And this is the work of a handful of men who—it is no reproach to them—are temperamentally unfitted for the enormous responsibilities which they have assumed so light-heartedly, so casually—as casually as though they were “cornering” chewing gum.
Newspaper proprietors assert that in fact, their editors have a free hand, and attempt to prove this contention by pointing to differences in policy or treatment manifested by newspapers under the same control. One is at some difficulty in deciding whether this argument is the fruit of ingenious or of merely ingenuous minds. The Evening Standard, for instance, may not see eye to eye with the Daily Express in such matters as the morality of modern dancing or the retention of old churches in the City of London, but a strike, a political crisis, a general election, the issue of war or peace, will witness a unanimity of editorial comment which goes beyond the limits of sheer coincidence. The mot d’ordre has been given.
The Press of to-morrow will have to regard wireless and the kinema as potential rivals. Both occupy a position analogous to the newspaper, inasmuch as their popularity is largely due to the lack of mental resources in the average man and woman, and their active disinclination to read anything calling for concentration or sustained effort. The Popular Press, Broadcasting and the “Movies” are alike variants of the “Daily Dope.” Furthermore, the Press has itself largely helped to popularise its potential competitors through the immense publicity which it accords them.
In England, broadcasting has hitherto not trenched on the province of the newspaper because of the archaic restrictions imposed on the transmission of news by wireless, which is virtually limited to a brief re-hash of the evening papers, together with weather forecasts. But it is impossible that these restrictions will be allowed to prevail indefinitely, even if only for the reason that “listeners-in” are able to compare the service with that provided by Continental broadcasting agencies, who are not fettered by the Mandarins of the Post Office. As a matter of fact, the new British Broadcasting Corporation, which is a Government Department, possesses powers to do almost anything that can be done by a newspaper. Some of those powers it will certainly use, and there is nothing to prevent the Corporation from adding to its functions that of purveyor of propaganda for the Government of the day. The transmission of official news, and the development of an Inter-Empire news service it will certainly undertake.
But these are relatively minor matters. The real competitive possibilities of wireless lie in the fact that it brings the outer world into the homes of the millions at precisely those hours between the publication of the latest evening paper and the appearance of the morning paper at the breakfast-table. As the bulk of the contents of a morning paper are printed well before midnight, wireless transmission of news from seven o’clock in the evening until eleven or twelve would skim the cream off the next day’s papers. Whether the Press should retaliate by establishing a wireless service of its own (impossible in England save by means of coöperation with the British Broadcasting Corporation, which possesses a double-riveted, State-enforced monopoly) or by issuing later editions of the evening papers than is now customary, will become a matter for the consideration of its conductors.
For, insofar as concerns the dissemination of news, the wireless can clearly do as well as, if not better, than the newspaper. And it can do it at smaller cost to the subscriber. No one would, of course, seriously suggest that wireless transmission of news will drive the newspapers out of business, or even that it will seriously affect their circulation or revenue. But it is obvious that if broadcasting compete with the Press in the publication of news (and the Press will be powerless to stop it in England and unable to do so elsewhere unless wireless be brought within the scope of Newspaper Trusts) then the Press must strengthen its hold on the public in those fields where wireless cannot compete, or cannot compete so well. So it will enlarge its field of comment. It will become more and more of a miscellany. It will devote more and more attention to crusades and “uplift.” It will become more and more of a pulpit, and a lecture theatre for the physician. Above all, it will more and more strive to mould public opinion.
The rivalry of the Kinema will be of a subtler and less direct nature. Both the Popular Press and the “Pictures” appeal largely to a class which is easier to reach through the eye than through an appeal to the intellect, which demands a little imagination. The popular newspapers have lately begun to break out in a pictorial eczema throughout their pages. But the kinema, with its extremely well-organised service for recording and exhibiting events of the hour, leaves the newspaper miles in the rear. An evening paper can print photographs of the Derby or the Boat Race within a few minutes of their being taken. But it cannot show the whole progress of the race within a couple of hours after it has been run. Television, already a scientific achievement, and to-morrow a possible “commercial proposition,” will also come to the aid both of the Kinema and the Wireless. How does the Press propose to meet the actualities of the picture theatre and the possibilities of new inventions for the photographic recording and reproduction of events?
VI
Poison Gas or Fresh Air
The Trustification of the Press has gone further in England than in America or on the Continent, partly because of such specially favourable conditions as the small size of the country, the excellence of its communications, and the presence of an exceptionally large proportion of the population within a radius of a score of miles from the centre of the capital. But there is nothing to suggest that other countries represent more favourable soil for the continued propagation of an Independent Press.