This brings us to the similar and even graver evils in our modern newspapers, which we must pause to study in somewhat greater detail. For nowhere is untruthfulness so rampant and so shameless as in contemporary journalism. The ethics of journalism.
(1) The gravest evil, perhaps, in journalistic practice is the suppression or distortion of news in the interest of political parties and "big business." It is impossible to rely on the political information given in most of our newspapers; they are dominated by a party, subservient to "the interests," afraid to publish anything that will offend them. They misrepresent facts, give prejudiced accounts of events, gloss over occurrences unfavorable to their ends, circulate unfounded rumors to create opinion, pounce upon every flaw in the records of opponents,- going often to the point of shameless libel,- while eulogizing indiscriminately the politicians of their own party. Many of them cannot be counted on to attack corruption or politically protected vice. They are organs neither of an impartial truth seeking nor of public service. However conscientious the reporters and editors might wish to be, they are bound, by the fear of dismissal, to follow the policy of the owners.
(2) No less reprehensible, though somewhat less important, is the toadying of the newspapers to their advertisers. The average paper could not exist were it not for this source of income, and it cannot afford to refuse the big advertisements even when they are pernicious to the morals or health of the community. So we are confronted daily by the premedicine fakirs, who injure the health and drain the pocketbooks of the guileless. So we are exposed to the plausible suggestions of the swindlers, feasted with glowing prospectuses of mines that will never yield a dividend, or eulogistic descriptions of house lots to be sacrificed at a price that is really double their worth. In a recent postal raid the financial frauds exposed had fleeced the public of nearly eighty million dollars, about a third of which had been spent in advertising.
Not only do the newspapers accept such advertisements, and those of the brewers, the cigarette-makers, and the proprietors of vile theaters, but they do not dare in their columns to denounce these frauds or undesirable trades. They are muzzled because they cannot afford to tell the truth when it will offend those who supply their revenue.
(3) Less harmful, but more superficially conspicuous, is the tendency toward the fabrication of imaginary news, to attract attention and sell the paper. Huge headlines announce some exciting event, which below is inconspicuously acknowledged to be but a rumor. It will be denied the next day in an obscure corner, while the front page is devoted to some new sensation. This "yellow journalism" is very irritating to one who cares more for facts than for thrills; and the more reputable newspapers have stood out against this disgraceful habit of their less scrupulous rivals. Mr. Pulitzer, the son of the famous editor of the New York "World," in an address at the opening of the Columbia University School of Journalism, spoke vehemently against this evil: "The newspaper which sells the public deliberate fakes instead of facts is selling adulterated goods just as surely as does the rascal who puts salicylic acid in canned meats or arsenical coloring in preserves; and it ought to be subject to the same penalties for adulteration as are these other adulterators. The fakir is a liar if he is guilty of a fake that injures people, he is not only a vicious liar but often a moral assassin as well; but in either event he is a liar, and it is only by treating him uncompromisingly as such that he may be corrected if he is not yet a confirmed fakir, or rooted out if he is an inveterate fakir." There is surely enough, for those who have eyes to see, that is dramatic and exciting in actual life without depending upon fictitious news. Chesterton berates the contemporary press for failing to give us the thrill of reality. It "offends as being not sensational or violent enough; . . . does not merely fail to exaggerate life-it positively underrates it. With the whole world full of big and dubious institutions, with the whole wickedness of civilization staring them in the face, their idea of being bold and bright is to attack the War Office. . . . Something which is an old joke in fourth-rate comic papers." [Footnote: "The Mildness of the Yellow Press," chap. VIII of Heretics.]
(4) Another danger of our irresponsible journalism lies in pandering to prejudices and antipathies, in stirring up class hatred or national jingoism. Evil motives are attributed to foreign powers; the German Emperor has designs upon South America; the Japanese are preparing to invade our Pacific Coast. Insignificant words of individuals are headlined and treated as portentous; foreign peoples are caricatured; our national "honor" is held to be in danger daily. Or the capitalists are pictured as universally fat and greedy and unscrupulous; anarchism is encouraged-as in the case of the murderer of McKinley, who was directly incited to his deed by the violent diatribes of a contemporary newspaper. Such demagoguery might flourish even with strict regard for truthfulness; but it becomes far worse when, as usual, in its appeal to popular prejudices, it exaggerates and invents and suppresses facts.
(5) The notorious emphasis upon crime and summary of journalistic evils. Every unpleasant fact that ought, from kindness to those concerned and from regard to the morals of the readers, to be ignored or passed lightly over, is instead dragged out into the light. The delight in besmirching supposedly respectable citizens, the brutal intrusion into private unhappiness, the detailed description of domestic tragedy, is nothing short of outrageous. Pictures of adulterers and murderers, of the instruments and scenes of crimes, precise instructions to the uninitiated for their commission, explanations of the success of burglary or train-wreckers, help marvelously to sell a paper, but do not help the morals of the younger generation. No one can estimate the amount of sexual stimulation, of suggestion to sin and vice, for which our newspapers are responsible.
(6) In conclusion, we may mention a trivial matter which, however, brings our newspapers into deserved disrepute-their self-laudation ad boasting. How many "greatest American newspapers" are there? There are even, in this country alone, more than one "World's greatest newspaper!" From this principle of conceit there are all gradations down to the humblest village paper that lies about its circulation and extols itself as the necessary adjunct of every home. These overstatements are pernicious in their influence upon public standards of accuracy and honesty.
The newspaper is potentially an instrument of incalculable good. No other influence upon the minds and morals of the people is so continuous and universal. Through the newspapers knowledge is disseminated, judgment and outlook upon life are crystallized, political and social beliefs are shaped. They might be the means of great social and moral reforms. But so long as they are subject to the struggle for existence which, necessitates their truckling to parties, to advertisers, and to public prejudices and passions, so long their influence will be largely unwholesome. If public opinion cannot force them to a higher moral level in their present status as sources of private profit, they must be published by the State or by trustees of an endowment fund. Municipally owned papers are liable to partisanship and corruption, in their way, and endowed papers to an undue regard for the interests of the class to which the majority of the trustees may belong. But the dangers would probably be far less than are inherent in our present system, where morals have to defer to pocketbooks; and when municipal government in this country is finally ordered in a sensible way, so that corruption is much more difficult and easily detected, the municipal newspaper, run after the "city manager" plan, will probably become universal.
F. Paulsen, System of Ethics, book III, chap. XI. L. Stephen, Science of Ethics, chap, V, sec. IV. C. F. Dole, Ethics of Progress, part VII, chaps, I, II. E. L. Cabot, Everyday Ethics, chaps. XIX, XX. T. K. Abbott, Kant's Theory of Ethics, Appendix I. Stevenson, Virginibus Puerisque, chap. IV. E. Westermarck, Origin and Development of Moral Ideas, chap. XXXI. K. F. Gerould, in Atlantic Monthly, vol. 112, p. 454. Ethics of Journalism: H. Holt, Commercialism and Journalism. H. George, Jr, The Menace of Privilege, book VII, chap. I. W. E. Weyl, The New Democracy, chap. IX. Educational Review, vol. 36, p. 121. Atlantic Monthly, vol. 102, p. 441; vol. 105, p. 303; vol. 106, p. 40; vol. 113, p. 289. Forum, vol. 51, p. 565. E. A. Ross, Changing America, chap. VII. North American Review, vol. 190, p. 587.