Is the Power of the Press Waning?
RICH, J. C.
Is the Power of the Press Waning? By J. C. Rich I WISH oar crowd would tell me (bout the power of the prow. Secretory I ekes think* that th* pies* just didn't count in the recent presidential...
...If a play got a rave notice in a French paper, you knew that it was probably a turkey jind that the favorable critique was bought and* paid far...
...If, let us say, a million Chinese have to emigrate, they would be directed and assisted to concentrate in a certain part of Manchuria or Kenya or Uganda 01 Madagascar, instead of sending hundreds of thousands of them to the cities of Brasil, **^*fSIw^trm^mWF^Bf***cv^P*••v'•*• iWslt JsfiaMrualfcith assigning spoomceoun...
...Wherefore it follows that either the editorials and opinion columns of most of the papers were over th* heads of their readers or else that the readers had grown up beyond the mental age generally allotted to them...
...Yes, it had a sensible editorial here and there—and utter tripe in the rest of the sheet...
...An apparently easy way out a to deny the necessity of a governing principle for pjbjpation altogether...
...A quick glance at the editorial* and Washington columns of the New York New$, for instance, will show that nothing could be more moronic, and so it seems we must deduce thst the Newi readers are more intelligent than its editors...
...the Hearst papers are modfls of reserve and sedate propriety compared with them...
...trie* or areas for the rspactire groups...
...But whatever the future, the condition of the Jewish Community in the United States and in most of the Western Hemisphere fortunately has not reached the SOS stage...
...Uh th* exception of a couple published in Boston, has it all over the big timers issued abroad...
...But isn't it wonderful that people have learned to read...
...Yet nobody can confidently suppose that a large part of the Jews who survive will not need to leave their residences or the places to which they have been deported in order to find new homes outside of Europe...
...No great feat to be sure, but something...
...The intelligentsia would exclaim, "Ha, the yellow press...
...In the old days we knew for a positive fact that the American papers were all sensational sheets, totally unreliable in opinion and fact...
...What we are concerned with at present is something much less than the immediate radical solution of a problem which has been the source of untold misery and crime for the last two millennia...
...It isn't polite to point, but if anybody will show me in what respect PM, the ad-less paper, is more objective, more fair-minded, more balanced and reliable in its opinions and contents than the Time* or Tribune, I'll eat a week-end issue of PM, comic strips, cheesecake, baby heinies and all...
...Maybe they don't teach it in the journalism classes, but the profession accepts it as one of its basic rules of life that it mast respect and never overestimate the IQ of the reading public...
...The Jews of eastern Europe beyond the borders of the Soviet Union, the Jews of central Europe and the Balkans, the Jews of western parts of the Continent...
...1 USED to be a newspaperman myself once...
...This ia th* energy, diligence, and crafts, manlike skill with which it gathers and collates nee...
...Thaw* cireameteneeo ara likely to ereste a HMhategieal "climate" la which aaaay alliens of gil-— wili c*n*td*r emigration the moat oh-rfcaa aolatian el their problem...
...The big boys are such a know-it-«ll bunch of wise guys that there is little risk that they will give fairness and good judgment its head...
...However, at this stage I am not going to argue out this highly controversial matter...
...You'd think that it was • virtu* to have a small circulation, and that the fewer the readers the greater th* influence of a paper...
...But I'll bet he would think the press very powerful if the majority of the papers had supported th* winner...
...Of course, I am aware of the existence of a Jewish problem in this country which is in no position to) claim immunity against the virus of xenophobia and malevolence toward minority groups...
...To a large extent, although not exclusively, the position of the Jew in America will depend on how thing*'generally will shape themselves in the postwar period, on the success or failure of our efforts at economic and social readjustment...
...Our papers are infinitely superior in everything it takes to make a paper...
...Not for sure, at least...
...We therefore used to think that the ideal paper would be one that carried no advertising and would thus be free from mercenary influences...
...Trivial...
...We may also expect that in Europe, liberated from Fascism, Jewish rights and, at least, formal equality, will be constitutionally guaranteed...
...Yellow...
...The settlement of an individual sen group in a new country is, under the conditions nf our time, a social act and a vital economic function Mat must be regulated no less than the establishment of factories, marketing of goods, foreign trade, wages, social security, the expansion or retrenchment of a branch of agriculture...
...They'll take another beating and then still publish damn good newspapers...
...Economic individualism is sp-ynstrhinr its end snd with it must perish whatever rssmalns of the system of immigration determined solely by individual decision...
...People have get into the nasty habit of reading the news columns and making their judgments on the facte...
...dicates posse** it la *v*n greater measure than tat individual popart, for they're obliged to serve aad cater to many papers with a variety of editorial prejudices...
...And across the channel, the continental papers were worse, if anything...
...Every group which need* to immigrate, however, should have such a privileged status, each one in an area , assigned for*it...
...The Foreign Policy Association made a prognosis (in its August, 1943, report on refugees) that there will be a minimum of 18,000,00', uprooted Europeans after the war, for many of whom new homes will hsve to be found overseas...
...Classical nwnomle liberalism in general, and the laittez fair* attitude with regard to immigration as well, are experiencing a severe crisis...
...My purpose is only to outline the general principle by which the migration of our times will have to be regulated and stimulated—the principle of argtmie regulation and creative group initiative, instead of individual, Semi-servile, mechanical adaptation...
...One can state a pious formula P» "freedom of immigration for all human beings into asp country on earth" and pretend to have settled the jmttir But who still believes that in the foreseeable fetore universal freedom of immigration will be restored' Free immigration has becomes anachronistic...
...The dislocations—not only geographic, utm--or political, hat psychological a ad ea»«ttaMl aa welt cajaawl by tha war in Karune, . hi aarUi.lr become even aaara aeriawa before taw #%r fenmr...
...0 NLY one reasonable conclusion remains, a conclusion that any practicing editor will And too horrible to contemplate...
...You could buy not alone advertising space there, but every other part of the paper as well, including the news and particularly the editorial opinion...
...uprooted jews By Hayim Greenberg The Problem of Immigration IDO not propose to discuss here the Jewish problem in its entire scope, in all its ramifications...
...Honest, I don't know...
...It seems to me that.* local paper could giv* tho** Loudon papers a monopoly, on the Dieppe Quint pictures, Superman and Westbrook Pegltr .and still run circles around them so fee as out and out newspaper craftsmanship it concerned...
...You and I who were raised on Upton Sinclair's Brass Cluck used to know all about the press and how the capitalist papers wer* venal sheets, sold out to the advertisers and the big bosses, so that if you picked up the paper, you knew in advance that anything it •aid wasn't to, snd that the opinions it expressed were probably those of some skinflint department store owner...
...On the other hand, under the Soviet system there is no room for any kind of "intercession" on behalf of the local population or of one of its segments, and, practically speaking, whatever criticism or advice we could offer from beyond the Soviet boundaries will have no effect, is doomed to be shockingly academic...
...Under that principle a people may be granted specific right* to immigrate into another country...
...and not by a mechanical principle of justice according to which there is no different* between a Norwegian and a Chinese or a Hollander and an Eskimo, but by a more organic principle: considering not only the individual who needs a new home as such, but also his social, ethnic, linguistic and religious milieu...
...applied not to the Jews alone but on a world-wide scale involviag the vital intercom of million* of non-Jew...
...and they would cite the European papers as models of the newspaper craft...
...In any case, the Dick Tracy and caption readers oBviously voted intelligently...
...Th* Jewish need for immigration—not to speak of the Jewish urge for complete self-expression, the deeper root of Zionism—will hsve to be met on the basis of the above formulated ethic, "Urritorlalist" principle...
...How did that happen...
...Similarly all us liberals are patting ourselves on tb* hack and think that we are going great guns because our small circulation journals cam* out top dog over the big papers—our man won...
...By and large, however, itwt coverage in this our free press is factual, objective and informative...
...Is the power of th* press waning...
...And don't tell me that the News readers glance only at the leg art and Dick Tracy and pay no attention to anything else...
...And those who say that people are no longer as dependent on the newspapers for information as they used to be, what with the radio and all, forget that the radio is part of th* press and obtains its news supplies from the sans* sources and in th* ssme manner as the printed sheet...
...My suspicion is that the publishers and editors htvt been defeated by their own papers...
...More or les* the same method was that of ('•reek, Armenian, Syrian and, to a large extent, German immigrants also...
...When we stress "freedom of Jewaih immigration to Palestine" and not simply the freedom to immigrate of anyone who chooses to settl* there, such demand has in the above context th* support of reality...
...A* soon ss th* big shots of the newspaper business will do the mm, they will catch up with their readers once again and won't make such a spectacle of themselves as they did in the recent election...
...August Bebcl's definition of anti-Semitism as "the Socialism of the fools" has some universal validity, and the position of the American Jew in coming decades hinges on the question of how fertile will be the American ground for the production of that kind of "fools...
...Secretory I ekes think* that th* pies* just didn't count in the recent presidential campaign, because leas than 18 percent of the peperi supported Roosevelt and FDS won nevertheless...
...nevertheless I don't know all the answers any more...
...Soviet Jewry should also have no place in our discussion...
...In other words, the explanation of the radio's efficacy explains nothing...
...but creating aataral condition* for their collective self-ex pre** ion...
...This principle would preserve the immigrant*' "integrity" in*toad of subjecting them tea forced and artificial "integration.'* If we have learned anything from the past, and do not wish to let Urge, potentially fruitful areas He an need or to aeadsmn tha vital economic potentialities of million* of human being* now suffering . la poverty to be slowly but surely dissipated, we shall sssnsr or later have to adapt the just and rational principle of not pulverising or disintegrating immigraat maaees...
...This in Zionism...
...With all that, the information by which th* intelligence of thee* and other readers was guided mutt have com* from th* press, the printed or spoken press...
...But never fear...
...Personally, I am inclined to think that what constitutes the core of the Jewish problem on the broad historical plane is a "perennial" tension between the Jew and a very large part of the non-Je^Wlsh world, and that, in the final analysis, that tension cannot be removed merely by legislation plus a series of specific adjustments...
...Well, I really thought they had something until one day I happened to look at the London Timet, dear Old Thunderer, and I couldn't get to the thunder for the want ads on the front page...
...Maybe, but I'm not convinced...
...I do not include among them the millions of'rnVn and women in the two, largest Jewish communities—in the United States, and in the Soviet Union...
...In tht framework of planned which w* art rapidly approaching, immigrant* mutt be regulated: that it, tometimtt encourugtd and tomatimet rettrieted or, in certain inttancec, for-bidden, expanded where necettary and where necessaig reduced...
...it la striking that aeeae of the most pregres-plot cabinet members of the goverameat-in-exile, jH\-----when awhedy will suspect of Jew-hatred, gtyttm that a aahataatial aoaiber of their Jewish jj iltiaiT- will hare to be resettled outaid* of ttarepe after the war...
...An editor worth his talt knows that he must edit hit psper to the mental caliber of a twelve-year-old...
...In any case, neither the Manchester Guardian nor the London Times is the typical paper of Britain, any more than the Christian Science Monitor is typical of American newspapers...
...The outride wor|d can do microscopically little, if anything, to alleviate the condition of Soviet Jews (if we were to assume certain specific disabilities in their condition), since they cannot be helped through emigration...
...They would talk about the London Times and the Manchester Guardian, and they would tell us about the wonderful papers ju France, Germany and other parts...
...It got so that the papers de- . manded money or else the production would be razzed from Montparnasse to bouillabaisse...
...The demand for a special status tor the Jewish people in Palestine thus assumes a markedly internationalist character...
...The world will have to choose between two polar methods of immigration: what I might call tha Jewith and the Anglo-Saxon methods...
...From this point of view, we ought to reduce our discussion to those Jews who are exposed in our days to the moat acute suffering and whose condition will require immediate action upon cessation of hostilities...
...Sensational...
...Moreover, it ia entirely possible that not only Jews but a considerable number of other Europeans will have to emigrate after the war, both for economic and political reasons...
...Jews in Russia are adequately protected by their government (in the sense and to the extent the general population is "protected"), and their rehabilitation after the war will constitute an organic part in the general scheme of the country's reconstruction...
...Tb* agencies have therefor* found that, it's best to get the atory staight aad let editorial opinion and bias go along just for the rid*, if st all This doesn't mean that a paper will not give m own slant to a news story, and th* agencies have htm known to color an item where it will do the most good or the most harm...
...The French papers were without doubt the most venal in all Europe...
...The Anglo-Saxon method was to settle virgin territories, opening up primeval sdils and developing new countries over a period of several generations, such as the United State*, Newfoundland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa...
...Under the present Russian system, "the right to live" is coupled with a denial of "the right to leave," and after the unparalled devastation and losses in blood caused by the Nazi invasion there is no reason to assume that any change in that policy will take place in the foreseeable future...
...So to get back to our own side of the ocean and our own papers, I believe that any small town P»P...
...Nobody can know at this time how large a number of Jews will remain in Europe after the war...
...And the Herald, our own Labor Party paper, is about the worst of the lot...
...That's not so...
...The international authority for immigration—and without such an authority the migration problems of our time will not he solved at all—will have to take account of the historic and cultural backgrounds and group mentalities of the, maise* who will have to be transplanted, and thus designate territories for colonization by definite ethic groups...
...The agencies and ty...
...becomet part of an international plan which taktt into account the jutt interests of all ptopltt...
...Why then did our papers get such a shellacking in tb* recent elections...
...That doesn't make sense, and I wish a bright boy lik* Upton Sinclair or son* other expert would explain it all to me...
...We may assume, however, that substantial numbers will survive the mass slaughters of the Nazis...
...The principle provides explicitly a priviliged statu* for specified ethnic groups in certain countri**, thus excluding other people* from the aame privilege* in those countries...
...i A SLOGAN of "free immigration for any individual of any nation at any time to any country "—would any one really dare to support such aa idea today ? -would fe&&^!ah3^ri opment It would be about the same aa proposing the demand of "the-right to work at any time or place, and under any conditions the individual worker is willing to accept...
...And it is her* that we come to the greatest achievement of the American newspaper profession, one of which we can ell be proud, for It is distinctively American...
...The Jews in most of the European countries will find themselves so completely uprooted, that even given the best political conditions the task of their reintegration in the new economic structure—which by all accounts is bound to be very different from the prewar economy—will in most cases be quite as complex as emigration to a new country...
...And the Manchester Guardian also had its heart in the right place, but the Manchester (New Hampshire) home town paper was a more informative gazette...
...Soviet Russia is one of the very few countries on the old continent where the government has not the slightest desire to rid itself of its Jewish citizenry, and encouragement (or even toleration) of emigration has alwa>s been alien to Soviet policy...
...Aa to Jew* specia-,aJ...
...Since then some of us have grown up, and, anyway, papers with no advertising whatever appeared on the scene...
...No matter what the editorial columns, cartoons and other features then say, they cannot controvert the fact* reported, by the news columns...
...They voted in large numbers for our man, and that was certainly smart enough...
...Objectivity, honesty and integrity are a by-product of this urge for competence...
...The "Jewish" method was to immigrate into relatively developed economic structures, so constituting minority segments of social organisms...
...but what about other Jews...
...In the future, immigration will have to be regulated...
...Ah, those grasping, dollar-mad Americans, so lacking in culture and appreciation of the arts...
...The real papers of England are the Daily Mail and the London Express and a nnall sheet having only a measly five-million circulation and known as the London Herald, the official voice of the Labor Party there...
...w/hore ihall they go...
...Furthermore, it is likely that a regulated Immigration program would involve not so much the "infiltration" of individual immigrants into more or less developed economic orgsnisms as the concentrated mass settlement of designated territories for th* purpose of utilising the natural resources of underpopulated area...
...Why, anybody who didn't know that it was the paper of the party of the underdog might be moved to call it a disgusting little racing tout instead of a newspaper...
...How come that a paper like the Newi in New York, with two million circulation—three million on Sundays— hammering away at Roosevelt day in and day out, in editorials, columns and other features, couldn't away at least a third of its readers against him...
...The German papers were respectable enough, but so constipated with essays and deep studies that they had no room for news...
Vol. 27 • December 1944 • No. 51
