“Oh, no! It isn’t the same thing, quite. But it’s the same public. Let me tell you something to remember, youngster. The men who go to the top in journalism, the big men of power and success and grasp, come through with a contempt for the public which they serve, compared to which the contempt of the public for the newspaper is as skim milk to corrosive sublimate.”
“Perhaps that’s what is wrong with the business, then.”
“Have you any idea,” inquired Edmonds softly, “what the philosophy of the Most Ancient Profession is?”
Banneker shook his head.
“I once heard a street-walker on the verge of D.T.‘s—she was intelligent; most of ’em are fools—express her analytical opinion of the men who patronized her. The men who make our news system have much the same notion of their public. How much poison they scatter abroad we won’t know until a later diagnosis.”
“Yet you advise me to stick in the business.”
“You’ve got to. You are marked for it.”
“And help scatter the poison!”
“God forbid! I’ve been pointing out the disease of the business. There’s a lot of health in it yet. But it’s got to have new blood. I’m too old to do more than help a little. Son, you’ve got the stuff in you to do the trick. Some one is going to make a newspaper here in this rotten, stink-breathing, sensation-sniffing town that’ll be based on news. Truth! There’s your religion for you. Go to it.”
“And serve a public that I’ll despise as soon as I get strong enough to disregard it’s contempt for me,” smiled Banneker.