Mass media

“ I do not pretend to know, but what I do know is that many of the direct channels to news have been closed and the information for the public is first filtered through publicity agents. The great corporations have them, the banks have them, the railroads have them, all the organizations of business and of social and political activity have them, and they are the media through which news comes. ”

“ One of the most important uses of the press and radio, which falls into the category of organization, has been to mobilize the people actively to support, and participate in, the implementation of specific policies, such as the fulfillment of economic plans or antireligious campaigns. Often, in conjunction with mobilization campaigns, the media are used to transmit specific information that is necessary for the implementation of various aspects of the policies. In the economic sphere, for example, discussions of industrial processes or agriculture often appear in the press. ”

“ Bashing or not, criticism of the media reflects the fact that media expanded their participation in power. The practical experience of public relations, an outgrowth of media participation in power, uses the methods of the media to promote causes and personalities as products best suited for a certain need: support hungry children, elect a sheriff, endorse a tax hike or reduction, etc., etc. ”

“ All members of media, television, radio or print, shall scrupulously report and interpret the news, taking care not to suppress essential facts nor to distort the truth by omission or improper emphasis. ”

“ In effect, it is claimed, the public has lost any ability to respond or to contribute in a meaningful way to the debate on issues. The monopoly of the means of communication allows for little or no critical analysis of the media except in professional journals of very limited readership. ”

“ The media should give as a part of public service, a portion of space in case of newspapers and time in case of radio and television, to all political parties that have candidates all over the country. ”

“ So long as the press remains the greatest single medium for reaching the public mind, the work of the public relations counsel will necessarily have close contacts with the work of the journalist. He transmits his ideas, however, through all those mediums which help to build public opinion—the radio, the lecture platform, advertising, the stage, the motion picture, the mails. ”

“ This summer my administration launched an unprecedented media campaign to ensure that the message comes across when young people watch television, listen to radio, or read the newspaper. But media is not enough. ”

“ If we must give credit to the press for the diffusion of knowledge so also must we recognize its equal power to diffuse prejudice and bias. The newspaper and the magazine of to-day are vast and intricate machines that supply the great majority of us with practically all the data upon which we base our judgments. The public mind and the popular press act and react upon one another, the press setting its sails to catch every wind of public interest and the public upon its part demanding to be supplied with all those departments of news to which at the moment it is specially attracted. ”

“ Without the telegraph, without railroads, in the early history of the American nation there was no way of keeping the mass of the people162 in close touch with the government, of supplying quick information on current events without which the people are incapable of forming correct opinions. To-day, the newspapers, with their simultaneous publication all over the continent, their fast printing and quick delivery, keep all the people instantly informed. They are able immediately to reflect public opinion, thus making themselves indispensable to the government. ”

“ Historically, of all the mass communications systems, the press has always reached the largest number of people and has traditionally been viewed by the government as the most effective means of informing the general public. ”

“ 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. ”

“ According to Forbes magazine's annual study of profits, broadcasting and publishing companies led all industry groups in return on stockholder's equity and capital in recent years. Specialized publications also keep track of the profitability of the media. ”

“ Both forms of media critique one another and proclaim their superiority. Print media operates under a self-important sense of credibility. And the electronic media operates under a belief that they are the only purveyors of unbiased truth. ”

“ By recognizing the possibilities of publicity, the chance which the broadcast sowing of newspapers and magazines put within the reach of the individual man to impress himself upon the whole country, upon the whole civilized world. The kings of finance relied upon the assiduity and dexterity of sundry paid agents, operating through the stealthy, clumsy, old-fashioned channels for the exercise of power. I relied only upon myself; I had to trust to no fallible, perhaps traitorous, understrappers; through the megaphone of the press I spoke directly to the people. ”

“ The press, which used to be omniscient, is now only indiscriminate--a clear gain, emitting by force of publicity, if not of shine, a kind of light through whose diverse rays and foggy luster we may now and then get a glimpse of truth. ”

“ The lawyer and the capitalist are together adjusting the industrial relations of the country. We have trusts, syndicates, and corporation-problems handled with a firm intellectual grasp and a wide outlook over human affairs.
The reading of the world is in the hands of editors of enterprise and sagacity. They daily bring wars, statecraft, business plans, political situations, trade openings, scientific discoveries, forms of church-work and philanthropy, accidents, murders, and marriages, to our breakfast-table. The press of to-day has a tremendous scope. ”

“ A middle ground exists between the hypothesis that the public is stubborn and the hypothesis that it is malleable. To a large degree the press, the schools, the churches, motion pictures, advertising, the lecture platform and radio all conform to the demands of the public. But to an equally large degree the public responds to the influence of these very same mediums of communication. ”

“ Encourage diversity in the ownership of broadcast media, promote the development of new media outlets for expression of diverse viewpoints, and clarify the public interest obligations of broadcasters who occupy the nation's spectrum. ”

“ Much that happens in these days is presented to the public in the words of the actors or their satellites, without evaluation through the mind of the professional journalist.
Whole sections devoted to the automobile industry, columns of theatrical "notes" and even "criticism," book "reviews," much industrial, financial and real estate "news," college and university items, stories of organized uplift movements, and a considerable body of political and administrative news from governmental centers are furnished to the press in the form of publicity "handouts." ”

“ What the popular teachers did for Athens in the period of Socrates and Plato the press has done in modern times for the common man.
The modern newspaper has been accused of being a business enterprise. "Yes," say the newspaper men "and the commodity it sells is news." It is the truth shop. (The editor is the philosopher turned merchant.) By making information about our common life accessible to every individual at less than the price of a telephone call we are to regain, it is urged—even in the complicated life of what Graham Wallas calls the "Great Society"—some sort of working democracy. ”

“ Where the State creates and controls communications, subsidizing them, is it not nonsense to speak of the press—the communications-based news industry—as independent of the State?
What Is News?
Still more deeply hidden is a curious twist in the character of news itself. What is news? A well-worn “gag” accurately describes the publishing industry’s concept. “If a man bites a dog, that’s news.” There is nothing unexpected, nothing unusual, nothing sensational about a dog biting a man; hence, that isn’t news. In short, an accurate picture of what is happening is not news. ”

“ Having been a journalist, he knew well the power of the press for good or evil, and that led him to the idealistic conception that he could render no better public service than by founding, or getting control of, a newspaper of absolute independence and outspokenness on public matters, one devoted to the discovery and advocacy of truth, regardless of party and of all other considerations, and with such recognized ability in editorial management as would secure for it not only a local but a national influence. ”

“ They help merely to make somewhat more concrete our notions of the effort that goes day by day into acquiring the data of our opinions. The newspapers are, of course, not the only means, but they are certainly the principal ones. Magazines, the public forum, the chautauqua, the church, political gatherings, trade union meetings, women's clubs, and news serials in the moving picture houses supplement the press. But taking it all at the most favorable estimate, the time each day is small when any of us is directly exposed to information from our unseen environment. ”

“ Who controls the dissemination of news? Is the press totally, uncompromisingly devoted to the unbiased presentation of all news insofar as possible? Is it possible for groups with special interests to put pressure on the press and on our other means of disseminating information, such as the radio and the screen, and to what extent? ”

“ Newspapers, periodicals, and magazines, of course, come under the third class. Now while a good daily paper and a good weekly review of events have become almost necessities for the mass of mankind, a propaganda paper is neither a necessity nor a physical comfort, and for its circulation it must depend to a great extent for financial support on making itself so interesting and attractive that a larger number of people than the already converted, the reformers, will want it. ”

“ The leading journals publish news from every corner of the globe, all that is worthy of interest: they contain much more foreign news and cable dispatches than any New York paper. Instead of the enormous quantity of trivial gossip about public and private individuals which forms so large a part of the reading matter of most of our papers, they have in addition to real news of State, and of mercantile and commercial matters at home and abroad, articles scientific and literary, information as to art, music, and every field of activity. ”

“ And the press, which in all things is precisely on a par with power in the matter of wit,—the press, dividing itself into three fractions, has decided, one for the ministerial compromise, another for the exclusion of the State, and the third for the exclusion of the corporations. ”

“ The newspaper press is organized so as to be a more perfect expression of public opinion than it possibly could be in your day, when private capital controlled and managed it primarily as a money-making business, and secondarily only as a mouthpiece for the people. ”

“ I need not elaborate upon the wonderful growth of the press in our country, or refer to the great power which journalism wields in the development of the new world. I need not ladle out statistics to show you how the newspaper has encroached upon the field of oratory and how the pale and silent man, while others sleep, compiles the universal history of a day and tells his mighty audience what he thinks about it before he goes to bed. ”

“ The Press as an Educator.—The institutions directly concerned with instruction are supplemented by other educational agencies. Among these is the press. The press is an institution that exerts a mighty force upon every department of the city's life. It is at the same time a business enterprise and a social institution. It is a public misfortune that the newspaper, the magazine, and the book publishing house is a private business undertaking, and often stands for class, party, or sectarian interests before those of the whole of society. ”

“ Modern industry, however, requires millions of literate workers. The general level of education and information must rise. The new ruling classes, the merchant princes, the industrialists, the finance capitalists, are forced to accede to this trend. Their attitude toward the press changes. Instead of seeking to limit the volume of newspaper information, they seek to control the content and use the papers as a tool. ”

“ There is a third group which perhaps comes nearer the truth, which holds that the press, just as other mediums of education or dissemination, brings about a very definite change in public opinion. A most graphic illustration of what such mediums can do to change opinions upon fundamental and important matters is the woman suffrage question and its victory over established points of view. The press, the pulpit, the lecture platform, the motion pictures and the other mediums for reaching the public brought about a complete popular conversion. ”

“ 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. ”