Taking the press not only as the great news-distributor of the world, but also as almost the most powerful existing mechanism for the moulding of opinion, I do not hesitate to declare that for the last half of the Victorian century the British press held a position demonstrably superior to the press of any other country. Although in many respects, and some of them important ones, of which I have already mentioned a few, we ought freely to acknowledge our inferiority, in the two most vitally important attributes of journalism I believe we have long been unrivalled. The first is good professional judgment in selecting and absolute faithfulness in presenting the news of our own country and the most important news of the world. The second is the spirit of independence and contempt for corruption, either through the channels of power or by the pulling of financial strings, which makes it inconceivable for even the smallest newspaper here to boast of its honesty, an experience, which is a common enough occurrence, when one travels in any other country. Whenever corruption or blackmail occasionally finds an unsafe footing in one of the side-walks of journalism it is looked upon as a crime, both morally and professionally, which every one must stamp out, wherever found. Any manager or journalist of experience will tell you that the suggestion of bribery either at headquarters or with one of the ordinary daily staff of a newspaper is an experiment of the utmost danger to any one attempting it. It would most probably be followed by the instant occurrence of the disaster, which there was an endeavour to avert; in fact the only chance of escape for the offender would be the extreme insignificance of his affairs.
But while in many respects much of this stubborn virtue is still a characteristic of the British press, especially in the professional sense, yet it is questionable whether, looking at the independence of our press in the broadest sense, we are not in the course of a transition to a less desirable state of affairs. It is a matter on which I should be very reluctant to pronounce a responsible opinion. All I can see clearly is that a very important change is in progress, the final result of which it is still too early to forecast. The critical date of the change was almost exactly at the end of the last century with the outbreak of the Boer war and the tariff controversy, which followed. Those two events, while they left the country press in very much the same position as before, profoundly modified the position of the richer and more influential daily papers in London. The bitter controversies, which commenced with those issues, have practically thrown the great majority of the well-to-do classes in the kingdom on to one side in politics. Nearly all the richer newspapers, including one or two influential provincial dailies, naturally followed this lead and we have the remarkable spectacle of practically the whole of the important daily press in the metropolis being influenced by the aspirations, prejudices and casual opinions of only one of the great political parties. Now without suggesting the slightest imputation on the professional honour of these great journals nor impeaching their straightforward honesty, it is clear to me that the relative value of truth in all controversial matter has been dangerously disturbed. The mirror of the London press reflects only the drab colours of any presentation of one aspect of society, reserving all the hues of sunset for any little feature of the other. The resulting picture is produced unconsciously and in good faith, but it is none the less subject to dangerous distortion of the truth. This prevailing misfortune is growing worse daily and already we have lost the chastening memory of days, when impartiality was more strictly maintained in our press as a whole by the adequate representation of both sides. Society with a big S, has gone entirely on to one side and has imposed on its press that most hopeless form of provincialism, which already prevails in high circles in Berlin, of merely refusing to recognize as possible the existence of culture, good faith and even of common honesty in those who do not adopt the opinions prevailing in its own ranks. From this blindness I see no ordinary means of deliverance.
These somewhat gloomy reflections are applicable only to the penny press. In the more popular forms of journalism honours between the two political parties are nearly equally divided. But stress is to be laid in this matter chiefly on the penny press, because it is only in these journals or more expensive ones that any considerable space can be given to political debates and intellectual and artistic interests. They are a necessity to any man of culture and it is a disaster for him if opinions on important matters in the leading organs become stereotyped in what some may regard as a prejudiced point of view. Again the importance of the penny press in this connection arises in another form, because in what I am disposed to consider the Augustan age of the press, the last fifty years of Queen Victoria’s reign, it was this section which really raised British journalism to a height of dignity and power, which has never been equalled and most probably never will be again.
During this golden period, in the course of which the penalyzing taxes on advertisements and paper were removed, the rise of those powerful and rich organizations took place such as we pre-eminently connect with our idea of an “organ of the press.” This idea itself is probably more completely embodied than anywhere else in the London Times, which although not itself a penny paper, set the standard to which the penny morning journals of the United Kingdom more or less approximated. The foundation of the power and influence of our great metropolitan and provincial dailies was continuity of proprietorship and of general policy over a long period and the possession of great wealth. They were too valuable, both as properties and as political weapons, to pass easily from hand to hand and the families in whose possession they remained constituted a little aristocracy of high ideals and great stability of character. This represents one side of the medal. The other must be looked for in the staffs of journalists, who worked for them and the system of co-operation and the sacrifice of interests on both sides.
Looked at philosophically the keystone in the dignified arch of the old-fashioned press of the United Kingdom was mutual sacrifice between the proprietors and journalists. Wealthy corporations though they generally were, the great English dailies have always been liable to storms and disasters and progress could only be purchased by great risks of capital. The proprietors of those days stood by their papers,[6] as they would not have done by an ordinary business, staking their private fortunes and exposing their family comfort to the risks of an unstable source of income. Some foundered while others rose to great wealth. The proprietors also stood by their men, whether editors or journalists, and treated them as members of a family, protecting them, encouraging them and keeping many a lame dog in employment because he had once done good work.
[6] For fear that any one should imagine that I am labouring this point or exaggerating an exceptional condition of things I think I am free to state here what would otherwise never be known. The fact is entirely to the honour of the proprietor and not at all to the discredit of the paper concerned. To my certain knowledge the late Mr. John Edward Taylor refused to consider an offer of a million sterling for the Manchester Guardian, at a time when such a sum would have very favourably represented the value of the paper. He wrote to me briefly, asking me not to send on to him communications of that kind again. I have known four or five other proprietors of great papers, who would have been capable of doing the same thing.
As an instance of the generous and courteous consideration shown by a famous proprietor to a deserving servant I refer the reader to a letter written by Mr. John Walter of the Times, dated Oct. 30, 1854, to his correspondent, Mr. William Howard Russell, as he then was, acting for his paper in the Crimea. The letter is given in full in Mr. J. B. Atkins’ “Life of Russell,” and contains very much more than an acknowledgment of an obligation or the conferring of a favour.
The sacrifices they required and generally received in return were devotion to duty, anonymity and frequent concessions in matters of opinion to the policy of the paper. As the two latter points are vexed questions of high domestic interest to newspaper men a digression to discuss them will be pardonable particularly since they have a very material bearing on the power and influence of any organ of the press. With regard to devotion to duty a very special quality in this respect is demanded of newspaper men. Private interests, life and limb and even reputation have to be risked by them more frequently than in the ordinary walks of life.
Anonymity is the institution on which the peculiar success of British journalism is founded. It is a point on which the individual surrenders with the greatest reluctance. There is something dazzling in the public reward of successful persuasion and the avowed capture of other men’s minds. In fact very brilliant writers will never consent to it, feeling, that their power is inherent in themselves for which there can be no adequate compensation. So long as either pure literary quality is aimed at or personal influence desired, such an attitude is entirely justified. But such men are not permanently destined for journalism. They must fight out their fate on a wider field and bear the frost of criticism and the starvation of neglect by their own strength without the support or constraint of a newspaper behind them. For journalism proper anonymity has many good points about it, which escape the eye of the young and inexperienced. For one thing it builds up the wealth and importance of the organization, which draws the revenues and distributes the salaries. Thus it comes about that a young man, who would not earn a pound a week in any walk of pure literature, where he expects to be paid also by recognition, can earn a comfortable living by suppressing his natural desire for fame and doing the necessary work of the press. But there is a further advantage for the journalist in anonymity; it is a very effective shelter under which he can do his daily round of ordinary work without the natural slackening and the painful fits and starts which pursue inevitably the responsible writer, who has to put his own name to everything he produces. It may be possible for the Latin mind to dwell perpetually in the higher levels of brilliancy but the heavier Anglo-Saxon finds a sheltered routine more profitable to his genius.
The advantage to the newspaper of anonymity is more obvious. The grand manner can be more easily sustained where irrelevant individual characteristics are suppressed and continuity can be better preserved in spite of necessary changes of the staff. Again any writer can almost double his output under the shelter of the paper’s responsibility and what is lost in brilliancy is gained in steadiness. Perhaps the greatest advantage is gained by the paper through the establishment of journalism on a professional basis. The writer of signed articles is really a pamphleteer, who uses the newspaper as a vehicle just as in other days he would use a publisher. The journalist proper, who takes material as it comes along, has to acquire a certain toughness of taste and suppression of inclination, which in the ordinary course of things is probably the greater part of the sacrifice he makes to his calling. It is only a rare writer here and there, with something of the touch of the missioner or fanatic, who can successfully fulfil his career as a journalist without acquiring these callosities and partial mutilations.