The American public is not composed merely of the refined society of Boston and New York, and the press is obliged to cater to the public taste. When the public taste is improved, the newspapers will reform, and everything leads to the belief that the amelioration will not be long coming.
As for political news sent over from Europe, one needs to allow a little margin on what one reads in the American papers; but it is impossible not to praise the activity which animates the press.
Thus, for instance, I was in New York on the day that M. Victorien Sardou brought out La Tosca at the Porte St. Martin. The first representation took place on a Saturday. The next morning, my newspaper gave me a most complete analytical description of the performance in two columns. That is to say, the Americans were able to read the details of Sarah Bernhardt's latest triumph earlier than the inhabitants of Lyons or Marseilles, who had to wait for the Paris papers.
Thanks to their journalism, the Americans have at least an idea of what is going on in Europe: they know our new plays, they read our new books, they are kept informed of every event, just as if they were neighbours. And how is it possible, I repeat, not to say a good word for a journalism which knows how to excite, as well as satisfy, the curiosity of a great people?
Go and ask the first hundred Frenchmen you meet in the streets of Paris what is the name of the President of the United States, you will find ninety-nine of them unable to tell you. The Frenchman is exclusive to the point of stupidity, and that which is not French possesses no interest for him. Enveloped in this exclusiveness, he knows nothing: in the matter of foreign questions, he is the most ignorant being in the world; and French journalism, obliged to study his tastes, serves him with nothing but French dishes.
You must visit the offices of the great New York papers in the evening, if you would get an idea of these colossal enterprises. There you see about fifty reporters with their news all ready for print in their hands. Each one in turn passes before the heads of the various departments, political, literary, dramatic, etc.
"What have you?" asks an editor of the first reporter who presents himself.
"An interview with Sarah Bernhardt."
"Very good. Half a column. And what have you?" he says, turning to the second.