. ”

“ It is far too sweeping an indictment, for the tone of the Press generally is sound and healthy, always excepting the misleading Times, the Daily Telegraph, and Morning Advertiser.
I will quote Mr. Bailey’s clever sketch of the “great mercantile concern.”
“I think if working men are to be led to read at all, the Newspaper with its ill feeling, bad reasoning, worse taste, fallacious assumptions and distortions of the truth, is about the most objectionable school in which they could be educated.” ”

“ The journals of all Europe were untiring in their praises of the bold explorers, and the Daily Telegraph struck off an edition of three hundred and seventy-seven thousand copies on the day when it published a sketch of the trip. ”

“ The next morning, five or six of the great London dailies burst out simultaneously into great blossoms of eloquent leader-writing. Towards the end all the leaders tended to be the same, but they all began differently. The Daily Telegraph, for instance began, "There will be little difference among our readers or among all truly English and law-abiding men touching the, etc. etc." The Daily Mail said, "People must learn, in the modern world, to keep their theological differences to themselves. ”

“ It must be observed that this perfection of sight and hearing was of wonderful assistance to these two men in their vocation, for the Englishman acted as correspondent of the Daily Telegraph, and the Frenchman, as correspondent of what newspaper, or of what newspapers, he did not say ”

“ Let us take an automobile and watch the beautiful women at Auteuil.”
A FORTNIGHT later I read my obituary notice in a dozen papers. The New York Herald devoted a column to me, and the Continental Daily Mail followed suit. The Times dismissed me with half a dozen lines of small print, which seemed unkind when one considered the quantity of free sensational material I had afforded them. The Daily Telegraph seemed to think that Scotland Yard was at fault in having allowed me to slip out of the world according to my own time and inclination. ”

“ 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. ”

“ For many years he was a leader-writer on political topics on the ‘Daily Telegraph,’ and frequently acted as special correspondent of the ‘Times,’ the ‘Standard,’ and other newspapers. During 1862 and 1863 he was a contributor to the ‘Athenæum,’ to the ‘Seven Days' Journal,’ and to the ‘Leader.’ Falling into pecuniary difficulties, he was, on his own petition, made a bankrupt on 9 Jan. ”

“ Whatever may be the importance of the editorial columns of the daily press in creating, or giving voice to, the general sentiment—and there is reason to suppose that editorials are of less consequence in both respects than they were formerly—it is certainly clear that the multiplication of cheap newspapers has made it possible for vastly larger numbers of men to become rapidly acquainted with current events; while the post and telegraph, and the habit of organisation, have made it much [425] more easy for them to express their views. ”

“ The principal Liberal ones are the "Times," "Globe," "Telegraph," "Daily News," and "Star." Of these five journals, three were for the South, and only two for the North,—the two which I have named last. Two other Liberal daily papers are but little known to me,—the "Advertiser" and the "Sun": I believe the latter was at any rate not decidedly Southern. Everybody knows that the Times is the Englishman's paper par excellence; it would hardly be unfair to call us "a Times-led population," unless, indeed, one prefers the term, "a popularity-led Times." ”

“ Daily Telegraph—"A brilliantly written and eminently readable book."
Daily Mail—"One of the most distinguished novels of the present book season."
Punch—"The Baron strongly recommends Mr. W. J. Locke's 'Idols' to all novel readers. It is well written. No time is wasted in superfluous descriptions; there is no fine writing for fine writing's sake, but the story will absorb the reader.... It is a novel that, once taken up, cannot willingly be put down until finished."
* A STUDY IN SHADOWS. Crown 8vo. 6/- ”

“ Daily Telegraph.
It is quite possible that if they do that it may be possible to amend it in certain particulars.–Westminster Gazette.
Men and women who professed to call themselves Christians.–Daily Telegraph. (An echo, no doubt, of 'profess and call themselves Christians')
The correspondence that you have published abundantly throws out into bold relief the false position assumed...–Daily Telegraph.
In the course of the day, yesterday, M. Rouvier was able to assure M. Delcassé...–Times.
Moreover, too, do we not all feel...?–J. C. Collins. ”

“ One result was that the provincial newspapers were stimulated to greater efforts, and as daily newspapers sprang up in all directions, and the electric telegraph provided greater facilities for reporting, the old supremacy of the London journals in this department of newspaper work gradually disappeared. No public man made a speech but it was faithfully reproduced in print. Local governing bodies, charitable institutions, political associations, public companies—all these came in a short time to furnish work for the reporter, and had full attention paid to them. ”

“ In letters, as in politics, we are doing our best to change all this; and the possible result may be, that every one will soon be able to write a Daily Telegraph article, and that no one will aspire to anything beyond. ”

“ The Field (sporting, weekly) , 18,000, six pence; Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper (Sunday) , 140,000, one penny; Weekly Times (Sunday) —owned by London Journal, which has a circulation of 200,000—110,000, one penny; Cassell's Weekly Magazine, 90,000, Weekly Dispatch (Sunday) , 215,000, two pence; Reynold's Newspaper (Sunday) , 280,000, one penny; Jewish Record (weekly) , one penny, 7,500; Tablet (Catholic weekly) , four pence, 36,000.
SUB-EDITOR'S ROOM, "TELEGRAPH" OFFICE.
[Pg 652]
The Morning Telegraph is the most popular daily newspaper in the world. ”

“ To hear some Englishmen talk, you would think the Times had been their swaddling-clothes in infancy, was their book of laws in manhood, and would be their winding-sheet at death.
And yet the Times, despite its great influence, is far exceeded in circulation by other papers in London—the London Telegraph, for instance, which, to an American, will seem in its general characteristics and enterprise the most like an American paper. It takes more pains to make itself a sheet for popular reading. ”

“ If you think that the columns of the People's Banner are to be bought, you must have opinions respecting the press of the day which make me pity you as one grovelling in the very dust. The daily press of London is pure and immaculate. ”

“ Most of the Sunday Papers, calling themselves Newspapers, have no news, only political essays, which are read by the working-classes, and which in those papers produce astonishing success.” In other letters he says: “The reputation of the writings of any man, the mere reputation of them, would not serve, or in the very slightest degree serve, any daily newspaper.” ”

“ Formerly “news” was limited in the imagination of English editors to verbatim reports of political speeches, the daily record of police courts, and the hard facts of contemporary history, recorded in humdrum style. Harmsworth changed all that. “News,” to him, meant anything which had a touch of human interest for the great mass of folk, any happening or idea which affected the life, clothes, customs, food, health, and amusements of middle-class England. Under his direction, The Daily Mail, closely imitated by many others, regarded life as a variety show. No “turn” must be long or dull. ”

“ The reputation for a newspaper which has been looked upon as pre-eminently desirable is not that it should be regarded by the public as well-informed or as expressing a sound judgment, but as pithy and interesting. The inevitable consequence of this tendency is that the great mass of English daily newspapers have lost their former high place in the estimation of the public as serious and necessary institutions, and have descended to the level of an amusement. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Here is the great brainpan of journalism; the centre of newspaper activity, the prefecture of police of the public press. Absolutely necessary is it that it should be entirely a secret police, the “awful, shadowy, irresponsible, and yet puissant we” should dominate over the columns of the daily journal. Will a time ever come, I wonder, when a man will sign his own articles in a newspaper ”

“ 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. ”

“ Thus the daily newspaper will be entirely a vehicle for the propagation of news, correctly so called: and very likely it will become almost entirely colourless, politically, because a well-informed public will resent obvious garbling or clearly unfair selection. ”

“ Save her sport and you save England.
Modern journalistic methods are reduced to absurdity in the account of the staff of a daily paper, who are all football players, cricketers, clairvoyants, crystal-gazers, music-hall artists, or burglars. In the verses on "Journalistic Evolution," in 1907, the tendency to condense everything is specially noted. [Pg 298] Leaders have become "leaderettes," and will in turn yield to "leaderettelets"; the writer prophesies a day when The Times will only consist of headlines. ”