IV
In order to furnish the average citizen with material from which to form opinions on all current issues, so that he may vote intelligently on men and measures, newspapers must supply significant news in as complete and as accurate a form as possible. The only important limitations to completeness are those imposed by the commonly accepted ideas of decency embodied in the phrase, “All the news that’s fit to print,” and by the rights of privacy. Carefully edited newspapers discriminate between what the public is entitled to know and what an individual has a right to keep private.
Inaccuracy, due to the necessity for speed in getting news into print, most newspapers agree must be reduced to a minimum. The establishment of bureaus of accuracy, and constant emphasis on such mottoes as “Accuracy First,” “Accuracy Always,” and “If you see it in the Sun, it’s so,” are steps in that direction.
Deliberate falsification of news for any purpose, good or bad, must be regarded as an indefensible violation of the fundamental purpose of the press. Any cause, no matter how worthy it may be, which cannot depend on facts and truth for its support does not deserve to have facts and truth distorted in its behalf.
The “faking” of news can never be harmless. Even though the fictitious touches in an apparently innocent “human-interest” or “feature” story may be recognized by most readers, yet the effect is harmful. “It’s only a newspaper story,” expresses the all-too-common attitude of a public whose confidence in the reliability of newspapers has been undermined by news stories wholly or partially “faked.”
The “coloring,” adulteration, and suppression of news as “food of opinion” is as dangerous to the body politic as similar manipulation of food-stuffs was to the physical bodies of our people before such practices were forbidden by law. How completely the opinions and moral judgments of a whole nation may be perverted by deliberate “coloring” and suppression of news, in this case by its own government, was demonstrated in Germany immediately before and during the world war.
The jury of newspaper readers must have “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,” if it is to give an intelligent verdict.