“I’ll give you a title,” she said, recovering herself. “Call it ‘If there were Dreams to Sell.’”
“Ah, that’s good!” he cried. “My readers won’t get it. Pinheads! They get nothing that isn’t plain as the nose on their silly faces. Never mind. It’s good for ’em to be puzzled once in a while. Teaches ’em their place.... I’ll tell you who will understand it, though,” he continued, and laughed queerly.
“All the people who really matter will.”
“Some who matter a lot to The Patriot will. The local merchants who advertise with us. They’ll be wild.”
“Why?”
“They hate the mail-order houses with a deadly fear, because the cataloguers undersell them in a lot of lines. Won’t Rome howl the day after this appears!”
“Tell me about the relation between advertising and policy, Ban,” invited Io, and summarized Willis Enderby’s views.
Banneker had formulated for his own use and comfort the fallacy which has since become standard for all journalists unwilling or unable to face the issue of their own responsibility to the public. He now gave it forth confidently.
“A newspaper, Io, is like a billboard. Any one has a right to hire it for purposes of exploiting and selling whatever he has to sell. In accepting the advertisement, provided it is legal and decent, the publisher accepts no more responsibility than the owner of the land on which a billboard stands. Advertising space is a free forum.”
“But when it affects the editorial attitude—”