HOW ABOUT OUR NEWSPAPER?
How About Our Newspapers? IF WE are ever to accomplish anything in the way of better conditions in America, we shall have to begin by getting an uncontrolled press. The people will not revclt...
...Nobody reads editorials except the proof reader who is paid to read them, and, all things considered, is much underpaid...
...The American people have formed the habit of making up their minds for themselves and from events, not from editorials...
...When the Traction Interests were foisting a tricky franchise ordinance upon Chicago they caused most of the newspapers to print untruthful news about it and then to lie about anyone that opposed it...
...It was a free press that main<ainer and safeguarded every other right...
...Therefore the chain is complete...
...Can one fundamental right be interfered with or abolished and other fundamental rights remain in unimpaired respect...
...But aside from all these considerations the pull of the advertising is in almost every case sufficient to bring the newspaper into line...
...How the Press is Controlled HERE is the way the American press, (aside from a few independent journals,) is at present arranged: 1. The newspapers whose stock is owned by public service corporations or by the men that own public service corporations...
...The people will not revclt against bad conditions unless they know how bad the conditions are and they can't know that so long as most of the press is engaged in concealing or distorting the truth about conditions...
...4. The newspapers that are owned or managed by individuals whose investments are in the power of the public enemy or whose natural sympathies are on the side of reaction and class supremacy...
...If, then, the right of a free press has been so largely lost in this country,—by whatsoever means—how about our other rights...
...About three years ago a very prominent merchant and extensive advertiser of Philadelphia was arrested in New York on a sensational charge...
...In turn these great combinations are interwoven so that the control of steam railroads and trolley lines and of the public supplies of artificial light and heat ler.d back to about the same hands...
...No newspaper proprietor desires to do business at a loss...
...You will be interested in this story of how the controlled newspapers of a great city, in their news columns, hounded a man who was regarded as dangerous to the Interests.—EDITOR'S NOTE...
...All but one of the newspapers faithfully obeyed instructions...
...The bank understands what the Interests want, the newspaper understands what its advertisers want...
...If he had not been an advertiser and if he had been unconnected with the Interests these papers would have printed many columns about the affair...
...For instance, when I was in charge of a newspaper property I tried the experiment of printing the same thing in the editorial columns and then in the news pages...
...This condition has largely passed away...
...THE newspaper of to-day is regarded with general distrust...
...Our Rights Threatened "It then, the rlRht of n free precis has been ho largely lost In this country—by whatever mean*— how about oar other right...
...The Interests pull the bank, the bank pulls the department store, the department store pulls the newspaper, and the newspaper pulls the public...
...The result is that the newspaper publisher is thrown upon the advertising not merely for the profits but for a great part of the manufacturing cost...
...5. The newspapers owned or managed by men that would like to be decent but are coerced by the tremendous power of the advertisers...
...People at large do not know why, but they feel that the newspapers have ceased to battle for their cause...
...He must steer the course laid down for him, and that course is really decided by his advertisers who lean upon the bank, which leans upon the Interests, whose sympathies are and must be extremely reactionary and opposed to the public, for the simple reason that the Interests thrive upon Privilege and upon nothing else...
...Great combinations own People Distrust Newspapers "The newspaper of today is regaided with general din-trust...
...electric light and gas companies in many places...
...That Is the reason that the magazine has supplanted the newspaper as the lender of public thought...
...Here is the reason for the change...
...The advertiser is editing the news columns even more carefully than he edits the newspaper's opinions...
...We manufacture at a loss on the product...
...People at targe do not know why, but they feel that the newspaper has ceased to battle tor their cause...
...Coloring" the News TO RIDICULE a man obnoxious to the newspaper's policy, to distort his sayings, to lie or to print half-truths about him, to discredit him in every way, is now a part of the policy of the newspaper conducted for the Interests...
...As much a part of its policy as to suppress disagreeable facts or misrepresent conditions...
...This fact everybody acknowledges...
...Editorials Losing Their Influence THE conclusion that as a rule newspaper editorials are not read is not reached haphazard but is based upon years of careful observation and many interesting tests...
...No mention of the st»ry appeared in any Philadelphia paper...
...That is to say that the money received for a single copy of a newspaper usually does not pay for the paper and ink used in making that copy...
...cause, both hi the suppressing of news and in the dist .rting and coloring of what is printed...
...The last is the most formidable condition and in every instance supplements all the others...
...We tolerate it and it is almost universal and we pay a terrific price for it, as you will presently see...
...In this country we have a vicious system by which we manufacture newspapers at a loss on the manufacture...
...It is not necessary that any explicit command be given, although that is sometimes done...
...The newspaper editorial has become a mere piece of stage property...
...No other nation tolerates any such folly...
...The newspaper reader likes to feel that the newspaper he is reading is thundering about something...
...but about 80 per cent, of the American newspapers are fighting directly or indirectly on the side of the enemy...
...On one occasion nearly 100,000 men and women joined in a sympathetic strike and the number appeared in the "minimizing" newspapers as 17,000...
...After he had been released on bail he committed suicide...
...They could be multiplied indefinitely and from every city of the country...
...Bloody riots in the streets were briefly mentioned as "slight disturbances," and daily events of the gravest import to the citizens were never printed at all...
...In the next installment of this important series of articles about the control of the press in the United States, Mr...
...When the panic of 1907 had run as long as its projectors had decided to have it run, the newspaper managers of New York were told in very forcible terms what they must and what they must not print about it...
...t on the side of the enemy because they can't do anything else...
...This does not mean that their editors are bad men...
...The Chain of Influence Now, the bulk of the display newspaper advertising comes from department stores...
...As a lesult, a great part of the people of Philadelphia never really knew anything about the strike...
...It is in the news columns now that the greatest injuries are inflicted upon the people's Why the Public Seems Indifferent "The people will not revolt against bad condition*, unless they know how bad the conditions are, and they can't know that so Ions as most of the press is engaged in concealing: or distorting the truth about conditions...
...It wan a free press that maintained and safeguarded ever- other right...
...For this the real reason is fundamental and not at all discreditable...
...3. The newspapers controlled through loans by the banks, insurance companies, public service corporations and by the men interested therein...
...many persons would respond as soon as it appeared in the news columns...
...It is not the editorial utterances of the controlled newspaper that hurt the popular cause...
...The Power of the Big Advertiser HERE is the way the thing works...
...Newspapers at Mercy of the Interests IT WILL be seen at once that what is to be blamed here is chiefly a system...
...The newspaper has also direct relations with the bank and in some instances with the Interests, and as before stated, the newspaper ownership is often complicated in various ways that make for reaction...
...Hence the newspaper leans upon the department store...
...All of these Interests constantly become more closely interwoven all about the country...
...some of them don't know...
...Hence we have practically no such thing as a free press in America...
...The department store must have money from a bank...
...As a matter of fact their editors are generally good men...
...For the general trend of policy that is enough...
...Russell will discuss the "Newspapers and the Interests...
...He doesn't care what, but it must have some opinions and some serious purpose as a backbone and skeleton for the rest of it...
...Hence the department store leans on the bank...
...A newspaper without editorials would not look right...
...These are only a few trifling illustrations of a universal condition...
...That is the reason why the magazine has supplanted the newspaper as the leader of public thought...
...But they fig...
...If this great champion has been taken from us, not by statutory enactment, but by secret encroachment and sinister control, bow sure can we he of any other fundamental right...
...2. The newspapers owned by men closely associated in business with banks, railroads, trolley companies, gas or electric light companies...
...Including the right of fair trial, the right of peaceable assembly, the right of petition, the right to a share in the government, the right to freedom from unjustifiable arrest and illegal imprisonment...
...If this great champion has been taken from us, not by statutory enactment but by secret encroachment and sinister control, how sure can we be of any other fundamental right...
...The bank is owned by the Interests that own the public service corporations, or is closely associated with them...
...The street railroad companies in different cities are drifting into one ownership...
...Until a few years ago the average American newspaper, whatever might be its editorial policy, felt or professed an obligation to be impartial in its news columns...
...In most cases the newspaper owner does not consciously desire to be a valet for the Interests, but under existing conditions he can't do anything else...
...It exists not to influence public opinion but for the sdke of appearances...
...At the time of the Philadelphia street car strike in March of this year the local department stores desired to have the strike "minimized" because it was hurting business...
...I found that nobody would respond if it were in the editorial columns...
...Some of them do it consciously and of purpose...
...I have no need to go further into them but I desire to ask one serious question of the readers of this magazine: How About Our "Rights...
Vol. 2 • May 1910 • No. 20
