The Young Man and Journalism

by Chester Sanders Lord

Many persons do not require the services of a lawyer. Many rarely employ a physician. Thousands seldom listen to a clergyman. But in these wide-awake days everybody of any account must read the newspaper, for the reading of the newspaper has come to be absolutely essential to the daily routine of every intelligent person. The things we read in the morning newspaper are the things we talk about during the day. If you are interested in politics, or if you are interested in finance, or the fluctuations of prices, or the movements of society, or any phase of trade or commerce, or in any of the vital questions of the hour—for all of these you turn to the newspaper. The things taught in the colleges are the things of the past, or the principles that experience has tested and verified. The things taught by the newspapers are the things of the present. You cannot learn politics from a textbook. You must absorb the politics of the day by a study of the events of the day. Your financial policy must be governed by existing monetary conditions rather than by conclusions drawn from the panic of 1873 or that of 1907. The events of the day, the progress of the day, are of more importance to the man in business life or the man in social life than any other consideration. The newspaper is his great source of inspiration and instruction. The newspaper informs you, instructs you, influences you, amuses you, inspires you, directs your thoughts, assists your conclusions, fires your ambitions, enlarges your vocabulary—all of which are of the utmost importance to you. It may be said, therefore, with confident complacency that the profession of journalism rests on the solid foundation of supplying an essential need.

In a lecture before the students of Dartmouth College, Mr. John Lee Mahin said:

The family that pays a cent or two for its big morning newspaper receives a carefully digested review of the political, economic, social and commercial activities of the entire world for the previous twenty-four hours. Probably five hundred men in New York City would pay a thousand dollars a year each for the commercial information alone that they receive from the New York Times if they could not obtain it in any other way.

In considering these changes it should be remembered that the journalism of fifty years ago was conspicuous for the reason that a famous bunch of editors stamped their personality on almost every column. It was the period of personal journalism. These editors were inspired by the tragedies and the ferocities of the Civil War and by the magnitude and the political importance of events involving as they believed the very life of the nation. They were made conspicuous by the very greatness of the causes that moved their minds and their pens. They were stimulated to the limit of mental exaltation in what they wrote. The country was surging with excitement. Part of the people were clamoring for peace on any terms. Others insisted on fighting the war to a finish at any cost of life or money. Still others were for compromise. It is hardly possible for generations of to-day to appreciate how intensely the war agitated the people. The editors fought each other with a ferocity otherwise unknown in American journalism. They were the people’s champions and their names were known in every household; and doubtless their names will live for years to come as the country’s greatest editors.

Nevertheless, let it be said, in all truth, that we have to-day scores of editors equally capable of producing the crisp and pungent paragraphs as well as the profound editorial articles of Prentice, Greeley, Raymond, Dana, Bryant, Bowles, Watterson, Medill and Manton Marble. The personal journalism of that day was impetuous and impressive, but latterly and by degrees, in the big cities especially, “the supreme importance of the editor has been transformed into the supreme importance of the newspaper,” and we hear less about the editor and more about the newspaper itself.

This effacement of individuality influences to exalt the newspaper and to exalt journalism as a profession. The greatly enlarged field has attracted thousands of most excellent writers, fine editors, conductors, and managers. News-gathering and news-presentation are now regarded as of supreme importance. Our pages bristle with specialties. Our Sunday editions are magazines of information. The great modern newspaper represents the product of the profession rather than the genius of a single writer.

It was not so fifty years ago. These men, whose names have come down to us, were great editorial writers rather than great editors of the entire newspaper. Aside from the editorial page their editions were devoid of genius. The news columns were slovenly in appearance and dull in narration. They lacked the cunning of embellishment with the flavor of literature and the charm of fiction. The book reviews, the critical articles were excellent—but the editors daubed dullness over everything else. The newspaper of that day is not to be compared with the newspaper of to-day in general excellence.

The editorial pages and the criticisms, however, were of high excellence. It was a literary era and the literary impulse was a conspicuous factor in public thought. Marble, Dana, Bryant, Curtis and others made reputations for literary excellence in journalistic work that would not to-day attract so much attention; for literary excellence, while commended and appreciated, is not so much insisted on, encouraged, or taught, as it was forty years ago.