CONTENTS
| CHAPTER | PAGE | |
|---|---|---|
| I | The Function of a Newspaper | [9] |
| II | Newscollecting and Reporting | [25] |
| III | The Great Newsagencies | [74] |
| IV | The Newspaper as an Organ of Opinion | [87] |
| V | The Newspaper as a Business Organization | [112] |
| VI | The Mechanical Production and Distribution of a Newspaper | [139] |
| VII | The London Daily and Periodical Press | [162] |
| VIII | Newspapers in the Provinces and in the Empire | [204] |
| IX | Continental and American Newspapers | [216] |
| X | Journalism and Journalists | [226] |
| Bibliography | [253] | |
| Index | [255] |
THE NEWSPAPER
CHAPTER I
THE FUNCTION OF A NEWSPAPER
So common an object as a newspaper is seldom the subject of serious reflection. If any one of us should stop to consider what it is and why it is made, it is odds that he would think chiefly of one aspect of it to the general exclusion of the others. The curious man might reflect in surprise on the vast amount of mere reading matter turned out regularly every morning with perhaps only half a dozen literal mistakes, on the variety of typesetting and the amount of printing, often more than sufficient to make a large sized book. The manufacturer would direct his imagination to the efficient machinery necessary to produce perhaps 3,000 copies a minute or to the practised organization, able to distribute them, as fast as they are printed. The business man would think chiefly of a newspaper, as a vehicle for prices and a medium for advertising. Cooks, butlers, clerks and governesses look upon it as a daily registry office. The solicitor sells houses and lands through it. Housewives through it sometimes buy their soaps and more often their hats. Actors, singers, authors, artists and musicians each read their special column and wonder when the editor intends to engage some one really acquainted with the only subject worth reading. The politician will read its leading articles with smirking assent or explosive repudiation. Last of all comes the general reader and he asks nothing more of his newspaper than all the news of everywhere, collected at great cost, transcribed with finished skill and presented to him in just the way which pleases and flatters him most. All of them have on their lips the daily threat of giving up the paper, if they are not scrupulously satisfied.
In writing about “the newspaper” it seems to me most useful to the greatest number of readers to dwell much less on those sides of a newspaper, which are most familiar to all of us, however interesting in itself everything connected with the editorial conduct of a paper may be, than on the central entity behind them, which makes the public functions possible and actual. In other words I shall write chiefly of what most people seldom or never see and but little of all those aspects of any newspaper, which every reader is accustomed to judge for himself. To do otherwise would require an encyclopædia to hold the mere bulk of material and would also bring oneself flat against the serried ranks of fixed opinions. Every one is quite sure that he knows “what he wants” and “what he wants” is always “the best” for him. To lay down the law therefore on matters which are the subject of common opinion is a danger to be evaded whenever possible and I propose only to deal very slightly with what is generally known as “the press” and for the larger part of my space shall try to explain the mechanism, which industriously collects, enshrines in print and tirelessly circulates all the material, whether news or literary, to every attainable corner of the country and also the organism, which by serving the business needs of its community, acquires the immense revenues, which alone make the continued existence of the other possible.
A newspaper is of all modern private institutions the most comprehensive in function and complicated in principle. Perhaps the only thing at all comparable to it in these respects is a ship. A ship, engaged on a voyage, almost equals the triple life of a newspaper, because it is for the time being a place of residence, a means of travel and a conveyor of traffic. But voyages are short and discontinuous with one another, while the existence of a newspaper is organically continuous from the issue of the first number to bankruptcy and very often even afterwards. In every case, the newspaper is a vehicle for the satisfaction of human wants and that in three diverse ways; but the odd thing is that none of these ways, although they actually in practice overlap, are essentially related to one another. The newspaper is primarily a collector and distributor of news and in this function has long ago beaten every possible rival out of the field. Secondarily it is a vehicle of opinion and in virtue of this capacity it often becomes the prey of the mighty or the victim of the long purse; but still it continues to draw from its other functions and powers a capacity for resistance to outside pressure, which guarantees to it more independence than sometimes appears on the surface. Lastly it serves as the great introducer of business from one trader to another. It has been estimated, that the annual amount spent on advertising in general is not less than £600,000,000 in civilized countries and it would be safe to say, that probably something like one half of this amount passes into the treasuries of journals and other periodicals, all or nearly all of which fulfil in one way or another the functions of a newspaper for their special circles of readers. It is the existence of this colossal revenue, more than double the annual budget of the United Kingdom, which makes possible the costly task of collecting and transmitting the news of the world from all places to all other places at once. It is a commonplace that the small amount paid by each reader for the purchase of his paper, whatever it may be, would be very far from defraying the expenses of providing him with all that he will find in it.
Let us examine these functions of a newspaper separately. By far the most important and exacting task, which falls to its lot, is the provision of a daily—or weekly as the case may be—supply of news and that not of any news nor of enough news but of all the news. The distinction is of immense practical importance because it trebles the difficulty imposed on the conductors of a newspaper. The outsider, who as a general rule consults only a small part of the reading matter provided for him, sometimes finds in any issue very little that immediately interests him and a vast deal that does not. He therefore commonly receives the impression of a large amount of space regularly wasted. Very few readers are aware of the simple truth that, of what may be called pure news matter, almost every issue has had at least as much “copy” provided for it and rejected as appears in the paper. The practical task of the editors and sub-editors in making up their daily issues consists not in scraping together material for the printer but in rejecting it. Of an evening paper with its successive editions this is even more true, many a report or “story” appearing in the early morning and being cut down or “killed” before nightfall. The great responsibility assumed by all editors, to which they are very seldom unfaithful, is the provision of all news, everything printable that has happened close to rail or wire or not kept secret by governments or private parties. There is only one excuse for leaving out any item of news and that is that more important news has claimed precedence of it and crowded it out.