Press bureau

“ And then he asked them only to name the day they wanted to see Woolwich or to cross to France. But nothing like that was happening to me. So what else should a journalist do?
Well, evidently a journalist should get in good standing with a war office which alone can press the button to everywhere she wants to go. The short cut to a war office is through a press bureau. But a press bureau modestly shrinks from the publicity that it purveys. You do not find it on Main Street with a lettered signboard and a hand pointing: “Journalists, right this way.” ”

“ For the General Staff at the War Office to have formulated apposite, hard-and-fast regulations for the guidance of the Press Bureau covering all questions likely to arise, would, it may be observed, have been virtually impracticable, or at all events would not have really solved the problem. ”

“ The Press Bureau has about it stamp of things 'made in Germany.' Importation of other classes of these goods is prohibited. Let us either get rid of the Press Bureau or have it remodelled on principles of common sense, in accord with public feeling and concern for best interests of the Army. ”

“ The woman's suffrage movement, for instance, has a well-equipped and organized bureau; while the two great political parties during campaign times have sent out for many years news-articles and editorials of great value to the country and partisan press.
Perhaps the most efficacious press bureau of the legitimate kind is that of the Christian Scientists. Every time an editor prints anything derogatory to the Rev. ”

“ The Associated Press also has correspondents everywhere in the world, most of whom are paid for what news they furnish, while others at important news centers are regularly employed to gather and send news to the association. To facilitate the handling of the news, the Associated Press has divided the country into four divisions with a central office and a superintendent in each; and in these divisions there is a bureau at every important news center with a correspondent who is responsible for all the news in his district of the division. ”

“ Not only that, but every newspaper having the Associated Press service did the same; some nine hundred newspapers throughout the United States sat in silence and let this challenge pass unanswered. I had the “Appeal to Reason” send a marked copy of this issue to every one of the nine hundred Associated Press papers, and I wrote to my clipping-bureau, asking them to watch especially for mention of the matter. This clipping-bureau is the best in the country, and seldom misses anything of importance. It could not find me a single mention of my challenge to the Associated Press. ”

“ While not inclined to argue this point, it is my humble judgment that the newspaper begins its existence the moment the managing editor opens his desk for the day’s work. He is its main-spring! Whatever of distinctive character it possesses in methods of handling the news of the day it owes to him, and it is these very features that render one journal better or worse than others. He it is, as a rule, who establishes the chivalry of the press toward the public. It is he who decides the line of attack or defense when the vast interests which he represents are assailed. ”

“ Newspapers are distributed on the same principle as are the letters.
The newspaper department of a post-office is one that may well be called the “reservoir” of the press: here flows all that makes up that vast institution, here comes the highest standard of our literature, down to the meanest sheet venality produces. A number of men are constantly employed in the newspaper room, or, as we term it, “the rotunda of literature.” This is emphatically the wholesale room; for they deal in bulk. Papers coming singly, directed to individuals, pass through the same process as do the letters. ”

“ The display of a representative selection of newspapers and the cost of maintaining the department would occupy a large space, and the funds would be spent to a considerable extent in providing one of the least healthy forms of literature. But perhaps the real reason for the American indifference to the newsroom is the sensational and vulgar tone of a considerable portion of the newspaper press. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Under the title of central department of the press we shall institute literary gatherings at which our agents will without attracting attention issue the orders and watchwords of the day. By discussing and controverting, but always superficially, without touching the essence of the matter, our organs will carry on a sham fight fusillade with the official newspapers solely for the purpose of giving occasion for us to express ourselves more fully than could well be done from the outset in official announcements, whenever, of course, that is to our advantage. ”

“ I invite your attention first of all to the Press Agent, that indispensable adjunct of all projects that have something to gain or to fear from publicity. I have seen the claim made in print, though doubtless it is a press agent's story, that there are ten thousand press agents in the city of New York,—that is, men and women employed to boom people and enterprises in the papers and magazines. You are familiar with the theatrical press agent, the most harmless, jovial, inventive, and resourceful of his kind. ”

“ It is insisted that the Associated Press is in substance the press itself, that the membership consists solely of persons who own and operate newspapers, that the news is gathered solely for publication in the newspapers of members. ”

“ The whole aspect of the humbler press has changed within these few years. Unquestionably the people have changed. Visit, if you can, the interior of that marvellous human machine, the General Post-Office, on a Friday evening, from half-past five to six o'clock. Look with awe upon the tons of newspapers that are crowding in to be distributed through the habitable globe. Think silently how potent a power is this for good or for evil. ”

“ The Associated Press is engaged ostensibly in the collection, sale, and distribution of news dispatches for such of the newspaper press of the country as find favor in its sight. It has numerous agents in the towns and cities of the United States, employed to send dispatches to its headquarters at New York. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Press Office has been restructured along professional lines. Its staff, from Deputy Press Secretary John W. Hushen down the line, is competent and dedicated and comprises loyal employees who have given unstintingly of their time and talents. ”

“ The third block, Press Chief,—this office controlled the Press Political Office, the Press Personnel Office, and supervised Party treatment of the press and treatment of Party affairs in the press.
The center block, the Office of Propaganda Leader, had under its control not only the press, but exhibits and fairs, speakers’ bureaus, films, radio, culture, and other means of expression and dissemination of the ideology of the Party and its purposes. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The general press prints what the public wants; the specific newspaper prints what its editor thinks the class of readers to which it caters wants. If he gauges his public right, he succeeds; if he does not, he fails. You can no more make the people read a newspaper they do not want than you can make a horse drink when he is not thirsty. In this respect the pulpit has the better of the press. ”

“ Newspaper staffs hold regular meetings with readers to discuss problems raised by the readers and most papers have an annual readers’ conference at which editors make public accounting of their stewardship. The Soviet Constitution guarantees printing presses and stocks of paper to the organizations of the people, such as trade unions, cultural and scientific organizations, etc. It has not remained a paper promise: the press is entirely in popular hands. ”

“ My reason for thinking the officers of Government should be permitted to be concerned in the press is this, that if none but those who are unconnected with the Government, and who, according to the existing system, cannot be connected with it, manage the press, the probability is that everything will be said against the Government and nothing for it. ”

“ 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 ”

“ When I first entered the street, twenty years ago alas! the social status of press men was much lower than at present, when the pendulum has swung the other way, so that newspaper proprietors wear coronets, the purlieus of Fleet Street are infested with barons and baronets, and even reporters have been knighted by the King. In my early days a journalist did not often get nearer to a Cabinet Minister than the hall porter of his office. ”

“ The Harpers alone—a single firm—have within their vaults plates for more than two thousand volumes.
Need I dwell on the improved appliances in the great art, which enrich the present day, or on the influences now at work on the intellectual man? Justly has it been stated, that the press of a single office in this city issues more matter than the industry of the world, with all its scribes and illuminators, in an entire year, previous the time of Faust. Let us, then, reverence the press, as our Franklin did. ”

“ As it was, so great was the variety and so many the incidents that a full-size news agency had to be installed at headquarters, where a large staff was kept busily engaged in collecting news by telegram and telephone from all over the country and passing it on to the press. ”

“ That the American press from 1790 to 1800 was probably as powerful in its influence as at any time in its history, is not to be denied. But the violence and vituperation of the party press led to the first attempt on the part of the American Government to regulate the newspaper press. ”

“ There had been an investigation by the President of the United States of one of America’s greatest industries, and I had been tacitly commissioned to make the results known to the public, for the benefit of the public, whose physical health was at stake. I came to the great press association, an organization representing at that time some seven hundred newspapers, with scores of millions of readers, hungry for news. The Associated Press was the established channel through which the news was supposed to flow; and in this crisis the channel proved to be a concrete wall. ”

“ But I am sure that few persons who read the papers realize the great amount of time and thought that goes into turning out a good, up-to-date, artistically illustrated newspaper. The mere mechanical toil required is enormous; and in addition to this labor there is all the bustle, rush, and rivalry attending the securing of the latest news. The editorial office has its set of problems, as you know, if you yourself get out a paper. ”

“ In a word, treat the newspaper reporter as you would any other gentleman and in the long run you will profit by it. If you are the press representative of your local organization try to have from time to time items of news pertainng to matters other than that of woman suffrage. Use the telephone lavishly and let your home be a sort of stopping place for the reporter in his routine work. When you present such an attitude toward the press the editors cannot find it in their hearts to refuse if you want a little space for yourself and your cause. ”

“ If these young men had investigated before they spoke, they would never have said what they did; for if there is a clean thing in the United States it is the Associated Press. The personnel of the service is made up as a whole of newspaper men of the finest type; throughout the profession employment in its service is regarded as an evidence of character and reliability. No general policy of suppression or distortion could be carried on without the knowledge and indeed the active connivance of these men, stationed at strategic points all over the world. ”