Leading New York newspapers: Herald, Times, World, Tribune, Call.
Leading American monthlies: World's Work, American, Metropolitan.
Leading American weeklies: Nation, New Republic, Freeman.
Leading American quarterlies: Yale Review, American Journal of Sociology, Non-Partisan Review.
Leading New York Negro weeklies: New York Age, Negro World.
Leading Negro monthlies: Messenger and Crisis.
I read all these papers with great reservations as to their truth and good judgment.
6. Newspapers, magazines, legislative action, personal contacts. The white press will always justify suspicion and the traditional grain of salt with reference to its news concerning Negroes. White news reporters know too few actual facts about Negroes and are too hemmed about by traditional prejudices to be reliable news gatherers in this field. Colored newspapers are, in my opinion, becoming increasingly more reliable in their expression of the thoughts and mind of Negroes, although many times they suffer from the same disease with reference to white people which besets white reporters.
7. History and observation. I habitually question unfavorable comment, because the prejudice and the training of the writers must be considered. Colored papers, unless paid to do otherwise, are more likely to exaggerate reports favorable to the Negro. Therefore some reservations must be made on account of the prejudice and the lack of training of many of the writers.
8. I believe that the information I get from the instruments ordinarily responsible for public opinion influences my opinion but little at any particular moment. I seem to have a theory of present-day tendencies in American institutions with reference to the Negro, and I accept items from these instruments merely as confirmations or negations of my opinions. Usually the negations are so few and far between that I can look upon them as sports or the "exception that proves the rule." Perhaps the Crisis figures most prominently in forming my opinion. At least when my opinion is formed, I am unable to account for it by any small number of books, or other publications. I read regularly the New York Age, the Negro World, and from time to time many other Negro newspapers; I read the Crisis, the Messenger, the Century, Review of Reviews, World's Work, Outlook, Independent, and various scientific articles bearing on the Negro and such reviews of an even larger number of articles as appear in the Psychological Bulletin and similar publications from time to time.